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.
You can't have these people live with you. I just can't see it. I get told that all of the time from well meaning peope, "when are you going to let your mother move it?" and I realize that the people saying it have sweet mothers or slightly difficult mothers, not terrorists. I was at my mom's trying to arrange a driving service for her and she got really mean with the service, then she started hitting me. It's just too crazy. I'm 50, no one hits me ever just psycho woman. Like a rabid animal. The lady from the service was VERY worried about having this crazy woman dumped on her lap. You can't have abusive people living with you. What if your spouse did this? Would you stay? Would society expect you to stay and take the abuse? Certainly not. Get out of there. Whatever it costs just go.
After another stroke her speech is so slurred she decided she didn't want her phone so I had it cut off. Now she calls me from a hallway phone every day with wild imaginings, like when she can walk (been in a wheelchair for 9 months, can't sit up or stand alone and will never walk again) she's going to buy a big fancy house and furniture and find someone to live with her, care for her 24/7 and do all the work. Her shenanigans over the years have aged me terribly and my hair is falling out. Do I have it out with her, a lifetime abuser? What's the point, she's had dementia for years, an A1 narcissist and everything is about her. I'm going to have her phone put back on so she can drive others batty (she has no real friends) and change my number. I must act as she continues to plunge me into deep depression and I need to rebuild the life she destroyed.
One thought is if things are far enough gone, you may be able to get guardianship (if you want all the responibiilty that entails - you may not, and no one would blame you!) rather than POA. Just be careful and keep yoru name off of bank accounts, bills, and credit cards.
My mom never quite got done trying to correct all my faults either.
If you're able to, leave and don't take this role on unless you won't mind years of misery. My mom was quite the same as yours. I'm an only child, too. Had I known back in the day what I know now, I would have run like a bat out of hell before I would have subjected myself to my mom and her issues. I feel I've just gotten out of a torture chamber after 10+ long years... God help anyone in this kind of situation without POA... You'll be stuck like a rat in a trap with no way out of it..
What is the facility going to do about this wanderer? It seems to me that they should keep a better eye on this guy..
Sometimes with the way I've been feeling I don't even care about ever meeting a man. I kind of like being alone lately. It doesn't mean I want to be alone forever, but right now I'm liking it and would like to enjoy my solitude for a good long while. God knows I have reason enough to appreciate the beauty of solitude..
Today on the phone she told me she woke in the middle of the night to see a man with a black hat and long black coat and she was terrified. The call bell got a nurse to come and she escorted him out of the room. We're at the stage where I need to check out whether it's real, imagination or hallucination but the NH confirmed it had occurred. They have a new resident who is a wanderer and they've put a picture on his door so he knows where to go.
Darn it, some people have all the luck. I haven't had a man in my bedroom for years, but then my dogs would likely eat him anyway :)
This accounts for some, though not all, of the people who end up in facilities with no one who visits them. But, if you cannot find a way to be of real help to them, it is no use for you to just be sucked in and eaten alive. Placing someone and being a less frequent visitor may improve who they treat you; if they sense you will be there for them no matter how they act, they may never act any better. I say "may" because the capacity for consicous insight and real change may be nil, but many will treat infreuent visitors and staff better than the family member who cares for them all the time.
I would like to tell you to disregard all the ugly things mom says about you and to you, but I know first hand how hard it is to feel like a worthy human being when your own mom calls you stupid. Mine would brag about me to other people but still sometimes it was just like having posion dripped into you every day. It brought me down; I learned to do whatever little things I could that she might actually like and to expect nothing in the way of apology or supportiveness of any kind. There was no way on earth to learn all of her unwritten rules about what was to her liking and what was bad or stupid. I had already learned that emotional support would have to come from someone else, though of course Mom always discouraged contact and openness with anyone else...I had to learn to stop letting her discouarge me from having normal close relationships and from forgiving or overlooking rather than judging and holding grudges.
The saddest thing about my mom's life is that she had no idea of forgiveness; she simply always had to be right.
First, get her to a doctor for evaluation. Dementia like behavior can come from so many different things. Stroke, clashing meds, urinary tract infections, and more. It's important to get a doctor to pay attention to this to know what to do for her and you!
She may need care at home, or outside of home. Some of our folks do better in a senior care facility, and they are not all nursing homes. Sometimes they behave better for people in medical authority clothes, like nurses & doctors.
The meanness is so hard to bear. But it's a sign something is happening to her. Even if she's been this way mostly always. They are going to be better around people they don't see often, so you get to see it all because you are there all the time.
Please contact your local area on aging to connect with in-home services, financial assistance, and support. My tip is to never ask the elder if that's ok or if they want help to come in. If it's necessary, it is necessary. When I was 5 nobody asked me if i wanted to go to the dentist - I would have said no of course! You just do what you have to do to make her safe and yourself sane and protected.
You deserve a life with happiness and love. Please stay connected and let us know how it's going.
My mother is and has always been very miserable, mean, jealous, angry and hateful all her life. I feel she is getting worse. Way back in elementary school she would tell the teachers not to allow me
to have friends, then when I started to date she would not give me phone messages.
My father would want to fist fight my dates. It was awful to say the least. My miserable father died a few years ago by choice, he released himself from the hospital (no one went to see him). He was tired of fighting with mom. He had no friends and relatives had nothing to do with both my parents. They would ruin holidays and to this day, mom still does. Well I thought to move my mom back to where she grew up (her mother died young and no one wanted the kids) so some were spilt up and she ended up with her grandfather. I moved her back here thinking it would be better for her. Small town, less crime, shopping close by, has a sister here and Senior Centers. She would rather sit home and complain all day and call me names.
We live together and I'm looking for work. I apply for lesser jobs too, still nothing. I met a nice guy and she hates him, calls him names daily and me too. Her favorite name for me is ass****. She uses the middle finger almost daily, in public, at home, at the store she makes scenes. I now wait in the car for her to shop. I sweep the floor and she will throw crumbs on the floor, she kicked food under the chair I sit on rather than pick it up, I saw her do this and she lies. Just in the last couple months she accuses me of stealing things, like a pen, or scissors. The pen was in front of her the whole time and the scissors she put in a bag two days earlier, she could not remember putting them there no matter how much I reminded her. We walked into her room together and there they were, in the bag where she put them. She misplaced money, I helped her look for it, moved furniture only to never find it? She accused me of stealing her recyclable and giving to my friend?? She was in a RAGE! Yelling, cussing, calling me names. I called the recycling company and they said they picked up, she called too but would not tell me what they said, so I called them myself, yet she never said sorry. She accuses me of stealing her salad dressing just two days ago when I saw it in front of her. Never does she say sorry.
I had mention this to my long time friend of 35 years who knows mom and he said it sounds like dementia? I am 54 and know nothing about dementia till last month. Does this sound like dementia? She is worse than ever. Do old people get mean as they age? She is pretty healthy and is not rich or poor. She can afford to do things but rather sit home and look for trouble. I get migraines so she sprays chemicals knowing I suffer. She slams doors when I have a migraine. She is horrible. Never is she wrong, she will argue till the sun goes down. She has to always be right. I can't say one thing without her "barking' at me. I don't even get half way done with my words and she is cutting me off to argue. There is NO reasoning. Today I fixed breakfast for myself, she said why? To throw it away? I cut fruit on a plate, she said why is that fruit bad? Why would I cut bad fruit on a plate? Everything is negative, EVERYTHING! I try to say very little to her now, but still she tries to argue.
It's a fight daily, she wakes in a bad mood EVERY day. I remember my father saying she is a miserable "B" and I agree. Never does she say good morning, its always something rude or cusses. I tell her I am going to ignore her and I do, still she goes on and on. I take her shopping and she starts yelling in the car. If I say I am going out with my friend, she calls him foul names, goes into a rage, yelling, cussing, throwing her arms up. I told her it's a jealous rage. There is no stopping her, she goes on and on and on, even if I leave the room.I find its best not to tell her things and when she ask, I say it's not your business. Usually she cusses at me or calls me names rather than saying OK. I use to take her out on day trips, NO more. My friend bought me a humming bird feeder and like to watch them, she said I'm stupid and the birds are stupid too. I have a cat, she says I'm stupid for talking to her. I tell her she's a good kitty and I'm stupid? I took mom on the trail to walk last week and get some exercise, she starts saying all my friends are losers? People were looking and I was embarrassed. I try to stay away from her, if I walk into another room she runs in and starts complaining or calling me names or my new friend. I told her he's here to stay, too bad, it's my life and I will pick my friends, not you. My friend has done a lot for me and has been there for me. I helped him when needed too. She responded with the F word. I hear the F word daily. So, so difficult. I can't afford
to move without a job. Today she called me many foul names, said I look stupid reading things on the computer. I told her some day you might need me and I won't help you. I have never known her to have friends and relatives stayed away cause my father would make scenes and call them names, plus my parents fought 24/7 even in public. He was a horrible father too, liar, cheater, thief. I am not sure if it's her age or the move back here maybe opened wounds or she's ill or what. But it's horrible to be around her. She refuses to get professional help, says I need it. Says she's the way she is cause of me, wishes she never had me. I have a brother who lives out of the area, He came to visit a couple months ago and saw the real mom, now he seldom calls her. He brought his girlfriend and mom said if you bring her...... Well, she embarrassed us. Made the visit a living hell. She told me on the last day of his visit, I warned him.
.Any advice is appreciated.
I encourage you to look into senior housing and how she can fund it herself and with financial aid/subsidies.
I did not bring my mom into our holiday gatherings. I knew she would show off, and do anything necessary to ruin it for everyone. She has not been in my home since she moved out mid-November. She may never be again. This is our safe haven.
If she has fantasies about how we ought to be sitting at her knee anticipating every little thing, waiting for instructions, petting her ego, fawning and kissing up, then she ought to know about my fantasy that will never happen.
My fantasy is that she'd be loving, accepting of everyone of us for who we are, allow us to be our own person with opinions and dreams. She'd be pleasant, friendly, and reassuring. That's all. Just nice to be around. But she isn't. Not even when it seems all her demands and terms are met. So, we do our thing our way, and I apologize to my kids that they got shortchanged in the grandma department.
There won't be dinners, holidays, recitals, cookie baking, shopping, or any of those other nice thigns with her. Too bad, but it's not worth the trouble. You are not alone.