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What should I do about this situation, please help?

Mon, 09/09/2013 - 02:53
I love my mother dearly, but recently she has been getting on my nerves. I'm 33 and am starting to get free of my seizures, but she won't really loosen up and treat me like an adult. I know I've made a few mistakesin the past year, but that was only when I was looking for Mr. Right, I've since found him, and he and his family havebeenvery wonderful to me! We live in the same county, but are 45 mins away from each other and have to call each other around his schedule 'cause at the moment he works 2 part-time jobs. I've had my Epilepsy since I was 8 months old. I can see how she wanted me to be near to her when I was a kid, but now that I'm a grown woman and things are starting to get easier(other than her being so protective and controlling-she still wants me to shower with the door open so she can hear me, I don't even have generalized tonic-clonic seizures anymore-if any (and I only had 2 recently when my VNS battery was low and needed replacement) I have my staring seizures-and only when she is around. My Epilepsy was mostly cured after I had my brain surgery and was on the Modified Atkins Diet for 2 years (from October 11, 2010-October 11, 2012). I'm the one in the house(I livewith 2 olderbrothers, ages 36 and 47, and both parents) who does the majority of the chores (I clean the house, do laundry, clean(I'm the only one who does this part with a paper towel) and changeourcats'waterdish,help preparefood, sometimes my mom makes me wait on her hand and foot like a live-in maid! I feel like"Cinderella"sometimes. I understand I live at home and don't have a job, but it's RIDICULOUS because my mom will sometimes tell me how to do those jobs or how fast I should be doing them. Sometimes she'll give me things to do one right after the other, after the other, and expect me to remember every minute detail of what she told me to do-or even bring up from downstairs! I don't mind helping her every now and then, or even doing it for a reward(like she used to do-she'd treat me

Comments

Re: What should I do about this situation, please help?

Submitted by 3Hours2Live on Tue, 2013-09-10 - 05:57
Hi Broncos28, Using the phrases of another recent poster here, I've somewhat "been there, and done that." While I'm not from one of Tolstoy's assumed "happy families" (is that line included in the new movie version of "Anna Karenina"?), I am from a family that's somewhat of an American version of possibilities being examples of Dostoevsky's unhappy families. Religious affiliated people seem to have highlighted, and/or exploited, the family situation the greatest, followed by various types of so-called social workers (taken in a very wide scope), to, the various more specific individualized opportunists. Epilepsy was a major factor in the issues that resulted in the cusp points in the situations whenever I was involved. Just yesterday, my epilepsy was involved in access to digital, but now being encrypted, cable television services (the all common transportation issues, and, to being on the roof trying antennas, and the more exclusive family issue of who's name is on the cable TV account (transportation and family name exploited by cable company in refusing reasonable accommodation under the ADA, since that wasn't an option offered by them, being claimed it endangered their service employees too greatly (try figuring these issues out?!?!?)). For the nearest previous years, a more relevant issue would probably be when doctors called Adult Protective Services because my mother didn't drive me around enough to satisfy the whims of the doctors, then different doctors threatening to call Adult Protective Services because epilepsy prevented me from driving my mother around to satisfy the whims of other service providers (I'm now about 60 years old, my mother about 85). For issues about brothers, there's "The Brothers Karamazov", though as if I'm "The Idiot" who combines more of the two of the religious and the academic, with the church providing the rapes, murders, and suicides. Here's traces of the Father, too. For a much simpler address, maybe there should be a book for epileptics more following "Creative Aggression: The Art of Assertive Living" (Bach & Golberg, 1974), one of the many flimsy self-help books of the 70's fad of the then current pop-psych. Looking for volatile issues, just search the book for "the nice mother": http://books.google.com/books?id=tX_DPOEx-K0C&printsec=frontcover&dq=creative+aggression&hl=en&sa=X&ei=m-IuUvevGaewjALUtIGoDA&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=the%20nice%20mother&f=false or, at least, the "nice mommy": http://books.google.com/books?id=tX_DPOEx-K0C&printsec=frontcover&dq=creative+aggression&hl=en&sa=X&ei=m-IuUvevGaewjALUtIGoDA&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAA#v=snippet&q=the%20nice%20mommy&f=false It's late, so I'll barely mention escape to the streets, leading to the when & where great social workers introducing me to the workings of the then shortly large family of the infamous Rev. Jim Jones. Tadzio

Re: What should I do about this situation, please help?

Submitted by Mela on Tue, 2013-09-10 - 18:53

Hello Broncos28!

In just my opionon and i am no expert, this is what i am hearing and bear with me for a minute, it sounds like mom loves you! your mother has raised you and taken good care of your all your life cared for you through your seizures and your health and she sounds like she has done her best that she can for you, it even sounds like she has tryed to give you skills so you werent just laying around in bed and being emotionaly weak with no reason to live, now on the other hand sounds to me like your life is taking a wonderful turn and your feeling stronger your health is doing much better your life is no longer feeling like it needs to be bound to the one home you were raised in and you know theres nothing wrong with that at all.

you need to look at things from your moms point of view just maybe she has in her older age, has become just use to you doing the chores she see's you enjoying that your contrubuting and doing things to help and not just sitting around doing nothing and i am sure this in some way brings you some satitifaction and she see's that, but she also may not consisder that you have grown beyoned that now and need more in life, i know most would think hello your in your 30's , but moms still see's you as her little girl and probably always will, thats how moms are!

maybe you just need to sit mom down quietly and discuse it with her let her know that there will be a day she wont always be here, it may be tomorrow or a week from now or a year or when ever, but your growing and you need to start thinking about moving forward, you have a need to make a new life or should i say adding to the family you already have just on your own! i dont know if this helps, but maybe, just a different point of view! Mela

Hello Broncos28!

In just my opionon and i am no expert, this is what i am hearing and bear with me for a minute, it sounds like mom loves you! your mother has raised you and taken good care of your all your life cared for you through your seizures and your health and she sounds like she has done her best that she can for you, it even sounds like she has tryed to give you skills so you werent just laying around in bed and being emotionaly weak with no reason to live, now on the other hand sounds to me like your life is taking a wonderful turn and your feeling stronger your health is doing much better your life is no longer feeling like it needs to be bound to the one home you were raised in and you know theres nothing wrong with that at all.

you need to look at things from your moms point of view just maybe she has in her older age, has become just use to you doing the chores she see's you enjoying that your contrubuting and doing things to help and not just sitting around doing nothing and i am sure this in some way brings you some satitifaction and she see's that, but she also may not consisder that you have grown beyoned that now and need more in life, i know most would think hello your in your 30's , but moms still see's you as her little girl and probably always will, thats how moms are!

maybe you just need to sit mom down quietly and discuse it with her let her know that there will be a day she wont always be here, it may be tomorrow or a week from now or a year or when ever, but your growing and you need to start thinking about moving forward, you have a need to make a new life or should i say adding to the family you already have just on your own! i dont know if this helps, but maybe, just a different point of view! Mela

Re: What should I do about this situation, please help?

Submitted by trekee80sgirl on Wed, 2013-09-11 - 00:07
Broncos28, is my boyfriend, he posted on my behalf before I joined. I talked to my mother today, during our swimming time, needless to say it did not go well. She ended up blowing-up in my face, and with both of us in tears at the end, and my father-getting in on it after my mom told him(after I mentioned to her, that I was thinking of seeing a psychiatrist in order to get help to talk to her easier). All that I tried to ask is that she give my brothers more jobs around the house, was that really too much too ask?? I know they work outside the house, but they really could do more AROUND the house AS WELL, I know my 36-year old brother does some simple tasks around the house, but they aren't everyday chores. The kind he does is just cleaning the cat litter(an occasional job, which our dad does normally anyway), and shoveling snow (a more seasonal job-and depends on the weather). My 47 year-old brother(he had his own place before he moved back in a few days before Christmas 2012) sometimes helps with the dishes and laundry (he does his own, but he helps with ours when I'm not around-sometimes he'll fold the towels, but I've been doing that as I take them out of the dryer lately and sort my mom's clothes out of the whites.) I don't think asking for more help from my brothers is asking a lot. I love my mother & father and will be forever grateful for the times they were there for me through my medical problems, but I want to move forward with my life. If she truly wants me to be happy like she has said she does "Why the emotional roadblock?"

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