How do you tell your mother she needs to let it go?

Ok this is a bit of a long story, but please please read. My sister and i are about a t our wits end with our mother...



a little over 10 years ago my mom found out that the baby girl she was carrying had a birth defect called anencephally. ( that is where the baby doesnt have a brain and will not survive very long after birth if at all). My mother was given two choices, she could either terminate the pregnancy or carry to term. My mother chose to carry to term. There were four other children at the time, i was the oldest at 9. When she had the baby it was stilborn, but my mother made a very big deal about it that she was still our sister and yada yada yada. That was tha day she lost some of her mind, she would spend hours on the computer talking to support groups online and when i ahd ventured to tell her that we needed her and she was always on the computer she screamed at me that she ahd to talk to these people online she had no one else to talk to other people just didnt understand. i even accidentally read an email she was sending out i'll never forget her words saying ';it's so hard to get out of bed in the morning knowing she wont be there'; but my mother had 4 other children that needed her, my youngest brother was only 4 and she wasnt there my sister and i had to try to help out with teahing him things, she allowed him to play with boys my age that taught him bad things becasue she couldnt be bothered in her grief. a year later my younger brother was born my sister and i pray to god he never realizes he was born less than a year after the baby my parents lost and that they ahd really wanted him to be a girl. My mom says he wasnt a fixer baby, but to my sister and i it looks like she was lying. She talks about the baby she lost all the tiem and ever since she lost her we have had to take pictures with the teddy bear my mother ';gave'; to her ( that bear was mine that she ';borrowed'; from me and i will never get it back they had one more baby after the one they had a year later they wanted him to be a girl too...Now my mother is 42 she had a miscarraige it was way to early for them to know what the baby's gender would have been but my mother swears up and down it was a girl and even named it one of the names i wanted to use for my daughter ( i'm almost 20 now). Appearntly this baby has a stuffed girraffe my parents bought sitting with teh teddy bear in my parents room...my mother has also just gotten a tattoo of the little girl's foot print she lost 10 years ago... i guess what the probelm is is that my sister and i feel very unwanted, they wanted another little girl so badly, and it just seems like we werent good enough, talking to our mom just flat out isnt an option she gets furious wiht us...We jsut need her to let go, this was jsut a summary of the things that went on there are a lot deeper things that have made my sister and i harbor so much anomosity towards our mother we can never have a good bond with her and we really wish we could. maybe if she let go, we could try and ahve that...This isnt just for our sakes, our youngest two brothers are 9 and 6 and her holding on is effcting them too.How do you tell your mother she needs to let it go?
I don't know whether you realize this, but your mother is ill. She is suffering from a major depression. Maybe the stillborn baby started it, but if she had gone through a normal grief process, she would not still be in this condition.

She should see a doctor and perhaps get medication and perhaps counseling.

Online support groups are of limited use, since she is not in actual contact with the members.

If she could find a real-live grief support group, that would work a lot better. The local hospitals could probably refer her to one. You could make inquiries and give her the information.

I don't know how you should approach her with this; you know her and I don't.

If she is open to drinking herb tea, you might try her with St. John's wort tea, you can get it at the health food store. It may help some, and she may be more motivated to seek more help.

For you and your siblings, it is very important to understand that she is neglecting you because she is ill; in her normal state she would not be acting this way. You are not unlovable. You are not inadequate. And it's not her fault either. From your description, she is very sick, not just a little depressed. It's beyond her control.

I hope you can get her some help.

But even more important, you need to take care of yourself. It may not be her fault, but you have been shortchanged in the parent department. And you are the only person you have real control over. If you need help, get it.

Best wishes for your life ahead.