What do you do when your aging parent is narcissistic?

I've spent most of my adult life trying to get away from my abusive parents. Though my father died almost twenty years ago, my mother is still living. Now, the day I have feared for so many years has finally arrived. My step-father has died leaving only me to care for my ninety year old, relatively healthy and definately mentally sharp, mother. 

Though it sounds normal and responsible for the only daughter to care for her aging mother, what responsibility do I have to a person who has been emotionally abusing me my entire life?  Seventy years has seemed like an eternity as I have endured the pain my mother has inflicted. For the last couple of years I have stepped back, and my health has begun to improve as I have been relieved from the stress of having to deal with her. 

I have dreaded this day and hoped that she would die before her husband, or that someone else would step forward to deal with her, but there is no one else. There isn't any other relative to help. The people she knew have died, and she never had any friends. There is no one but me. I've been struggling with the urge to just run as far away and as fast as I can, but being a very loving, responsible INFJ (introverted intuitive feeling judging) person, I decided instead to do the "right thing".

So determined to do what is "right" and "expected", I called my mother inquiring of her needs and offering our help.  Three weeks later I was a shaky, nervous, emotional wreck. Shortly after that, I collapsed with adrenal exhaustion, once again. I had been doing so well since I had not been communicating with my mother, and now it only took three weeks for my health to sink to this low point again. 

What happened? My mother took my love and concern for her and used it to hurt me. She hid information, "gaslighted" or denied that things she had said or done had ever happened and implied that the events were only a figment of my deranged mind and over emotionalism. She denied or changed information, rewriting events as it suited her needs, bombarded me with all sorts of accusations, insulted me, dwelt on my supposed weakness, kept trying to put me on the defensive, stalled and withheld information, refused to economize while demanding we give her money, lied to me and lied about me to others, compared me to other family members - trying to evoke jealousy, and was dismissive, critical, and very condescending. One moment she played the pitiful victim with endless stories of woe, then the next time we talked, she arrogantly snapped at me wondering why I would think she needed help; and other times, she just gave me "the silent treatment" where she refused to talk to me. She accused me of being a mean, thoughtless, selfish, and evil daughter. All the time, she kept subtly implying that I was mentally unbalanced. Well, after a few weeks of talking to her, I was sure getting there! 

What is especially difficult to deal with is that my "crimes" for which she asserted that I should feel extreme guilt were that we offered to provide her with a nice mobile home near us where she could live comfortably on her social security income.  Also, after enduring hours of her moaning about how she couldn't go through things because she couldn't get boxes down off shelves, or move them to another room, or take her garbage out, I arranged for a local handyman to give her whatever assistance she wanted.  After keeping me anxiously engaged with her for three weeks as I dutifully attempted to present her with these two offers despite her constant manipulation, Mom now vented her fury on me. 

That was it. I had had it! I knew it was time to take another look at my "obligations". So this is why I'm asking myself, "Now what?"  I've been remembering the story of a little boy who picked up a rattlesnake, trusting the snake's promise that he wouldn't hurt him. When the snake bit him, the boy exclaimed that the snake promised he wouldn't hurt him. The snake coolly replies, "But you knew what I was when you picked me up!"* 

I have been "bitten" for seventy years, so why did I expect her to be any different now? The reason -- because I wanted so much to have a loving mother/daughter relationship that I trusted her when I shouldn't have.  I wanted to hope that now that she was a widow with little income, that she might treat me differently. But a snake is always a snake, and a sociopath also shows little desire to change. They don't know any other way of relating. All interactions are seen as competitions which she must win at any cost -- to her competitor. Yes, she needs me to give her attention, and to give her quick fixes of power and energy as she "scores" another "win" over me by confusing and controlling me. 

She is well aware of my gentle nature and hesitation to hurt anyone-- ever. 

I know that to achieve her goals Mom will always try to use my love, and my love for others to manipulate me, threatening if I don't do what she wants, she will hurt those I love. Sociopaths enjoy pitting people against each other and fan lies and spread innuendo to encourage discord. Since they are stagnant personalities, neither progressing or creating, they instead rely on receiving energy from the emotional reactions and distress they rouse in others. This is why sociopaths are often referred to as energy vampires. 

As hard as it may be to accept, I do still love my mother. As an empath and an INFJ it is my nature to endlessly try to help others, and I really do appreciate the nice things she did for me. This is why I was overly trusting and ever hopeful thinking that a few years and a change of circumstance would change her as a person. As I am recovering from my "bite", I am a wiser person. Will I bring her into my home to lovingly care for her?  No. Will I spend our savings to purchase a nice mobile home near us where she can live comfortably while subjecting me, my husband, my children, and my grandchildren to her constant insidious poison? No.  Am I going to give her my money, my time, my energy, my family, my health, and my sanity, just so she can continue to feed her insatiable need to feel that she is an important, powerful person? No.  Am I going to allow her to continue to engage me in these verbal games where she rewrites the rules as she goes to insure her "win" and to erode my sense of reality and manipulate me into allowing her to control my life? No.  Am I going to become the  "good" submissive daughter she wants? No. 

Will I continue to allow her to dump responsibility for her life and her happiness on me? No.  Am I going to accept that as "The Matriarch" of the family, it is her "right" to demand that I give her everything she wants? No. Am I going to rush over ten hours to her home each time she needs a box moved, or her trash taken out? No.  Am I going to spend my money, my time, and my health traveling back and forth to visit and help her, attempting to help her move, or find a place she could live or a convalescent hospital, only to have her toy with me as a cat with a mouse claiming, when I get there, that she doesn't really need anything? No.  Am I going to provide luxuries for her that she has not earned, but merely believes she is entitled to? No.  Am I going to call and visit her just so she can be energized by hurting me, by "winning"? No.  Will I defend my sense of identity, nurture myself, enjoy my marriage and family, and share my love and talents with others, or will I allow my mother to batter me, leaving me an exhausted, anxious, drained wreck broken upon her irrational need to always feel that she has "won"? Definitely-- No. 

As hard as it is for me. I must remember that I have been carefully trained to downplay her inappropriate behavior, question my memory of what happened, doubt my emotionally stability, dismiss her behavior as "normal", excuse her actions, believe that I "deserve" such treatment, and accept that the things she has done are just a kind mother's attempts to "teach" her pathetic daughter to be a "good" person. I have been trained to believe that I am responsible for all the actions she did, but which she disavows that ever happened. How's that for a twisted "guilt trip?!" 

I must stand firm. I must hold to correct principles. I must protect myself and my family from a person whose goal is not to love, but to hurt. I have to accept that she is not going to change in this life. I don't know why she acts as she does. Perhaps her emotional development was thwarted by her childhood upbringing. All I know is that she is a frightened person who is afraid that people are out to hurt and control her. I am so sorry that she feels that she must defend herself by manipulating and confusing others, so that she can control them and therefore feel safe. I am sorry that she is afraid to grow and to love. 

I have watched my mother create situations which cause others pain, then experienced her cool satisfaction as she gloats, empowered in the knowledge that she was able to manipulate other people. Though I know her intent has been to feel in control and therefore safe, I cannot allow her to destroy in a few months all that I have spent a lifetime building. I cannot allow her to harm my family relationships. Knowing that, to her, leaving this life after delivering a poisoned guilt message which would gnaw on me long after she is gone would be the ultimate "victory", I must reluctantly accept that my mother will have to even die as she has lived-- alone.  

Snake story - https://www.firstpeople.us/FP-Html-Legends/TheLittleBoyAndTheRattlesnake-Cherokee.html