Elder Care - Sibling gets Better Treatment but Doesn't do Anything

I battle a lot of anger and resentment because I do everything for my mother yet am not treated very well.

My mother treats my sister much better despite the fact that she doesn't do a thing for her. My mother is often critical, controlling, and difficult. She spoiled my sister as a child and overly focused her to the point of somewhat neglecting me. My sister was the youngest and had a few health issues, so my mother babied her. She also expected me to be responsible for my sister since I was older. Over time, this caused my sister to lean on me a lot.

In adulthood my sister grew up expecting everyone to help her and spoil her. Now that she's married and gave my mother grand kids, my mother treats her like some sort of queen. I never married nor had children and don’t have the “clout” with my mother that my sister has. My mother will not listen to me, won't apologize when she hurts me, is self absorbed about her health issues, isn't interested in my life, my job, or my plans, goals and dreams, and is often very critical, complaining, and difficult. She does things like calling me by my sister's name, not greeting me when I come in the door, or ordering me around like I'm a maid. I've tried to talk to her about these things but she says that I am making all of this. She never has remorse when I am hurt.

Naturally because my sister married and moved away, I am the daughter who was left to take care of my mother. My sister only rarely comes to visit, usually just for holidays. I am holding down a full time job and spend most of my free time helping my mother or taking care of my own needs. I can handle the caregiving tasks that I have but the emotional baggage is another story.


I have found that generally our society does not provide emotional support to caregivers of elderly parents. Many people hate their parents so whenever they hear that I am taking care of my mother, they usually say things like "make her take the free van service to her appointments" or "isn't it time for the nursing home". They rarely give me any good advice about the emotional issues I have. I have had to tune them out. I am not going to stop taking care of my mother because of her ways, out of love and spiritual values, but I would like to grow stronger regarding my emotional pain. I would like not to take her behavior so personally and would like to detach more from it. I need to focus on other things a little more and not so much on her, but it is hard because I am forced to spend a lot of time with her and it rubs off on me so much. There are some days that I leave her house crying in frustration.

As I said, it is not the tasks that bother me but the way she treats me sometimes. There is no support from society for what I'm doing. People just tell me not to help her but that's not an option.