The dreaded N word

My mother is ill.

My mother is bipolar. She was diagnosed when I was 20. However, she was ill before that. She has caused scenes at my college graduation, my wedding, the birth of my children, family parties and significant milestones in my children's lives. We have learned to live with her and I am at peace with it.

After my stepfather passed away my mother moved to be closer to us. She hates it. She says that she has no friends. She says that this move has not been kind to her. She gets lost going to the mall and shopping. She gets lost in the town she has lived in the past three years. Every time she gets lost she calls me so that we must rescue her and drive her back to her apartment. She ignores her part in her own unhappiness. If she moves, she will be at least two hours away from myself and my brother.

She has been to the emergency room three times in the past 3 months. She fell and broke her nose, and then she had heart palpatations. And on the morning of Thanksgiving she fell and needed five stitches in her ear. We have an appointment with a nuerologist soon. Hopefully she will have some answers for us.

It was in the ER that my mother made her announcement.She announced that she is moving home. When I asked her what would happen if she fell or had heart palpitations or got lost she told me that she would call me and that I would come and fix it. I told her that it could very possibly take me two to four hours if traffic was bad and she told me that I would have to come because she is my mother.

And then I said the N word. The word that I needed to say. I said no. I told her that I have a husband, children and a job. That I am happy to help her but that if she moved I could not help her the way I was helping her now. She had a temper tantrum. I told her I wanted her to be happy and that if this was her happiness then so be it. But that her happiness did not mean that I would disrupt my life. She told me that her other children do not help her the way I do and it was my job because I was the oldest. And I said it again. I said no.

I have called my siblings and asked them to back me up on this. I will call my aunts and uncles and ask them to back me on this. She needs to be near us so we can manage her care. Trust me, no one else wants to take that on.

But I am proud. Because I said no. For the first time. And if this continues, not the last.