I (22F) am about to graduate from college. A few months ago, my mom (58F) was hospitalized for a month with severe hallucinations and memory loss, not even recognizing me, and I thought she may not make it. Since then, she was diagnosed with Wernicke Korsakoff syndrome (an alcohol abuse related subset of dementia) and another unspecified form of dementia, along with bipolar and potentially schizophrenia. While I had previously booked her a hotel for my graduation (6 hours away from home where she is), I cancelled it under the impression she would not make a recovery. To my surprise, she has recovered well and is very mobile, but she still lacks social, logistical, and reasoning skills. Like most demented people, she is often confused and cannot follow simple instructions. Also, given the nature of her disease being alcohol related, I have suffered years of trauma from her addiction leading up to this point. She was abusive and unkind. She is extremely smart though, so no one but my sister and I feel this way, being the ones who lived with her through our school years. She financed my college which makes me feel worse. She is entirely set on coming to my graduation now. My family is guilt tripping me, saying that I am deeply unkind for not readily accepting the idea of her coming. In my mind, it is my weekend, my graduation, my emotional and physical trauma associated with her. She cannot grasp that she has done something wrong, nor does she even remember having a drinking problem. I feel horrible, but I know it will ruin my weekend and take away from all of the fun of being a college grad.
Edit: my aunt would be there too to help take care. She is the one who is guilting me to do this. However, she would have to take the weekend off from already full time care giving my also dementia grandmother. Lots of dementia. All around. Feels like more stress, but I understand that my mom can’t understand emotionally why I wouldn’t invite her. Also, the secondary nature of her disease is confabulation. She makes up memories and believes them and lowkey spreads rumors that aren’t true. None of it is with ill intent, but something worth mentioning.
Nta. You’re allowed to say who you want in your life and to what extent. If they can’t respect your boundaries, then cut them off too.
You deserve a peaceful and happy graduation day to yourself. Graduations are long and tedious but worth it for people who have the capacity to understand what is going on, to sit quietly for a long time and to appreciate the significance of it. I think your mom could not likely do any of those things. You should not feel any guilt for not inviting her. Actually taking her to it is not likely doing her any favours either.
Do you have a family member that will take on watching her during this event? Surely they can’t expect you to walk and deal with your mom on your own.?
I wouldn’t invite her. It’s a celebration and I’m guessing post graduation you might like to go have a celebratory glass of champagne. I guarantee that even if she has wiped her memories of drinking away from alcohol abuse she will still have the desire….
Also it’s pretty difficult to do anything outside of routine with someone who has Wernickes. Yeah the brain can make a recovery after alcohol cessation but not that much and not in a few months. It’d be cruel to take her.
Anyone giving you grief you should tell them to take her out on a day trip and see how it goes for them as they are volunteering to babysit her during your graduation. I bet they quietly drop it.
Also outside of the specific grad situation maybe look into a support group for families of alcoholics if you don’t already have one. This is so hard and will continue to be hard, you need a safe place to talk about it without judgement from people who don’t understand. My ex was an alcoholic and drank himself to death, the last few years of his life were incomprehensible to people who didn’t know. I don’t wish it on anyone.
Edit: NTA
NTA, but it’s not an easy situation for anybody involved 🙁
It’s obviously. Completely up
To you. If you did allow her to go, it sounds like your aunt will care for her. They don’t need to stay the weekend. Just the night before graduation. They’ll be watching you’ll be with your class.
A few pictures and maybe a dinner and then you’ll have night time fun and rest of weekend to be with your friends. Maybe not even dinner if they head back home after graduation. Most kids will be busy with parent for a meal after anyway.
It’s a couple hours at the most. Parents don’t expect to hang out with you much more than that usually.
It’s your day. Youve worked hard for your years. So ultimately it’s up to you.
NTA
If you don’t feel you can see her, then I don’t think anyone would blame you.
Another option would be that you could see her but for a very limited time only.
You wouldn’t be allowed to sit with her or see her at your actual graduation ceremony, but she might enjoy seeing you walk across the stage while sitting out in the audience with your aunt. If you thought you could bear going out to dinner before or after the ceremony for an hour or two, then that might be a way for you to have a very brief interaction with her in a public place and then you can make your excuses and go. I would tell your aunt ahead of time that you aren’t able to spend the whole weekend with her.
YTA, unfortunately. You can’t take her tuition money and then exclude her from graduation, even if it makes the experience less fun.
Nta. But something seems fishy. The odds of being diagnosed as schizophrenic at 58 is pretty much unheard of and it’s usually misdiagnosed as something else. Regardless it’s not the weekend for you to be focused so much on your mom.
As someone who has been there done that I don’t recommend it. My husband’s family cut contact with us bc I wouldn’t take his mom on a 7+ hour car ride while she lived with us with dementia. I had a 1 yo, an 8 yo, was on oxygen (yes I was on oxygen due to lung failure lol), and my MIL was having hallucinations. Because if she sat in the passenger seat she would grab the steering wheel so I didn’t hit a non-existent person in the road. If she sat in the second row next to the baby she would tear things up to feed the baby. (Leaf on her shoe…feed to baby. Kleenex in her sleeve…feed to baby.) So we couldn’t do that. And if I put her in the back row of our SUV she would pick on the 8 yo to the point the 8 yo would crack and they would start fighting. She loved tormenting the older kiddo so we had to keep them separated. It wasn’t safe. I asked my husband if he wanted to take off work and he said nope. It was just a wedding.
You deserve to enjoy your graduation…not stress on if your mom will run off, start a fight, wander off, or cause other issues. Enjoy your graduation. You earned it.
I agree it is fishy! We are looking for more/better diagnoses with different doctors. I think the mood and hallucinations are just side effects of dementia. Bipolar may be in the mix too with a large family history of it. She is so smart though, would never have gone to a doctor about it and could easily handle whatever it was in a way that most people would never guess anything was wrong! Thank you!!!
Honestly NTA
You’ve put in the time and effort to make your graduation happen and you deserve to enjoy the experience. Everyone is entitled to be a little selfish and little self centered once in a while even if it’s only for a couple of days. Block out the noise and negativity around you and you give yourself permission to be happy. If your mother had the capability to be in her right mind I’m sure she would want you to have your moment in the sun.