u/swansong444

My mom (50) is bipolar and I'm currently 22F uni student visiting my parents for summer break and I'm struggling to adjust to her once again. To be fair, she is pretty functional now and leads a normal life. I still depend on my parents financially, my mom currently owns and manages an airbnb which is really not easy for a person with her disorder, interacting with the public and stuff. Overall I'm very proud of her, she's also very creative and she even directed a documentary that was mildly successful. I can get past many things that she and my dad (not bipolar but a total manchild/unstable in his own way) do, like being negligent and messy, borderline hoarders in a house still unfinished (we have light bulbs just hanging out from cables, one of two bathrooms that's used as a storage/dump because they never bothered to buy a sink etc) --> All of this affects me in a "minor" way cause as long as my room is tidy and i can concentrate on my assignments, i can cope with it for limited amount of time. What I still can't handle at all is the times when something clicks and she essentially stops being my mom and instead becomes a person determined to hurt me at all costs. I feel very bad for her cause today she heard about this woman in our hometown who just died in her 60s, she wasn't dear to any of us in particular but she had bipolar and wasn't treated for it so she basically turned into this village freak and died alone. I know she probably saw herself in her in a way and maybe is scared to end up like her, I didn't know how to comfort my mom when she talking about this woman so I just expressed general empathy towards her and pretended not to understand the connections she was subtly making. I don't know if that was the right thing to do. Anyway, for the rest of the day she was just restless and angry at everyone, kept fixating on minor problems without ever stopping (my dad buying the wrong coffee machine/some interaction with someone where she felt she was being judged) i just listened to her and said very little. Then she wanted my help with something, she was gonna make her dress shorter and needed me to find the point where she would cut it, i was on the floor trying to pin her dress where she said she wanted it and she kept yelling uncontrollably at me saying that i was doing it wrong or that she couldn't see what i was doing while also moving around making it impossible for me to get it right. I'm not zen, actually far from it, when I'm at home I have anger bursts that look very similar to hers because I never really learned how to deal with her. I cry a lot and I'm very sensitive and I think I still haven't accepted that she's not a typical maternal figure despite trying her best. I know I didn't inherit any mental illness that runs in my family because I'm only like this when I'm around them, I have a bf of 3 years and we've had probably a total of two big disagreements since I know him, but with my family it's a daily thing to yell at each other and when it happens I feel myself regressing back to a child and my eyes fill with tears instantly. I'll have a minor disagreement with my mom and if it's a bad day for her she'll turn around and call me names like useless, stupid or evil. Sometimes she'll go and dig for something random that I did when I was a child or teen to get back at me and prove how mean spirited I am. She knows what buttons to push to hurt me and she'll absolutely do. It's also insane how quickly her perspective changes when she has bad days, she'll bring up something she was comforting me about in the days before and suddenly use it against me: comforting me about failing an exam vs a few days later blaming me for it, or telling me "that's why XYZ doesn't like you anymore" when days prior to that I was telling her about a friend who inexplicably stopped talking to me and she was being really sweet about it. I genuinely can't tell which side she stands on at that point. I also cannot have, in any way shape or form, a constructive conversation with her. She's always in the right. Sometimes I wanna address stuff while keeping chill and peaceful and she'll go nuts and start yelling. Sometimes she recognizes she's wrong but she's never apologized before, she'll just switch back and do something nice for me out of nowhere like bringing me an iced tea or buying me something. Idk how to deal with her anymore and neither does my dad who also has many many faults and is hard to deal with as well.

I'm sorry for not having a straight point in my post and for the probably weird syntax but I'm writing through tears. I just wanted to vent into a safe space like this and if you have any advice I'll welcome it with open arms otherwise don't worry about it I already feel kinda better