I Welcomed My Elderly Mother into My Home—Now I Regret It, Can’t Send Her Away, and Feel Ashamed in Front of My Friends.

I took my elderly mother into my home. Now I regret it, I cant send her away, and I feel ashamed in front of my acquaintances.
Today I feel compelled to put my storyso personal and heavyonto paper, because it presses on me like a stone on my chest. I need a wise, thoughtful piece of advice to understand how to get out of the quagmire I have dug for myself.
Each of us has our own worries and trials. We must learn not to judge others, but to reach out when someone is drowning in despair with no apparent way out. No one is immune to such situationstoday you may judge, and tomorrow you could be caught in the same fate.
I brought my mother to live with me. She is already 80 and used to live in a village near Rouen, in an old house with a sloping roof. She could no longer manage on her ownher health was failing, her legs gave out, her hands trembled. I saw her fading away alone there, so I decided to bring her to my city apartment. I didnt realize the burden I would bear nor the impact it would have on my life.
At first everything ran smoothly. Mother moved into my threeroom flat in Lyon and seemed to respect the order. She didnt interfere with my affairs, kept to herselfmostly staying in the bedroom I had lovingly prepared for her. I equipped it with a soft bed, a warm blanket, a small TV on the table. She only left the room to use the bathroom, toilet, or kitchenI tried to surround her with comfort. I took care of her diet, preparing only what the doctors recommended: no fats, minimal salt, everything steamed. The medicinesexpensive but necessarywere bought with my salary. Her pension? A pitiful sum, barely enough for the little things.
After a few months things began to deteriorate. Urban life started to wear her downmonotonous, grey, like the concrete walls around us. She began to impose her own rules, picking fights over the smallest matters, turning trivialities into mountains. Sometimes it was dust I hadnt cleared in time, sometimes a soup that wasnt perfect, or forgetting to buy her favorite tea. Nothing pleased her; everything irritated her. Then the manipulations beganshe played on pity, sighed theatrically, repeated that she lived better in the village than in my prison. Her words cut me like a knife, yet I endured, clenching my teeth, trying not to react to her provocations.
My patience ran out. I was exhausted by the constant reproaches, the shouting, her perpetual dissatisfaction. I resorted to taking calming pills for my nerves, and after work I would stand frozen at the doorway, unable to enter my own home. Behind that door was not a cocoon but a battlefieldone where I lost a little more each day. My life had become a hopeless nightmare.
Sending mother back to the village isnt a solution. She wouldnt survive therethe house is halfruined, without heat or comforts. And how could I just abandon her to that fate? What would people think? I already hear the disapproving looks, the whispers behind my back: A daughter who abandons her mother what a shame! Im embarrassed even to contemplate it, ashamed before others and before myself. But I cant go on.
The situation feels like a tightly knotted rope I cant untie. Im drained, empty, lost. How can I keep living under the same roof with her? How do I handle her stubbornness, the wall of complaints and grievances? How can I soothe her without losing myself? Im at a dead end, and each day I sink deeper into this despair.
Have any of you experienced similar stories? How did you coexist with elderly relatives whose temperament is as abrasive as sharp stones that test our patience? How do you keep your sanity when a loved one becomes your greatest trial? Please share your adviceI need a glimmer at the end of this dark tunnel.