Help with my mom
Hi guys,
My mom has been at an approximate weight of about 330-374 pounds for decades. She has tried everything under the sun, takes some of the weight off then gains it back. Endlessly keeps falling into the restrict-binge cycle.
She is 62 and at this point this is causing her extremely painful issues, her spine is in a very bad state, she has horrible pain from it, on some days can barely move and cries for hours, takes meds for it that are at this point causing kidney issues. She can’t get surgery unless she loses the weight. She also had a minor stroke a few years ago. Of course has high insulin resistance and hashimoto. On some days it’s extremely painful to do anything at all. She uses a walking frame now and it helps.
She is on antidepressants, meds for the hormonal issues and on Mounjaro injections. The injections kill her appetite and then she will just not eat anything all day, then binge in the evening (this is a common pattern but now it’s even worse due to the lack of appetite).
I am a therapist in training and I have encouraged her so much to go to therapy, both gently and in more insistent ways. She says she might, then comes up with excuses, then I help her remove the practical obstacles for it - find the money etc, then she is just like I can’t go.
She doesn’t want to do the stomach reduction surgery because she thinks she will keep eating the same way after it. She makes me feel completely helpless and I am in so much pain watching her suffer all the time and don’t know what to do anymore. She is a wonderful, sensitive, sweet person and it kills me to watch her like this. I have been watching it get progressively worse and worse since I was a child.
Last night she had what we think was an extremely severe panic attack, where she felt like she was dying, and then in the midst of the panic she threw up and lost control of her bowels. My sister was there and handled it well, very calmly and compassionately, but she was incredibly ashamed, had a complete nervous breakdown, saying horrible hateful things about herself. My sister doesn’t live in this country, I live with my fiancé an hour away and visit a few times a month.
This morning she is frying something and sharing it with my dad (who is not helpful at all, emotionally abusive and part of her triggers that lead to overeating, and she absolutely won’t leave him) and they are just acting like nothing happened. They are also making my sister keep it from me so I don’t “get stressed” but the thing is that if I go there and acknowledge it now, it ends with me begging her to go to therapy or do something and she just can’t give me that.
Something I am learning in my therapy education is that sometimes all you can do is be a witness to someone’s pain and be like a gentle presence with them through it. Which I have been partially doing, but at the same time it feels horrible to give up control and trying to get her to do something, it feels like giving up on her and just watching her suffer every day and waiting for her to slowly kill herself. I am extremely sad and desperate and don’t know what to do anymore. Any advice, thoughts, anything at all would be appreciated. Thank you
I am also really sorry if this is emotionally heavy to read for someone dealing with the same issues as her. I thought this might be an okay place to get any advice at all because I just don’t know what to do anymore