Is OTHER wrong in the post ? POST : As the title says my mother who is nearly 80 is suffering from dementia. I feel deeply sorry for the physical limitations and the mental pain this is causing her. I try to spend more time with my parents now than I used to in the past, but I live 1000 miles away and have two jobs so this is not easy and limited to 3 weeks or so per year. 

I did not move so far away because I really wanted to, I needed the distance. In my early 20s, I was severely depressed, suffered from unhealthy compulsions and had occasional suicidal thoughts. I self-isolated from friends and other family and did not really have any close friends. 

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I tried to leave home when I was 18, 20 and 23, but each time my parents managed to convince me that I'd be better off with a postgraduate degree, so financial needs meant I could not afford to move out. 

After leaving home and seeking therapy I gradually learned to understand that my desire for independence was natural and my (unconsciously self imposed) low contact with my parents (1-2 calls per month, 2 visits per year) were a natural response. 

I learned to understand that my upbringing had in many ways not been normal. Some examples: 

\* My mother had tried to have a child for over 10 years before me. I was born on her birthday in her early 40s and she has often treated me as if she owned me.

\* I understand now that my mother was what is considered 'emotionally immature', She could not objectively say something like 'I don't like this sort of music, but you have to decide for yourself' Instead she would forbid me from listening to anything but classical music and force me to learn a classical string instrument.

\* She would also not allow me to play with a game boy or action figures, instead I had an old fashioned doll, was wearing leather shoes and a corduroy suit to school when everyone was wearing trainers, jeans and t-shirt. I was bullied in school a lot and the only thing she'd do (despite teacher's advice to be a bit more relaxed towards me) was to try and get the bullies expelled (without success).  

\* Some of her behaviours are also often described as emotional incest. For example, whenever my dad was on a business trip or came home an hour late from work she would be in my room and say things like "You'll have to help me if something happened to dad."

Going through therapy and starting to accuse someone is a very difficult time. I honestly only ever wanted to understand why I have the demons that I carefully try to rid myself off. I've never been accusing my parents directly. I also believe that they dedicated a lot of time and effort to my upbringing. They (especially my mother) simply never understood the generation of children I grew up with and how it differed to their own childhood which was in post-WWII Germany. 

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After leaving home, my mother reacted very badly. She refused to speak to me or if she did, she would only talk to her dog (eg. "This man has left us \[dog's name\]") or my dad ("It would seem that your son actually is happy to be in my company, but he refuses to stay after this week"). 

I largely ignored this, gained confidence and independence. I got married, though my mother refuses to accept my wife. 

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For the last 3 years, my mother has suffered from increasingly progressive dementia. I am genuinely sorry to see this woman suffer like this. But I don't feel I can do much to help her. I try to assist my father with advice, though it's very hard to do so as he has very much his own mind. 

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I recently discussed my mother with a friend of mine, whose mother also suffers from dementia. He is someone I've confided in for many years and who knows a lot about the demons I have fought in my past. What I never shared with him is the doubt that I often had. Was I fair in my judgement on how my mother's behaviour had affected me? 

I mentioned to him that the only good that has come from my mother's illness, is that she is far less filtered. Especially in the first few years, she sometimes said things like "Knowing you'd only play with dolls/play the violin" always made me so happy. "I sometimes wondered if I enforced it too much, but you never put up any resistance". 

To me, this has been very helpful, absolving myself from the doubts that lingered. Yet my friend seemed very uneasy when I mentioned this. He has since ignored me, stopped to respond to messages and has excused himself from a regular social we both attend and then told some of the others that I had acted in a terrible way towards my mother. The only thing I've done is to talk to my mother who apparently had forgotten that long ago she had stopped talking to me and who also seemed to now express how emotions had influenced her decisions is the past rather than trying to back them up with 'logic'. 

So I do wonder AITA for using what my mother says to discover more about my childhood and the traumas some of which still haunt me? And if so how (other than not talking to my mother at all) would I even be able to avoid doing so. 

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