We've never been really close. We're pure Chinese, so she's not the type of mom that you can just go and talk about anything to, and rather unapprochable about matters that are closer to the heart. She's always had mood swings now and then, and tended to get mad really easily at really small things, as far back as I can remember.
Money is tight for us, because my dad is the only one working right now. My mom is getting her Ph.D in an arcane field of linguistics of which job options are highly limited. She has never liked the subject matter, but was pressured into it by events and monetary problems at the time she entered her Ph.D program.
The problem now is that she's becoming depressed and only sees the negative side. She's more and more irritated at her inability to just finish her Ph.D, and it's not helped by her Chair, who is picky and the problems in my mom's paper that she fishes out of thin air are not helping my mom feel better.
Basically, she feels like she wasted 9 years of her life miserably plodding away at a degree that she doesn't even want, in a field that she despises and sees no point to.
When she's happy, it doesn't seem that big of a deal. But when her mood swings down, her mind focuses on it until she's feeling hopeless. She's threatened suicide several times now on one of these mood swings.
I'm so worried for her, and I have no idea what to do. My dad isn't close with her either, and I have no one else to turn to. Someone please help me.