* Advise needed - benefits... *

kendalls_cave

I have bipolar disorder and live alone, with some support from SS and CPN.

I do think sometimes it's easy for someone with a MH issue to go "I'm ill and I can do nothing to help myself". I know I did it at one point. But then I had to get on with it, realize it's my life and my responsibility

You say in your last post if you're mum is left to it she would sink. Well I think you'd be surprised, I do think if forced to she would cope. Trouble is she has had it reasonably easy having you to carry her for many years.

I know it's hard , but for her benefit and yours you need to step back a little. You and she maybe surprised to find strength and resources you both didn't know she had. Good luck

Blue_Diamond

GlasweJen wrote: »

No Blue, that's just what she's manipulated her to believe.

People like this are like black holes, they will suck everything into their world if you let it and you're being led to believe that poor mummykins can't live without you, what did she do when you were younger? She coped, she brought up kids and kept a house, there is nothing to stop her from keeping a house again!

She's getting worse because she knows you're getting to the stage where you want to find someone, settle down and possibly have your own family and she will do everything in her power to stop you from doing that.

It sounds cruel but I would seriously stop the funding of her lifestyle and make her go it alone, by all means live with her and support her emotionally but certainly not financially, you said yourself you're feeling the pinch now, sit her down and explain that you can't afford to keep her so she will need to find work (even part time would help) or start signing on again.

When me and my sister were younger, it was actually my dad that supported us all. He played the role of both a mother and a father to me and my sister. My mum made his life hell, like what she is doing to me. I hear what you are saying, but she really would not work, even part time...

GlasweJen

Blue_Diamond wrote: »

I hear what you are saying, but she really would not work, even part time...

then why should you work to keep her?

Blue_Diamond

GlasweJen wrote: »

then why should you work to keep her?

Because she's my mum and has no one else to fall on...and also, there are MH issues here...

kendalls_cave

But she is taking you for a ride. I have no family, but I manage.. somehow, She would manage if she had to.. just now she knows she doesn't have to cos you're providing for her

GlasweJen

lots of mentally ill people cope, they have to

Jowo_2

Blue_Diamond wrote: »

In my opinion, she does suffer from agoraphobia, depression, fatigue, and certainly is paranoid and self-centred. I ALWAYS have to fill in forms etc and do everything for her like this. She is clueless when it comes down to this. Even her pension, it will be myself that will have to look into it, or she would just leave it. I really do have no choice...

How much of this is learned helplessness? In other words, she has established that if she is passive, other people will invariably step in to address her needs.

I had terrible experiences with a friend who had a circle of us bending over backwards to help her because she was so fed up and depressed. For years, we all endured constant sob stories about evil boyfriends, nasty debt collectors, horrible bosses, unfriendly colleagues, and so on.

It was amazing the extent to which she outsourced all her personal tasks - someone would produce her CV, another decorate her flat, another sort out all her PC issues, someone else repair her car, change her lightbulbs, install her new kitchen, install her new bathroom, others would pay her council tax or mobile phone bill or window repair bills , many rallied around to treat her to nights out to 'cheer' her up.

If it was a task that she couldn't palm off on someone else, then she simply left it (for example, if she had a problem with a consumer contract, it just went by the wayside because only the account holder can deal with the company directly, or if she had an employment issue, no one else could address it so she would just whine instead of sort it out).

Twenty years later she is still coming out with the same 'woe is me, i'm so broke, so lonely, my flat/pc/car is in such a poor state but i'm too poor to fix them, my boss is giving me a hard time, etc'.

Very few around her can see past her plausible sob stories and see that she is left to luxuriate in her free time, at low cost to herself, while she spends time surfing online dating sites and taking expensive holidays across three continents.

Bogof_Babe

Does she have any savings? Who owns the house you both live in? If she has equity in it then maybe she should sell up and rent, using the money from the house to live on.

You say you are about to get married - are you planning to move out of the house anyway then?

Why was her ESA stopped if she was getting it before?

I think she needs a short sharp shock, and I suspect that she isn't as ill as she makes out.

Jowo_2

Blue_Diamond wrote: »

Because she's my mum and has no one else to fall on...and also, there are MH issues here...

She has no one else to fall on as she drove them all away, perhaps settling on the weakest (i.e. most pliable) who is most likely to do their bidding, particularly when they feel so obligated as they are the only one she trusts ( i'm sure your current counsellor is trying to establish if this actually flatters you and meets a need in you, too).

I don't doubt the MH issues but there's something quite self-fulfilling about it

'I'm so ill that I can't help myself, so Blue Diamond has to help me, so I don't need to do anything myself which is just as well as I can't help myself, etc'.

kendalls_cave

even with a mental illness ( like any other illness) You have a choice to give up or make the best of your life.

I could have given up a long time ago with bipolar, but I refuse to be beaten and I refuse to let mt friends ( I don't have family) be my carers, they are friends not carers,
I am sorry but your mum needs a reality check before she realizes she has driven everyone away.