Today I had my first appointment with an actual therapist (not a counselor).
Even though one hour wasn't long enough to spew out everything I need to talk about, this woman completely picked up on 2 truly major points.
1) Even ONE of the stressors I have been dealing with over the last year is more than enough to warrant therapy!
2) I have been the "caregiver " for everyone in my family since I was 12 years old!
She asked me what I do for myself?
I had absolutely no answer!!
Hence therapy!! Lol
Caring for a narcissistic LO is a labor of love!
Not because they will love us back, but because we need to love ourselves!!
How do you keep caring selflessly for your selfish LO?
What do you do for yourself?
(((Hugs)))
You have come a long way!!! You haven’t called your mom, you are letting her call YOU. You are buying her items on Amazon and having them shipped to her instead of you dropping everything to run around and do it all.
Im so proud of you. You have come such a long way!!!
In the end, I had to back of seeing my mother also. My son was going to her house 2 times a week and I was going once a week and I stopped calling her. She would call me. I use to call her but then she wouldn’t pick up the phone. She couldn’t blame it on not HEARING the phone because I bought her an amplifier from Amazon that attached to her phone. It AMPLIFIED the phone ring that I would jump when I heard it. But she chose not to answer her phone. So I quit calling.
Hugs going out to you. Great job!!!
The last time I went to visit Mom, the woman escorting us to her room went on and on about how wonderful she is! Had my Mom not been right there, I would have told her "This is not the same woman I grew up with!!!"
Yes, they can pull the wool over most anyone!
My brother called me this afternoon, because he's concerned that Mom wants to buy a car. (News to me) She told him that I never come see her so she could drive to see me!! OH MYLANTA!!(she doesn't have dementia, just mobility issues)
Does she not realize that we're still in the throws of a pandemic!!
The AFL just opened for visitors by appointment 3 weeks ago and I've been there twice.
Cascia,
The best thing you can do for yourself is to stop trying to get inside the head of a narcissist!!
I image it's like a Picasso painting! The only person who TRULY understands it's Picasso!!
Educate yourself about how to deal with a narcissist. YouTube is a great resource!!
It's not easy to put into practice!
It takes a conscious effort every interaction with them, but eventually it will become a little bit easier!!
It's like eating an elephant, ONE BITE AT A TIME!!
(((Hugs)))
If she is declared fine, you have no reason to be running your a$$ off, getting her stuff and solving her problems.
I have a "bright line" thing; either you are independent and can get along without my help, OR you need my help and you need to work with me so the situation can work for me, too.
i was never willing to give up my livelihood, my marriage or my vacations in favor of what my elderly parents needed.
For my kids? Yes, I re-schedule stuff, make sure I don't go on vacation during school holodays and make sure I don't go on vacation when my ex is going to be gone.
To me, the obligation goes down the generation.
Just got a call from the MC. Visits are called off again this week. Norovirus is spreading and now up to 7 residents out of 20-23. No, my mother is not on the list. Did you think otherwise? 😂
No word from her highness since Tues and the tongue lashing she gave DH. I'm certainly not calling her, either! 😁
My NM is convinced that everyone in her ALF is out to get her! She knows, because she sees it all! Ugh!!
Aoi,
My answer is " A joy shared, is a joy doubled!"
It was a rainy day and I had to drive her to take her road test. You know the one, where they test your ability to DRIVE???
Well, I sat on the backseat and my mother was in the drivers seat and the instructor was in the passenger seat. My mother who is normally a bundle of nerves was cool as a cucumber. She started talking about history, and any fun facts known to man. Then she goes on to ask the instructor about his life and gives him one compliment after another.
Finally the instructor turns to me and says, your mother has a better mind than you and me put together!!! She doesn’t need to take a road test. PASS he writes on the paper. PASS without ever DRIVING for the DMV!!! That’s a pure genius!!!
Im so glad you ordered everything for your mother on Amazon without stepping foot in a store!! That’s what I do. I hate shopping so I order everything online or on Amazon. It’s so much easier.
Stepping away from your mother is a good idea. Wait for her to call you!! You are doing great!!! So proud of you!!!
I did a smart thing today. I ordered $156 of "necessities" for her on Amazon to be delivered on Sunday! I'm in no condition to go schlepping to Wal mart for a non existent list she refuses to produce and then schlep it all over to the MC. Screw it. I used her debit card, of course, and ordered her precious snacks and enough "beauty products " to keep her for 6 months.
My mom's PCP said she was "fine". Then why did she call me three days running at work and demand my immediate presence? (My mom was NOT a narcissist, this was very out of character).
On day 3, I told her point blank that I wasnt going to respond to these "emergencies" any longer, that she"d have to move elsewhere.
She resisted at first, but we all 3 of us refused budge. (Shortly thereafter, cognitive assessment ordered by geri psych determined she could no longer live alone)
I think if she charms her way through seeing the psych (and of course, you come with documentation of the 72 falls because she can't reemember not to get up) then turn your back and let her manage on her own. But I don't think that will happen.
What makes life tick? What makes it rock? What makes it stink and would life be better if we didn't have the stink? Or maybe it would be better with a better pleasure to stink ratio?
What makes life tick is love, decent health, comfortable living conditions, doing something I love to do, and making income to live. What makes life rock is all of the above in spades, with very little stress or worry about money. What makes life stink is chronic stress and trying to fix things for someone else at my own expense, chronic health issues to deal with and lots of expenses I can't afford. Yes, life would be better without a LOT of stink bc it takes up too much head space. Life is always better with less stress which equates to a better pleasure to stink ratio.
I don't call this thread anything but the NM thread, for ease and convenience purposes. Don't over think things, if possible. We all have enough on our minds ALREADY thanks to our NMs, right? 🙄 Your participation in this group has already added a great perspective which I enjoy. Everyone here helps me more than you'll ever know.
Barb, I think a consult with a geriatric psychiatrist for my mother is the best idea. Getting her into a senior behavioral unit briefly would be ideal. I spent a while last night (when I was lucid) worrying about how she'd somehow Showtime her way thru the consult and wind up having the psychiatrist want to examine ME after he finds her totally normal and not belonging in MC which is what she insists. She can always manage to get what she wants, this woman, that's my fear. I will speak with her pcp next week about how to proceed. Of course the pcp sees a whole diff side of NM than I do, too. That's a big part of the issue with the covert narcs.....NOBODY knows them but US, making their treatment very difficult!
Cascia, so true about the NMs victim blaming!!! Interesting you mention constantly being on guard. To this day, at 94 with moderately advanced dementia, NM is hyper vigilant of EVERY single thing that goes on in the room or area when we are visiting. It's bat sh*t crazy. We've taken to setting her wheelchair in front of the window (back to the window) so she can see if someone leaves or enters the bldg. (The room where we visit is off the main lobby of a very small bldg). If a FLY comes in, she sees it, comments on it, has questions about it, it's insane. We can't even visit bc of her distraction with noise or doors opening or seeing a person and what she's wearing or doing or saying! DH calls it The Squirrel Syndrome. Even when we did window visits, if I moved my eyes off of her face, she'd ask what I was looking at? If there was someone else in the room? She was like this when I was a kid.....on me like white on rice. Had to be going thru my stuff 24/7 to know what I was "up to" or "hiding"......she prides herself on never missing a trick aka total lack of trust in anyone. What is this? Aside from mental illness. Anyone have an NM with similar behavior? This is not what you were referring to about being "on guard" cascia, it just brought this matter up for me.
Yesterday, I had a post I was working on for "Aging Care; Caregiving for a narcissistic mother. Do we do it out of love or out of years of guilt and programming? " (Can we shorten this title? it'd be fun, I think to brainstorm a short term or title we use to reference this group) And was nearly finished when my phone ran out of charge and I lost the whole post.
I'm not gonna lie. It's a total downer when that happens. I thought of a way to keep that from happening again and like pretty much everything I do, the solution serves several practical problems at once. I'll share the solution with you in a moment.
After the post was lost I plugged the phone in and began where I left off the day before, reading all the posts. All of you have been through so much and have shown so much courage in staying the course. My hope is that I can contribute as much as I've already taken from reading about all of you and your families and trials and tribulations 💐💖🌷. Back to the solution. I journal. Not nearly as much as I should.( Here's a statement for examination: when the word "should" appears in thought and application, it means that "stink'n think'n" is afoot and let's do get into what that is! We'd ALL benefit!) So what I thought is that I can write down posts in my journal ( that's usually an all day, event when I actually do it as it logs thoughts, observations and actions throughout the day) and then when the entry is finished, post it here. I won't lose a post again and I'll be journaling more regularly because even though my journal has saved me from definite insanity, it can't talk back to me. It's the worst therapist ever😋. Posting to the group doesn't insure [or ensure?] a response, but it carries with it a feeling of support. Even if no one replies or even reads it, my feeling is that someone *might* see/read/react/render opinion/share related experience and that's good enough. What I discovered, surprisingly, is that writing to all of you instead of just my journal is that my writing ( journaling) "voice" changed. Instead of dry facts, observations, dates, notations of feelings about whatever it is, I'm actually writing in an engaging way. Now, really, group members, this is your fault. 😋. When I read your posts, all of you are so good at this that it HAD to rub off.
My phone is going to run out of charge faster because I've discovered this "voice" but it's well worth the extra hour to charge it up in the afternoon.
So while I write to all of you, I also carve out a time to read. Although I've read nearly all the posts current to last night, I still have remaining posts to read and I'm positive that there are new posts to read as well. So before my next post, which will in all likelihood be at the end of (each) day and I'll start my day with catching up with our group and coffee instead of Pinterest. Good heavens! I have enough projects to keep me busy for the next 1000 years anyway and our group therapy is immeasurably more valuable. I only hope that my participation in this group ads value to all of you.
Write back. Let me know what you think. Don't be shy or feel the need for tact. I'm a tough old bird I'm not going to take a critique like our mothers do.
While the subject of critique is out there, let me just say this: Life is meant to be lived not be served. Life is equal parts dirt, work, sacrifice, pain, sweat, imagination, creativity, pleasure, awe and fulfillment and all the things I left out of that list. I'm leaving it to all of you to expand that list. Not just for me. Consider it a group exercise. 😊
What makes life tick? What makes it rock? What makes it stink and would life be better if we didn't have the stink? Or maybe it would be better with a better pleasure to stink ratio?😋
Your Turn!
hug!!
you wrote:
“why someone needs to twist everything and can't see another point of view, can't see the ones closest to them having a bit of joy without having a need to chip away at that joy. Why can't they just let others live their lives is the puzzling question with no answer apparently.”
it’s because their joy comes from destroying your joy.
Lealonni1 - The shame, always the shame, the perception of things rather than what actually is. It's exhausting beyond belief to constantly be on guard, really for no reason at all in many cases. The constant reminders of what people think as if anyone cares. Keeping secrets when there are no secrets to be kept because you don't want their twisted perception of reality thrown back at you. No sharing of anything, no sharing of bad things if you need support - because somehow you brought that upon yourself- blame the victim. No sharing of good things because somehow you don't deserve the happiness that comes with it so best to just keep everything under wraps. I am childless and my friends would joke that they wouldn't be surprised to find I had a secret family stashed away somewhere because I don't share a lot, it takes a while for me to open up and trust, I was well trained well to keep tings under wraps as I never knew what the reaction would be if I shared too much or anything at all really. The gaslighting was at times overwhelming so best to keep clear and quiet.
Chriscat83- "It would be nice though to have occasionally been able to just switch off, in the safe knowledge that your mother would catch you if you were falling." Yes how nice that would have been and it may happen occasionally for tangible things but never for emotional support its always a big mistake if I somehow forget that or am feeling vulnerable, mom would be the last person to catch me. Life is hard enough and in most cases she has made it even harder rather than easier. I am lucky to have had a great group of friends that have helped tremendously during this past year not sure how I would have gotten through otherwise.
It really helps to read through these posts especially when I am feeling drained and trying to understand why someone needs to twist everything and can't see another point of view, can't see the ones closest to them having a bit of joy without having a need to chip away at that joy. Why can't they just let others live their lives is the puzzling question with no answer apparently.
I always say that I think that good geri psychs are the last medical professionals who actuaĺy look at the whole person, body, soul and mind. I think it is a good idea to get one involved.
I wonder if a brief stay in a senior behavioral unit to get her stabilized might be something to consider.
Has she been tested for a UTI?
Feel better!
I've got my phone turned off again, just no strength to deal with the horror show that's known as NM lately. BarbB, if you are reading this, I know you often recommend a geriatric psychiatrist for the elders who are out of control. Being that NM can't seem to tolerate DRUGS of any kind, do you think this is still a good thing to do? She's ranting and raving and suddenly "so so so miserable " after 2 years of living in the same MC, I'm at a loss. She obviously needs SOMETHING to calm her down, I just don't know what. I guess this is her off the Cymbalta but good Lord, it's too much to tolerate.
Chris, yes, DH knows how very ugly NM is, he just hasn't been the target of her wrath until yesterday. He's the type to slough it off and say consider the source, though. Lucky him.
Cascia, you are so right! When have we ever been able to talk to our mother's about anything? We have to keep everything a secret ffs or they'll be turning THEIR discomfort into OUR nightmare! I will never forget the time I thought I could be pregnant at 19. Long story. I had just moved out of an abusive relationship back in with the folks, and we were in a new state. I had nobody to turn to. Well, NM FREAKED out and went ballistic upsetting me to the point of being a wreck. This was the 70s. No EPT tests. She dragged me to the ER screaming and carrying on (her) and threatening to send me away if I was pregnant, and I got tested. Had to wait 3 hours for results......with her wringing her hands and acting hysterical the entire time. The test was negative. She turned it all off like a switch. All was fine, except I was shaken to the core. Who treats their daughter like a pariah during a scary time? I had mono and that's why my period was delayed, I was actually quite sick. But who cares? At least I wasn't bringing SHAME on the woman.
Aoi, group therapy indeed. It's a miracle we're not all in a rubber room somewhere singing gibberish isn't it?
Spot on!!
I can't sneeze without NM sneezing twice! Lol.
Cascia,
Hope you're feeling better today!!
As sad as it is, probably best that you didn't call Mom !
If she's like my Mom, it only gives her ammunition to hurt me.
I have learned that she feeds on misery and drinks the tears of small children! Lol
(Hope I made you giggle)
(((Hugs)))
Thank you all for the welcome.
Now, let me see how fast I can wear it out😈 because, like a bad rash, here I am again.
Don't let my awful humor fool you. I'm here for all the same reasons everyone is here. Mom drives me crazy. Oh let's face it, in my case it's not a drive, it's just a hop.😋 🐇🐰
The thing that's impressive here is that we're doing group therapy in real time. Go Us! Okay, so sometimes it's delayed but with Covid-19 being our Lord and master lately, I'd say it's as close as it gets to real time unless we reformat this forum into a video chat-- currently I'm taking a break from cleaning and gardening and would terrify Godzilla to look at me. I don't know about how all of you feel but sometimes a typed chat is just better. It also sort of forces you to focus and organize your thoughts. Sometimes, just doing that helps. I keep a not-so-regular journal for that reason and before I found all of you, that's where all my 3000 PSI of steam landed. Caregiving causes pressure. Add to that pressure mental instabilities and personality disorders and you've got a recipe that would make C4 look like a sparkler 🎇. The miracle is that we don't explode. I don't mean like bottle it all up and then it pops out one day--no- I mean literally, finally getting a chance to sit down and then, BLAM! Spontaneous combustion. What we do isn't easy. It takes courage, perseverance, kindness, commitment and nerve. We saw what our parents did and somewhere along our journey we recognized that we could do better than that. Not that it makes us superior, no. Just that we saw a wrong and decided, based on that, we had options: Do better or keep the status quo. Having empathy makes that choice much clearer.
I think everyone here would agree that we made the choice knowing that it was going to be difficult and in this journey, we've learned it was even more difficult than we could have imagined.
Some of us, wisely, have chosen outside care, nursing homes, assisted living or another form of care that outside our own dwelling place. Some of us do dwell with our charges. Our journeys are the same. We show care in whatever way we can to maintain our own sanity. Unless, there's someone here who's insane, and we'll all probably love you anyway even though we have enough crazy in our lives already. This is who we are and I'm amazed and awed that I found all of you.
I'm so glad we have this time together.
💖🌸♥️💮❤️🌺💖💐💗🌎
Lea, your comment about only ever buying blank cards for your NM’s birthday hit home with me. For years I’ve done the same. None of the sentiments written in these cards have any relevance to my relationship with my NM, so I opt for a blank one and just write Happy Birthday inside it. Also, interesting that your DH was on the receiving end of your NM’s rage yesterday. I read somewhere that, particularly with covert narcissists who appear normal to everyone else except their victims, they can occasionally “lose it” with someone else. In doing so, they reveal their true personality and it can be a complete shock for someone outside the narcissist’s usual target to see what they are really like. Clearly your DH knows exactly what your NM is like, but you take my point...
Jodi, I love your tact and diplomacy about your stepdaughter’s slovenly attitude towards housework! Definitely best to say nothing...
Finally, a quick vent from me...dropped off some more things at mother’s yesterday. I’ve been having joint pain for some time, and at the moment my thumb/wrist joints are particularly bad, very painful and swollen. I found it quite difficult to carry a couple of bags into mum’s place, and told her about the pain. She just replied, “oh, I’ve got that too” in the usual uncaring tone. If she really had this problem, I would have heard about it in the 10+ years she lived with us, but this was never mentioned, so it’s yet another example of what others on this site have written about - always claiming to suffer with any ailment you might have, and in other words, bringing the conversation back to being about themselves again. Also, I thought, if she really did have this kind of joint pain, it would have been so good if she could have offered helpful advice, based on her own experience, of dealing with it. But of course this would never happen with a narcissist. I am again reminded about what a poster on this forum wrote a couple of months ago, that if you have an NM, you really do go through life being “motherless”.
The saddest part of being responsible for a narcissistic LO, is that most of them don't realize they have a problem!!
That's where we all come in!!
Most of us posting on this thread have been dealing with a narcissistic LO.
I think it's fair to say that they will never change!! They will never understand or have compassion for what we are feeling or going through!
Somehow they twist and turn everything to be about them.
This thread has been a God send for me!
I hope you will find it the same!
(((Hugs)))
Covert narcissism or passive aggressive covert narcissism has got to be THE ugliest personality disorder there is. When I read about it on a website I saw my mother, in vivid detail, in each of the 25 examples that were given. My husband had the great misfortune to receive my NMs wrath tonight on the phone, for the first time ever in the 16 yrs we've been together, bc she's unable to hide her rage anymore. She feels we should be caring for her here, in our home, with 32 recent falls under her 200 lb belt, being wheelchair bound and totally incontinent with moderately advanced dementia. Never mind that I'm almost 64 with horrible arthritis and DH just had triple bypass, lung surgery and was diagnosed with liver cancer. She reminded him SHE took care of HER mother who was in her 60s at the time and did all the cooking, cleaning, washing and ironing in the house! She "took care" of nobody, is what she did in reality, never mind a 94 year old with more issues than Newsweek!
Anyway, here's a link to the article for anyone who's interested:
https://lifelessons.co/personal-development/covertpassiveaggressivenarcissist/
When I read the thread starter here, there was only, just the thread starter and a place to comment. I only realized AFTER my first comment, that there were other people from everywhere commenting and airing greivances and making themselves known. After that first comment, myself said to myself, "Hey! You just stepped into a steaming pile of Shangrila/Xanadu/El Dorado"!
So I came back 'round lunch time, today to post and see if any of you had experience with one of my pet peeves (after being a caregiver for a steady 200 years, I've aquired a collection of pet peeves that would make a hoarder blush) and I noticed peeves were lurking around each corner. Dog-gone peeves, everybody's got 'em and nobody wants 'em so you can't Marie Kondo them into nice, organized spaces. They just clutter everything up and make the dust bunnies jealous.
So, I thought it would be a good opportunity to be the me that I like best ( I realize this implies that I have multiple personalities. I don't. Unfortunately. I could really use a dominant, evil version of myself that I don't have to be accountable for. A couple of examples: Mouth off to the neighborhood bully? Whoops, that was my other personality. Leave nails in the flower bed my neighbors keep driving over? Whoops, that was my other personality. What a convenience an evil alter-ego would be-- but no, it's just me and I'm trying very hard to get out of my own head, stop being concerned about mom's unquenchable dissatisfaction with her own life, live my own, deeply weird dreams and get down to business. I find that the worst and most trying aspect of caregiving for a covert narcissist is keeping her negativity from infecting me. Her approach to life doesn't work for me. H.E. double hockey sticks, it doesn't even work for her and yet it's super important to her that I be her carbon copy. The idea of making a carbon copy of herself with me has worked about as well as an air brake on a canoe.
So having this place is pretty darn great. I get to see that I'm not in this boat (self talk: don't think about The Titanic, don't type it, good grief! You thought and typed it! What's wrong with you?) alone and sometimes the boat could use a little duct tape and that's okay 'cuz I keep a roll around my wrist like jewelry.
Bugs Bunny was far too influential in my early life. There are a lot of mythological references to Hares in respect to them being more effort and trouble to hunt than they're worth and honestly? What would I do without the central philosophy of the prey outsmarting the predator?
From my perspective, it's crucial not only to know that outsmarting (or maybe just being clever, which is entirely different and requires zero ego) is possible but just as important is that we laugh at ourselves and our predators. Think about Bugs for a minute. He never made the effort to push the predator's buttons. The predator was always busy trying to push buttons and when Bugs was involved, it would always backfire and the predator would end up pushing it's own buttons. Well, the Road Runner too, but I always felt sorry for the Coyote. When will he learn that Acme products are actually a marketing ploy by "Ronco" and Ron Popeil, the guy who brought us "the pocket fisherman" and "Couvre", that can of spray on hair stuff that makes the top of a bald head look like an Easter egg covered in dog hair. Poor, old Coyote. Victim of his own misdeeds. Wonder if he has a facebook profile? 😆
My point in writing all this huge, long story was to thank lealonnie1, and all of you for the warm welcome but it got completely out of hand and now, here we are.
To borrow a line from one of my favorite performers of all time, Carol Burnett: " I'm so glad we had this time together" and I hope to see you again real soon.
Aoi Usagi--Jade Blue Hare
Welcome to our thread!!
Loved your post!!😊
You're so right!!
Everything with a narcissist is a competition!!
They have to be the center of attention! Everything they think they're going through has to be worse than anyone else!
As children of narcissists, that makes us try to find validation in other places!
Some good, some not so good!
The thing that we have going for us is that we actually see what's going on!
That gives us a leg up that we can be proud of!😘
Great news!! And YES, continuing prayers for Lea and her DH!!🙏🙏🙏
EP,
I think I have a handle on why my DH and I aren't welcome to stay with our youngest (my stepdaughter).
Apparently DHs ex was a horrible housekeeper. My sweet MIL has told me that whe she came to visit, she would spend days cleaning their house( my hubby was working 3 jobs ). So my stepdaughter never learned to clean.
Despite growing up in a filthy home, I knew I never wanted to be embarrassed to have company at any given moment in my own home. I am very fastidious about my house cleaning! But not compulsive.
My stepdaughters house is a complete pig sty! I wish I could post pictures!! Literally garbage everywhere! The guest bathroom toilet is completely brown! It was sickening to even go in there! Not a clean dish, silverware or clean space anywhere in the house!
She is afraid of judgment!
I'm most grateful that we stayed in the only motel in town. Not luxury digs, but very clean!!
Years ago my stepdaughter announced that "I just want to stay home and do what Jodi does."(I've been a homemaker for 11 years).
She works from home and has no kids! I hope some day she'll realize that being a self starter is a valuable tool and nothing to take lightly! Lol
I only expressed how proud I am of her and her husband for buying their own home! Never said a word about the state of the house!
I find it so interesting that some people such as your mom and others turn everything into a contest.
Why do they desire to do this? It would upset me to constantly be compared to other people’s kids.
Yes, parents with more than one child compare their children, which isn’t fair.
All children are different. Each of us has strengths and weaknesses.
I could never make any difference with my kids. It’s totally unfair to them, plus I love them equally.
It’s ridiculous for your mom to compare you to other resident’s children.
Not only is it insensitive but I bet it isn’t anywhere near the truth.
Hellebore, No. Words. For. That. FB. Post. NO WORDS. Just the instant you think your NM is displaying one iota of humanity, BOOM, that FB post to change your mind and set you straight. I would block her on FB entirely, and not respond to it AT ALL. Do not give her the satisfaction of knowing that you even SAW the post! Insanity. It 'got to you' b/c it was INTENDED to get to you. In a passive/aggressive way, naturally, bc honesty and being upfront and REAL is not in these women's vocabulary. Back handed sly BS is all they know. Then they can turn around and innocently say What? Me? I didn't say or do anything wrong, YOU just misinterpreted what I was trying to say, it's YOUR fault you dummy! Ignore her sh*t and by blocking her, you will NEVER have to read another POS she posts again. Enough is enough. The woman is beyond delusional and I wish her good luck trying to get others to bow down to her delusions of grandeur.
Just realize, like you said, that NOTHING you do for NM will EVER be good enough so quit jumping thru the fiery hoops & burning yourself. Bring over the plant and whatever else you want for the blessed event b'day and be done with it. Spend a few minutes and vamoose out of there. Do the minimum and expect the minimum from HER. That's all you CAN do, you know? It's what I do with mine. Used to be a time where I'd go way out of my way to do nice things for her and then get a spit in the eye in return, then decided No More. What for?? She'll get what she needs and a few little extras here and there for b'days and 'Mother's Day' HA! and that's it. No cards, either, b/c who can EVER find one with the right sentiment? A BLANK card is best. Where I can write something inside like Happy Birthday and that's it.
EP: I also laughed out loud about the crib idea! NM doesn't need 'help' in bed, per se, she just needs to quit LEANING OVER b/c she has NO core strength and cannot pull herself back up once she does! So she keeps falling. The advancing dementia prevents her from realizing all of this, thus, the falls. I so wish they could get her a big old crib, but bars or sides of any kind are considered 'restraints' and are a no-no, believe it or not. She'll just keep falling and falling and poor Rick the night nurse who she calls The Giant (everyone gets assigned a nasty nickname by NM) will have to keep coming in to pick her up off the floor. Sigh.
NHWM: I'm sure we'll be expected to get a TON of 'booster' shots which I will not be getting myself. Moderna & Pfizer are ALREADY working on boosters! I read an article which suggested those of us who are 'vaccinated' are now 8x more prone to catching ALL the variants of covid!! The prior coronavirus vaccines were not effective for that reason, and when tested on animals (as these ones WERE NOT) they all died. I surely hope that down the road we're not all very very sorry we got these jabs to begin with, considering they're experimental in nature & untested long term. God help us all is what I have to say.