I am autistic and care for my mum who has mental health issues and heart failure. I have been caring for her really all of my life as dad was in the forces and had to go away a lot. I have other brothers and sisters who have left home and started having children and getting married etc. when my sister was pregnant with her first baby i couldn’t stop crying and even though I love my nieces and nephews I get a pain that feels really bad and makes me cry I think it is emptiness and sadness.
I can’t help but feel angry, bitter and sad because of my situation. I was the only one that had to deal with the anger and emotional outbursts from my mother and sometimes even though I know she doesn’t mean it she can sometimes say things or shout at me which upsets me a lot. Mum was told by a nurse not a doctor about her heart failure as if my mum new about it but no doctor told her. My dad was either buried in work or didn’t want to face what was going on. They would often have arguments and I was left in the middle of it all. Since covid my dad has had to work from home and so is witness to what goes on and I now have a bit more support. My brothers and sisters only recently know about my mums later stage heart failure. But she has had heart failure symptoms for years without being told.
Mum would tell me little bits of information about her conditions but not a lot so I had to do loads of research and this made me worried. So I spoke to mum about it and we discussed it together. She has a lot of suicidal thoughts because of her condition and would often talk to me about ending her life. All through child hood mum would leave home angry and upset. I would beg and plead for her to come back but she would just go. The longest she went away was two days and once she left with a bag of her medication in the car. She came home and apologise and buy us sweets. Dad would say that she doesn’t mean it because she is Ill. We were bullied because of it and I remember all of us not wanting to go to school because we didn’t want to find our mother dead in the house.
I have been to uni and told my mum that after I had finished I would be her career. I am struggling with a bad memory that I could not remember till recently when I had flash backs of being sexually abused at 14. I am also premenopausal so I have that to deal with plus I suffer from depression. Also my mums brother died recently so she is struggling with her emotions. It is also like she has given up as most days she does not get changed or washed. I am tiered miserable and exhausted.
I know this is a crazy long post and I have written some stuff before, I guess that I just want to know if there was anyone out there like me or in the same situation.
I love my mum very much.