Do I have to be my family’s shoulder to cry on?

DEAR BEL,

I SEEM to be an emotional crutch for my family who contact me only with tales of woe and leave me feeling drained and unhappy.

I was told my parents kept trying until they had a baby girl, as they wanted someone to look after them when they were older.

We grew up in a household where ‘spare the rod, spoil the child’ was the mantra. The discipline and beatings were all handled by my mother. I think even my father was scared of her.

Yet I was also over-protected. I was not allowed on school trips, as they were ‘too risky’.

My brothers had fun on holidays while I had to sit and watch, as most activities were ‘ too dangerous’ for me. Yet the boys felt I was the ‘princess’ who received special attention — which caused resentment.

To cut a long story short, I played my part in the family — until my own children grew and I couldn’t just drop everything and rush to granny. (My father had died.)

This caused major fallout — I realised I was scared of disobeying my mother.

One day I said I couldn’t visit and my mother phoned my brothers and the Samaritans threatening suicide. I now receive hour-long phone calls where she cries, tells me how lonely she is, how she’d rather be dead.

A few years ago my husband was offered a job at the other end of the country and we relocated.

We’ve made many friends and have a wonderful social life. My son stayed in our original town after university and we thought he’d be fine living on his own. But he became clinically depressed.

Now much better, he also says he is lonely — and that he is a complete failure.

I get very worried after these conversations — sometimes unable to eat. But once, after worrying for hours because I couldn’t contact him, he told me he’d felt much better after our chat and gone out.

I’m at the stage where if my phone rings or beeps with a message, I go straight to panic.

If it’s my mother or son, I dread what’s coming next.

We have just retired and had plans to stay in our new location, but I’m starting to feel there’s no point as I can’t cope with the fear of them harming themselves.

Do you have any advice? PAM

Like so many women you were ( almost literally) ‘bred’ to be a carer, and that role is so embedded within your DNA you feel you can never be free. To compound the problem, you were also bullied by your mother, both physically and mentally, and (under the guise of ‘protection’) allowed no autonomy.

When you had to put your own family first, your mother continued the emotional bullying — and is still doing so.

Had you not mentioned those childhood beatings, i’d have more compassion for her right now. As it is, i see her as a manipulative woman who will not be happy until she has you living around the corner and ministering to her every whim once more.

You don’t mention how your husband feels, but since you two have created a wonderful life together, far from your mother, i doubt he would be very happy to uproot once again. Your son presents a different problem, so let’s just lay that to one side for a moment.

in my opinion, it would be a terrible mistake to sacrifice your own happiness and that of your husband on your mother’s altar. i would set in place all the local help you can for her, in the form of a carer — and maybe a befriending service? Only you can find out what is possible, especially at the moment.

i’d also like to know if your brothers can help with any of the heavy lifting here. They should.

Tell them frankly that you can’t take

these phone calls, and ask whether each of them could make a set time to call her.

It is vital that you protect yourself from the mental strain of these telephone sessions. You can’t stop her phoning, but you can limit the time you give. Letting your phone go to voicemail now and then might seem harsh — but she is being cruel to you, just as she was years ago.

Your son is a different (and in my view, more important) worry. You give no information about his work or friendship groups, but I would find out just what/who he has and how important those connections are. If he was diagnosed as clinically depressed, did he get the right treatment.

Instead of worrying so much and feeling so helpless and overwhelmed, you need to find out all these things — and be as upbeat as you can on the phone.

My big question is, could he move to be near you? Would there be work for him?

You can be proactive here — and need to curtail your mother to save energy for your son.