Advice with Mom who has Mild Schizophrenia?
Preface: I am copying and pasting this post from a Christian subreddit because my religious upbringing does come into play in this situation I'd say.
I'll preface by saying I'm not Christian. I grew up in a Christian household, believed for most of my life until pretty recently. I kept this change to myself for the most part, and told only my dad and a couple close non-religious friends. I'll say that I still agree with a lot of Christian values and what the bible teaches, I simply don't know how much of what the bible says actually happened. Anyway, that's not the main thing I'm asking for help on. And please, respectfully asking, don't comment asking me why I don't believe now or invite me to bible study with you or recommend me resources about faith. I called a lady from the church I went to growing up and she offered me advice until I said that I don't believe, and suddenly her focus was mostly on that, when frankly, that's not what I called her for. From her perspective, I understand that it was important to maybe help me with but again, as of now, it's not the focus. Perhaps faith is something I will revisit in the future, but as of now, this is not the focus of this post.
The actual situation I'm asking for advice/ideas about is communication with my mom. Frankly, I believe she has a history of some sort of mental illness. I believe she was diagnosed in the past with mild schizophrenia or paranoia by different doctors? She doesn't trust my dad because her delusions include him working with secret societies against her and trying to take me away from her. This has been ongoing for as far as I could remember. Eventually my dad divorced her for both his sake and my sake as a kid at the time. I'm now in college and have a very difficult time communicating with my mom because every time we call or meet in person, she asks about whether or not my dad is dating again or remarrying soon, etc. She's very repetitive, and gives me and other close family friends the sense that she's been hung up on just me and my dad for these past years, especially since the divorce. She doesn't work either due to a language barrier (and perhaps mental health and/or laziness) so I suppose all she really does is ponder about how I'm doing and searches forums on her phone and finds people who claim to relate to her experiences (I'd assume other people with similar mental illnesses and delusions). Aside from asking about my dad and sometimes my studies and health, she insists on the fact that there are things she can't tell me about (about people following her) and that she has many things she has learned since her marriage and divorce that she wants to share with me so I don't walk her same path. However, these conversatinos have been going on for the past 3+ years. Unless she's learning new things every weekend, I strongly doubt that she has new information to share with me on how to live life. Some things, I do agree with, some, I think are nonsensical and are related to her paranoia. She trusts only her like one best friend from the church I mentioned and I think that's because she's her closest friend who hasn't directly told her that her thoughts are due to mental illness (she frames it more as a spiritual problem although she has also told my mom she should go to a doctor multiple times over the years).
I don't know what to do about my mom. Talking to her stresses me out. Most of our calls and meetups over the years ended up with me crying or just feeling overall more negative. I've recently realized that her suspicions about my dad (even after the divorce) have negatively affected me and his relationship because she's been kind of telling me these suspicions (of cheating, for example) since I was little and although I didn't think some of her thoughts were true, I think I just passively accepted them. So now, I'm trying to set boundaries but I'm not sure how to, nor do I think she'll really understand. And whenever I think about my future life (since I'm a student), and I consider my job and my potential future family, and I think about the fact that my mom is like this and that I'll just have to endure this kind of relationship, it makes me cry basically on the spot. No one can give me any answer. I've contemplated cutting her off, or just temporarily blocking her until I feel like I can communicate with her normally. I'm an only child, my dad divorced her, literally no one else can relate to my position so I don't know what to do without feeling like I'm going to go insane and feel like she's just hopeless.
I do think her situation is a lot more mild than other cases I've read in this subreddit. I'm fortuante in that sense but it's still so stressful. She's gotten diagnosed years ago with mild schizophrenia (and maybe paranoia and depression? I heard these from different family members/family friends). My mom does admit to having depression, but doens't think she has like delusions or other mental illnesses. In the past she's had medication and apparently it helped... until she stopped taking it of course. And since then, according to her parents when I called them, she would just throw them out. I've honeslty considered also bringing up trying therapy because I've never asked her if she'd try it but considering her trust issues and possibly paranoia, I doubt she'd consider it.
Looking for advice/ideas on, I suppose, just coping from feeling like this is hopeless and how I can try to handle this situation. Cutting her off would be a last resort and would be something I'd consider only after I'm done with college and fully independent.