This isn't exactly a parent/child issue, but I'm honestly not sure where else to look, so... Here goes.
I'm 23 years old, my mom is in her 50s. We have a pretty good relationship, but every so often (maybe once every few weeks) my mom gets to drinking... When she does, she goes into this massive victim / blind anger mindset. She'll yell at me for hours sometimes about how she works full time and I don't, how she does everything around the house and I don't do enough. How she thinks that I secretly hate her and want her to suffer.. She says some pretty awful things to me. And some of them are correct. It's true, I don't do as much as I should around the house. Part of it is laziness, and part is likely mild depression. I try to be better, but I forget very often to do things, and my mom takes it personally every time. I'm unemployed due to Covid, but I still collect benefits and pay my rent and expenses on time, so I'm not a complete freeloader.
Just today in fact. I hadn't gotten decent sleep in at least three days, and I'm woken up after a few hours by my mom blasting the radio downstairs as she cleans and does house work, drunk. She yells up the stairs "Are you gonna get up today or tomorrow!?". So I get up, come downstairs, and I'm a little crabby. And in my honest opinion, rightfully so. I tell her how the radio woke me up hours ago and I couldn't get back to sleep, and she starts yelling at me about how she did all the work around the house and I did none. How she works and I don't. How she's in physical pain and I don't seem to care (I do, but nothing I say counts when she's drunk). Asking me if I want her to just drop dead so I can have the insurance. At this point, I'm done with it. I tell her to tell me what she wants me to do around the house, but to shut up. We argue back and forth, but most of it is just me working silently while my mom storms on and on about how horrible I am. I don't remember all of the conversation. I will confess that I talked back a decent amount, but I never ever say mean or bad things about her. Just the way I as an individual feel. The one exception is me trying to tell her that she won't listen to reason when she's drunk. She responds by saying she's merely 'tipsy', despite calling the cat a slur just for meowing at her and mixing her words up. Y'know... Visibly drunk.
I know she works really hard to support us. I know that I have no idea what she goes through every day, and I know I really could do more to help out. But she uses that as ammunition to lash out at me in some pretty hurtful ways.
I know it's just the alcohol talking, but the words still get to me. Sometimes I really do feel like I'm a piece of garbage for not doing enough to help out. Or that what I'm doing isn't enough. Am I not doing enough? I realize that answer is subjective from household to household, so an answer will be difficult... I just don't know how to resolve this situation. Is there a way to handle the times when she's drunk while avoiding her ire?
I do have another question: Why is it that parents seem to absolutely adore asking their kid to do something, then doing it themselves and getting angry about it? The dishes for example. She'll ask me to do them, I'll forget. The next day, she'll have already done them and then yell at me about it. Can you not just ask me to do them when I get up? Is a fork really worth attacking me over? I just don't get it. I understand that I messed up forgetting, but doing it yourself and playing victim can't be the right answer.
