Dear Prudence,
A little background: My brother and I were adopted by my grandparents when I was around 3-4 because my mother and father were both alcoholics and drug addicts. Fast forward to now, my father died from cirrhosis of the liver seven years ago, and now my mom also has cirrhosis. My mother has always had a negative attitude. My childhood was a living hell because of her, and I check the box on every symptom of an adult child from an alcoholic. She likes to shame me over things that have never occurred. My kids (7 and 10) haven’t really seen or been around her in the past three years because she still continues to go on benders. She had been sober for the past three months after her diagnosis, but started drinking again a few days later. She told my aunt it was because she is depressed and lonely and would like for my kids to visit her.
Here is why I am struggling—my grandmother (her mother) makes me feel guilty about her being lonely and not taking my kids to see her more often. I do not feel like it’s my responsibility to worry about other people’s feelings, especially when that person puts my wellbeing at risk.
I have learned the power of saying no and have for the most part, left my people-pleasing tendencies in the past. My kids don’t want to voluntarily go visit my mother and neither do I. I’m already there once a week to help her around the house and whatever else she needs. I have helped my mom for years—I gave her a place to stay for two years until she got wasted and kicked a hole in my son’s bedroom door. I always bailed her out of jail or picked her up when she was in a bad situation. I always gave her rides to doctor’s appointments because she didn’t want to take the transportation offered by her insurance. I enabled her to continue drinking. Am I responsible for my mother feeling lonely? I don’t feel like I am. She’s nothing but a burden and inconvenience to me. I am, and have been, emotionally burnt out.
—Emotionally Burnt Out