Throwaway for privacy purposes. Sorry for the wall of text, feel free to review the TL;DR! Thank you for taking your time to read this, I am so lost.
Background:
I have multiple siblings, but this issue revolves around myself and my sister "Brenda" (F36). Over the past few years, I have finally gotten to a place where I can have a meaningful relationship with my mom. It took moving far away (so only occasional visits a few times a year) and learning to ignore the offensive offhand comments she sprinkles into normal conversation about how much me and my sisters hate her (we don't), and how she tries so hard but no one appreciates her (she hasn't).
Growing up, our mom was extremely strict and Mormon, and admits to being especially hard on Brenda and me as we thought her religion was a crock of shit and we were a bit rebellious. Both Brenda and I were exceptionally good students, and are the only siblings to have graduated from college. So while we were definitely tough to raise, we weren't ever in trouble with the law or "bad kids" by any means. However, my mother did not care about academic achievement. She once told me that she'd rather have me believe in her church than get my straight A's. My mom has a lot of emotional and mental issues that have never been adequately addressed by a professional, as the only therapists she will see are Mormon-based with questionable, if any, credentials. It's obvious she struggles with intense depression and anxiety, but I fear her issues run far deeper as she's gone through bouts of extreme paranoia and either actual memory issues or just selectively remembering events a certain (incorrect) way. I suspect she has borderline personality disorder. My mother is also a hoarder. Not to the point we didn't have room to move around or hoarding actual trash, but I know if my dad died or left her, she'd qualify to be on the show "Hoarders." Her current hoard is just a lot of useless stuff. There are no health hazards or safety issues. She probably spends a significant portion of my dad's income on thrift-store shopping, and will go into a rage if something is thrown out without permission (which is impossible to get).
Our house was not a happy place to be in. My family did not know how to communicate or navigate emotional topics in a healthy way. While my dad wasn't the perpetrator of the emotional abuse, he didn't know how to deal with my mom so he worked constant overtime to stay out of the house during waking hours. This left me and my siblings with no backup to deal with our mom's antics. My mother constantly yelled and screamed at us, though if we so much as raised our voices or "got sassy," Brenda and I would be smacked across the face (this was the extent of anything physical). The way she would speak to me at times was so insanely cruel. She would get within millimeters of my face, screaming at the top of her lungs, and smile as she'd bring her voice to a whisper to tell me what a piece of shit I was. I was honestly shocked when I learned as an adult that normal people do not yell and scream to communicate.
I must hand it to my mom--she came up with incredibly creative, albeit borderline-abusive punishments for Brenda and me. For example, at 16 I stayed out later than I was supposed to and boys were present. That resulted in my mother grounding me for 3-4 months, and her groundings were brutal. I had to come directly home after school, at which time my mom would search my bag and my car to ensure I didn't sneak anything home I wasn't allowed to have. She removed all of my music and books from my room/car (I remember her confiscating my Harry Potter books with the most gleeful look on her face as she knew it would devastate me) and left me with only the Book of Mormon and a CD set of the primary children's music for the duration of my grounding. If there was a TV on in the house, I was not allowed to turn my head in that direction if I was walking by, and definitely not allowed to be in the same room. I could not use the phone or the computer, of course. The first day of this particular grounding, my mom brought my younger sister into my room and told her to take whatever she wanted, even though I had a job and had purchased with my own money many of the things my sister took. My mom would go through my room routinely--grounded or not--read my diaries and hold the things she read over my head, like how much I hated her. To this day, I still cannot write in a journal/diary as I have a huge fear that it will be read by someone without permission and used against me. I secretly have not forgiven her this, but it's one of many topics I can't bring up with my mom as I know I'll never get the closure I need. Just a few years ago, she found a secret diary I had growing up in a box of my old books and read it. She called my younger sister crying about how much I hate her and how she feels like an awful mom, but never approached me to discuss her feelings.
Having a deep, effective conversation with my mom is nearly impossible. She won’t acknowledge our feelings, and will always circle back around to how she’s feeling and how we don’t understand or care. This will go on for hours with no resolution, even if we say something like: “Mom, I don’t think we’re communicating effectively, and this conversation is clearly making you upset. Let’s just let it go and keep having a fun day. I love you.” Every conversation ends with her crying about how horrible we think she is, she can’t do anything right, and she’ll retreat to her room and won’t come out for hours. As my siblings and I have grown up and moved out, we've all had to go to therapy to deal with the emotional distress we experienced as kids and learn healthy ways to communicate with friends, family, and significant others.
Cut to the past 6 years:
Brenda was extremely successful in her career and married, but ended up getting divorced. After that, she spiraled down into an alcohol and painkiller addiction. She stole medication from both me and my mom at different points during this time. She lost her career, which led to losing her house and car, and got a DUI. My parents eventually allowed her to move back in with them as she was in outpatient treatment, seemed to be doing better, and needed a place to live. My mom is convinced that while Brenda lived with them, she stole hundreds of items from my mom's hoard and sold them to pawn shops and antique stores for drug money. We're talking things like old, ugly, and stained porcelain dolls, secondhand books, useless trinkets, bedding, you name it. If my mom can’t find something, Brenda stole it. It would be funny if it weren’t so scary, as there is literally nothing my mom accuses her of stealing that a pawn shop/antique store would take. There have been other instances of paranoia. My mom thinks my dad is spying on her phone, installing spyware and hacking it, when really she just doesn’t know how to use advanced technology well. The only other person who has the ability to unlock her phone is me because she trusts me and needs a lot of help with it. She still believes my dad is hacking her phone while I can guarantee he’s not and couldn’t care less about what’s on her phone.
Brenda eventually couldn’t take it anymore and left. She went to months of inpatient treatment in another state, completed that and moved into sober living where she stayed for nearly 3 years and became the head of the household. She’s been sober for over 3 years and has been happy and healthy. As part of her treatment, she wrote us all letters and had conversations with us to address issues we had with her and wanted to work out. She was forthcoming about everything she’d done to hurt our family, admitting to stealing medication and all of her other misdeeds during the course of her addiction. Brenda was finally in a good place, and although I missed her, I knew that she was prioritizing her happiness by continuing to live in the sober living in another state.
Finally, now:
Brenda met a guy and ended up getting pregnant and recently had her adorable baby. The dad is not a part of their lives. Because Brenda was in sober living, she had to move out once she had the baby. It was a tough delivery, and my parents stayed with her for weeks until she could finally take my niece home. They offered to let Brenda live with them, and considering she’s a single mom with no place to live, Brenda reluctantly took them up on it.
My parents live in the middle of nowhere. The nearest towns are a 45 minute drive away, and are not economically sound so job/career options are low-paying and scarce. I have stayed at their house for long visits, and it’s easy to feel isolated and trapped both physically (nothing to do) and emotionally (my mom’s perpetual victim-mentality).
My mother loves this baby. She has always loved being around kids and has begged us to start having kids so she can be a grandma--it’s the first thing she brings up when we bring a new SO around. She told my little sister that she was deeply depressed before the baby came around, but feels a sense of purpose and fulfillment now that she’s helping Brenda raise her baby.
Brenda has been there for a month or two with the baby, but just told me yesterday that my mom has been accusing her every few days of stealing something she can’t find--and finding it later. These haven’t blown up into big issues until yesterday. My mom accused Brenda of stealing forks. My mother does not own nice silverware, we are talking your run-of-the-mill stainless steel utensils that are incomplete sets because she purchased them from thrift stores. There would literally be no way that Brenda could make any money whatsoever by stealing these forks, yet my mom is unwaveringly convinced that they were stolen by Brenda.
In my opinion, you can’t offer to help someone out and then hold them emotionally hostage the way my mom has done with Brenda these past few months. Brenda is not allowed to walk away from a conversation until my mom is done with it. My mom threatens Brenda by saying she can’t keep living there if she won’t confess to stealing, but turns around and says if she ever leaves my mom won’t talk to her again.
Brenda called me crying, stating she is looking into homeless shelters in the area because she can’t take it anymore. I talked to my boyfriend who suggested we offer to let her live with us. He knew a little bit about the issues with my mom, but after I explained the history with Brenda and the overall relationship dynamic, he was adamant that she needs to get out of there. We have an extra bedroom and live in the suburbs of a state capital, so Brenda would have an easier time putting her life back together and re-entering her field.
When I told Brenda she’s welcome to come live with us, she was so grateful and is seriously considering it. The problem is, we live a 14 hour drive from my parents, and my mom is taking this as a personal insult from me for offering and Brenda for considering. My mom won’t take my calls, and won’t look at or talk to my sister.
I knew that giving Brenda this option would stir up some shit, but I’m starting to think this might turn into something that irreparably damages my relationship with my mom. I do not want to cause her grief by taking her granddaughter so far away from her, but I can’t sit back and watch my sister live in such a toxic environment as a single mom who used drugs and alcohol as a coping mechanism in the past. I also know that inviting my sober sister to live with us is a risk because of her past, but I’m more than happy to take that risk to help her and my niece out. I strongly believe she will have a much easier time staying sober in this environment than at my parents’ house.
However, I do not want my relationship with my mom to suffer as a result of this. I know to some degree it will, but I don’t know how to approach the subject with my mom if/when she answers my phone calls. I don’t know if it’s in her or my best interest to be upfront and tell her the current situation is toxic, there’s no reason for Brenda to steal forks, and she needs to seriously get some help. I foresee her reaction being that I don’t love her, I don’t believe her that Brenda is stealing, I think she’s crazy, etc. However, if I sugar-coat it and tell her we offered because it would be easier for Brenda as far as proximity to work, she won’t have the opportunity to look at herself to see what role she played in this outcome.
Please, r/relationships, is it best to be brutally honest with my mom and hope I can still have a relationship with her after the fallout, or remain Switzerland and let things carry on as they always have--dysfunctionally? How do I phrase this to my mom in a way that she might understand and not revert to playing the victim, and possibly even get some help?
Thanks to all of you who read this entire novel.
TL;DR: My (F28) sister (F36) is a three-year-sober, newly single mom living with our emotionally abusive, paranoid, always-the-victim mother. Our mother found out I offered to let my sister live with me and my boyfriend, which would take her granddaughter 14 hours away and is refusing to speak to my sister and me about it. Is it more productive to be brutally honest with my mom about the reasons I think this situation is toxic, or be neutral and try to maintain my relationship with her?
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