She has dominated her childrens' lives with little concern for anyones' feeling but her own. She is now in a wonderful assisted living and her dementia (I think) has illuminated her personality into a person who I can no longer bear to be around. She has again managed to alienate everyone around her with her insults and insensitivity. She is nasty and uncooperative with the aids (who are wonderful) And complains, complains, complains about everyone, everything and blames my sister and myself for the air she breathes. I am sick of her and I don't want to visit her anymore and don't feel that my adult children need to be manipulated like I was and be around her negative attitude anymore. I hate feeling obligated to have her at my house as I have every holiday of our lives and force my children to "tolerate" her for my sake. The guilt is unbearable but I feel that now being 60 years old I would like to feel that this person does not dominate my whole life. I would like to have a happy holiday for a change and have my children WANT to come home (without Grandma always there)
There has never been any pleasing her before and now she sends me into bouts of depression that I have a hard time shaking. Am I alone? I feel like a selfish person but I don't like her now and never did before. The guilt is killing me.
it goes back as far as i can remember and now, she is 91 in December. Yup, went thru the " its me's"- as a kid and now Im at the point where I have learned to do the right thing and walk away. When she starts one of her routines- Baby voice/ sick ole lady- I leave. Dying immediately, I leave- venom spewing, I leave. Whether its the room or her place- LEAVE.
To be honest there is some sort of good feeling now that I can do right by her care, but I have the power to end it IMMEDIATELY. Only took me 60 years. I pay her bills, handle her meds, and see there is grocery's, laundry, etc. and thats it. I figured out I dont have to love or like her, but I have to maintain what I KNOW is right from wrong.
It doesnt matter what diagnosis she has or doesnt have. Selfish, self centered, condescending, extremely jealous, vindictive, fowls mouth son of a b*tch does have to have a diagnosis when she has been this person her entire life. I dont care if she is 90, this is who she was when I was born and over the years have honed her craft.
Now kids, its about us. We, the damaged children of the miserable are torn between the life we grew up with and the lives we managed to achieve of our own, despite what we were programmed to accept. Ya, I said accept- because here we are today- struggling with the same thing all over again as we did with childhood. AND WHY, because they are aged?
So lets get it out there- if you can walk away, do it. The longer you stand there the more it gets into your brain and there we are being reprogrammed back to the good ole days. I see her 3 times a week. I limit the visit to her mouth. She is decent, I stay longer. Once it starts, Im out the door. All calls goes to VM- I play it, if its nasty, I do not respond, pleasant I call her back. I have hired help, she fired them. Now my attitude is different.
She is nocturnal and will get bored during the night- no longer my problem. When I go to her place and she wants to sleep or fake dying...I leave. Minutes later, my phone will ring and she will have some excuse and want to know if Im coming back. I dont. So she has pretty much stopped that one.
I have learned we can have some sort of control and its not over them, its over us. Do the things we need to do for an aging parent, yet its ok not to love or like them.
Somewhere in my head I pictured me- standing there- with a box, full of rocks, dirt and ugly stuff. It stunk to high heaven and I could barely hold it up anymore. Then I handed it back to her and thought- here, this is yours, not mine......and boom, honest to God, I changed, right then and there. I have no explanation for this, it just happened and I am grateful. How my mind wandered to that senerio- no clue.... Im throwing this out there and if it helps great. This thread was a God send for me to find and probably where something clicked in me. I got advice and didnt even realize it was clicking.
Doesn't it feel good to let it all out to a non-judgmental group? That's us.
My mom (narcissist and hypochondriac) put me through 3 months of h*ll one summer, as she was sure she was dying from some pain that started between her legs and slowly (over 3 months) moved from her lower abdomen into her upper chest. Of course she got ALL the tests Kaiser had. She wound up with not a thing wrong! I called her on it and said that she's fine and I will no longer listen to physical complaints. So, I hear ya'!
Struggling1,
How awesome! You have figured out how to beat her at her own game! YOU are in control of you and your response to her. Takes others a lifetime to figure that out.
Only. Was your mother always, including long before her diagnosis, a bit of a handful - if I can put it like that?
I feel for you. She has lived her life and now you must live yours. Dementia...will she know you in the future? Have a living funeral and get on with your life...be happy.
i suspect a mood disorder coupled with some cognitive decline, but she is an adult whom makes her own decisions. She has tantrums when she doesn’t get her way, and can make ridiculous accusations. My sister hasn’t even seen her since her surgery, and I am the sole caregiver.
im exhausted.
I keep going hoping to see sweet mom version but yesterday I got confirmation from a nurse that I don't think sweet mom exists and that she seems to have stabilized enough that her 'normal' personality is there full throttle now. Frankly, I'm pretty much done with her if this is who she will be. She was never really a nice person in decades that I remember and I really have been an amazing daughter to her for the most part helping her through two knee surgeries, helping with things around the house when I could, helping her through the last year in her major decline and visiting her daily for months this summer/fall until I realized it was dragging me down.
She is my mom and I do love her, but I don't really like her. I did adore that sweet version of her that I had for maybe just under a year. In retrospect, I didn't even realize she was this new version for about half of it. I am certain that the dementia had something to do with it. It's like she forgot she was a jerk or something. Knowing that this version of her is gone sort of makes it ten times worse because for a few months there when I realized she was this nicer version, I just felt so comforted by that. I loved spending time with her and did whatever I could to help her. It felt like a gift from the gods. And now that personality is gone and cranky mom is back. Granted she seems to be better than she was previously in that she's not that bad, but there are still aspects of her that remind me of the worse version of her and going to spend time with her in a nursing home at all with her like that is unappealing. And knowing how she was for those few months and what it was like to have what to me felt like a really good supportive loving mom just makes it even sadder now. Even worse, going to visit hoping to see that version or feeling like I NEED to see that version because I didn't have a decent mom and now I am in this weird position of remembering and missing the good mom I had for some months when the not good one is back, it just makes the whole thing suck even more.
And then there's the fact that sometimes I actually like her better now when she has an infection. She seems less hostile or displeased then. There's a kind of underlying displeased attitude that she had for decades. It seems gone when she is ill and for the few months where she was pretty great as a mom. Now I even wonder how the dementia will progress because I suspect it made her the cynical pessimistic paranoid mean spirited jerk she had been for many years. She's definitely not anything that bad right now but I can see shades of it but to a much lesser degree. I decided last night to stop visiting so much because I feel like it's me on a rollercoaster looking for someone who may never return.
My selfish old parents would suck the last breath of life out of me if I let them.
They are afraid of death.
We will all die someday and me living in the shadow of their fear and disappointment (they are well looked after and have way more money than I do) is in no way going to improve my lot. The saying goes ”misery loves company”. Maybe me being miserable would make them happy. What kind of parent is that?They have always seen the glass as half empty and l always have the feeling they can’t stand it when I am happy.
Live your life. I guarantee you that making yourself or letting others make you miserable is NOT your purpose on this planet. I am not a religious zealot but I am positive that God’s purpose for us is not to let ourselves be treated badly by miserable people who are afraid to die.
Do not be afraid to live. We will all die some day and that is the level playing field of life.
Go out there and enjoy it while you can. You do not owe your parents the air you breathe. They have their own air. As do we all - just a certain amount and then your number is up.
I truly enjoyed spending time with my late Grandparents and my Aunt. They were warm, wise, funny, loving and caring. They knew neither one of us would live forever. Life has many phases and chapters for each of us. Don’t let your crabby old mother hijack your joy.
I have performed this excersise myself. Simply pretend that your parents are “okay” (assuming they have their basic custodial and material needs met) and act as if you are completely unencumbered by them. And you will stop waiting for the day they die in order to be happy.
Both my parents have all their custodial and material needs met - much more well off than me. If they do not realize it - well I realize it. If they have health maladies me being “sick” isn’t going to make them “well”. I’ve been around sick old people who are still filled with joy. It is their perspective on life.
You see what I mean? Maybe they will catch on and maybe they won’t. You do not need to feel guilty about enjoying your own life. If you have good health that is a gift not to be frittered away.
I am one of amongst many siblings. We are all basically decent people. I remember very vividly one day my old mom, who suffers from a very unusual and difficult neurological problem, said to me “It’s because of you kids that I have this problem!”
My friend’s mom is the exact same age as mine (85) and has just as many children. They are all grown adults. She is in very good health.
My mother’s poor condition is the result of bad luck and probably bad genes. It has nothing to do with anything I or any of my siblings have ever done. I didn’t make it happen and I can’t undo it.
Old age and death will visit each and every one of us. I have seen some take it gracefully and others are just angry about everything.
Live your life in peace. You cannot control your parent’s angry or depressive attitude about the fact that their body is not what it once was and they will not live forever. If they seriously need professional counselling that is better than you turning yourself inside out trying to please them. That would be a full time job and maybe they’ll be fine but you’ll be completely depleted.
It's incredibly sad what we have to go through with these toxic women. I dearly hope we can detach from them and allow ourselves to live in peace and happiness from now on.
I wont rant on about the decades of physical, mental, emotion, marriage issues or the financial destruction this SOB mother of mine has caused. Lets just say at 60, I got crap to show for it and she is in better physical shape than me. How or why is she breathing? 91 miserable years! Just like her mother.
The trick to survival, is distance.
I have said this so many times, but here I go again.....
Just when I was about to totally implode I got this weird vision in my head, like a mini movie. I was standing there face to face with her. I had this filthy box, it weighted a ton, it stunk, Cold, heavy, rancid heavy garbage and rock and I could barely hold it up anymore. I said to her, " here this is your, not mine" and I handed it to her. BOOM! I can not tell you honestly what the hell happened but it was instant, like a mouse trap snap.
I was done, I was free, I somehow change my entire mind set right then and there. Granted, I still have to deal with her existence, there are thing I still do, but from a distance, on my schedule, I am never with her for more than an hour on a good day and on a usual rant & rave day, I warn her to get off the subject or I leave, if she doesnt...Im out the door, instantly.
Somehow once I got going, it all started to sink in- stupid things like would you stand in a room full of rotten eggs- letting it take you over? Would you put up with a total stranger ripping you apart for no reason? Would you show up at work every day when they met you at the door ripping you up and down? Dahhhh......and we have, for years, decades! Why because of the word "Mom"? dahhhhhh again. See what I mean? There is no guilt, there is right or wrong, good or bad, healthy or sick and we are 60...tick tick tick! I have a heart problem, 5 surgeries under my belt and I know dam well I dont have decades to go. I have 14K in the bank, there is no retirement in my further, for me, its work until I cant, then the domino effect starts with creditors and I get a front seat to watching that train wreck happen. I dont care if you walk, run or take an Uber....get away from the room of rotten eggs! You got this, if it can get thru my thick skull you can too. Hang in there!
I'm done.
Thank you, dear Lady, for sharing yourself today, it's really helped me.