I'm tired of cooking/preparing 3 meals a day. It's just the two of us but boy oh boy can that woman eat!! She stays slimish, I get fattish. It's bad enough I do everything here much less start making her one thing and me the other. At times I feel guilty when I buy her fast food cuz of the nutritional value....not to mention I eat it too.
Me: PLEASE don't come up behind me and hang on the back of my chair.
Mom: (the victim, sounding hurt yet again) Why do you always get upset with me?! You need to be nice to me.
Me: Then stop coming up behind me like I have asked before.
Mom: I don't understand why you always get upset with me.
Me: BECAUSE I have asked you more than 10-15 times before to stop coming up behind me and leaning on the back of my chair.
Mom: (no answer, no apology) AGAIN .... ignores what I ask .....
Is it perhaps time to change something else in the scene, rather than hoping that your mother will finally get the message and stop annoying the bejeepers out of you?
My mother was forever picking imaginary loose threads off my sleeve. This was of course completely harmless. It was even quite sweet, really, I suppose, her way of showing loving care towards her child. All the same I still shudder about it now. If she'd crept up on me in the way that yours does to you, oh crikey, I can't imagine.
But my mother had vascular dementia, I didn't expect her to stop. Still wished she wouldn't do it, only didn't expect any different.
You couldn't, perhaps, move the furniture around so that at least you always spot her coming?
I sympathize, I had a narcissistic mother too. At just about 96 and stage 6 Alz., she's lost her narcissism, the only good thing about the disease.
Since this is the whine thread, I guess I'll go for it. Hubs has certainly has been a grump for the last few days. I'm guessing it's nervousness about an upcoming trip out of town that has his shorts in a knot.
I can't WAIT to have a little peace and quiet for 5 days! He's going around the house "preparing" stuff so that nothing will go wrong when he's gone. Dear Heavens, it's only 5 days not 5 months.
Bon voyage honey. Sigh 🙁
There's even a line for it from Fawlty Towers: "and our next contestant on Mastermind is Sybil Fawlty, specialist subject 'The Bleedin' Obvious'... "
Mind you. Whether your DM (dearest mama) is being a PITA because she has dementia and doesn't get it, or because she has no empathy and doesn't get it, the net net is still that she's not going to stop. And it's driving you nuts.
I suppose hiding a tiny piece of electric fence wiring (with a very low current, of course) on the back of the chair is out of the question? You could claim it must be static build-up and say "oh no, what happened?" Or one of those joke-shop buzzers.
Just indulging in fantasy. I know you wouldn't really!
Sounds like mom is in one of the fun stages of dementia and just when you think it can't get any worse or last any longer - it does
they tend to get clingy possibly afraid and of course have no sense of time or another's needs
mom who is hard of hearing would be in another room either watching tv or doing a crossword and would shout out my name - of course, not being able to hear my, "what?"
So down the hall I'd go to ask what she needed, to which the reply was usually- just wanted to know where you were -
pause, rewind, repeat
at some point, this all changes, but while in the midst, it is never ending but finding humor in it is a great stress reliever - I came closer to the brink of collapse than I care to remember but in many ways, where mom is now, is ever so much more difficult and painful to watch
dementia is a long tiring journey for everyone
enjoy your 5- day escape
There must be someone wiser than you, who is older than you. Maybe not a relative.
However, (trying not to forget the long list of very wise ones on this forum),
I do not know of anyone wiser than you.
My condolences to the very shy, little girl who has lost her mother. We all of us have a little child inside who often is hurting. Here are some hugs and love from your friends.
{{Hug }} {{ Hugs}}. More «««hugs»»».
Sue C --- any chance you can secretly extend the trip to a week?!! :)
CM --- OMG !!! I love it!!! Gotta check into the buzzer thingy !!! ROFLMAO !!!
this has been the week from hell
I’m used to working long hours but I just put in two all nighters at the office
40 hours in two days
I missed Halloween and pumpkin decorating with the Viking but at least her caregiver helped her and brought her a bucket of candy
I like the Chinese image of heaven and hell being a banquet where everybody has four foot long chopsticks, myself.
I remember my mother writing to me after some disaster or other at school and saying "never mind, darling - be a Phoenix!" Well, that's the spirit, sure enough. Still trying after all these years...
Willie, I totally relate to what you said about not having that smarter, wiser person in your life. My Mom was never big on giving advice but she was a wonderful listener. She didn't interrupt or try to fix things. She just listened. I think listening has become a lost art especially in these times of social media. I think all these devices and gadgets are giving everyone ADHD. I truly do. My Hubs talks so fast sometimes I wish I had a rewind button or a slow it down device. ( a mute button would work too sometimes)
I think we have to be our own champions. Give yourself the love that you are lacking or the comfort you are missing. Positive reinforcement from yourself can be quite powerful. I'm really trying lately to replace that mean self-talk I give myself with the affirming statements I would always get from Mom. I even hear her voice in my head when I say them to myself sometimes.
Friday was the 19th anniversary of my Dad's death. He wasn't Jewish, so although I have lit yahrzeit candles for him in earlier years it never felt quite right - not that he was the sort to reject kindly wishes whatever form or language they came in.
This year I thought I would slip quietly into the evensong service and have a little pray, instead. Truth is he wasn't much of a churchgoer either ("God-bothering" was his term for religion of all types), but the service is short and to the point, and the 2nd November is All Souls' Day, and it made sense to me.
I did truly feel he was with me, and most truly because of the way it all went wrong and I could see the suppressed laughter and gaze to the ceiling that would have been on his face.
Evensong is normally half an hour long and workaday when the choir isn't in residence (the schoolchildren were away on their half-term holiday last week). I got through the door and froze: the place was filling up fast, and a programme for Fauré's Requiem Mass was pressed into my hand and I was bundled into to a free pew. No way out, and anyway I like Fauré when it's well done. In for a penny...
An hour and a half later I was frozen solid, starving hungry, practically gassed from the incense, my ears were cringing from the "guest choir" and I was worried I might have left the stove on. The lady deacon, who I'm sure has a pleasant speaking voice in conversation but was unintelligible in an echoing cathedral, read out the long, long list of names for commemoration in batches, like the phone directory; and after communion it became clear that somebody must've accidentally dropped a batch on their way in because they had to do a quick reprise from F-H. I don't take communion, and although the verger didn't actually demand to know why not he did stand at my pew looking nonplussed for quite long enough to make me want to tell him to mind his own business. I didn't say "shoo!" but I thought it.
I did not sit long afterwards, looking holy and pensive like everybody else - the second the clergy and choir had cleared the building I scudded out of there like a rabbit, pausing only to light a candle in the chapel and hearing a very familiar voice chuckling "that'll teach you..."
On Remembrance Sunday I will go to the main service where you know exactly what you're going to get.
After months of my mother ( who is all there, no dementia) constantly verbally abused my father and me... and constantly told us she hated us and wanted to go live with my sister in PA , I finally said please go! she packed her things, called her grandchildren, who drove 3 days to get her . she now wants to come back , says she will sue me and take all I have if she cannot. ugh! This is my life!
Either there is mental illness in play, or she has some level of cognitive decline. Or both.
Believe it or not, an elder can be "sharp as a tack" in conversation and still have dementia.
I agree with CMagnum. Just tell her "no, I can't possibly have you come back here to live".
Blew through all the savings, Dad so worn down he's crawled to daughter's house as a place of refuge, Mother continues to rail histrionically, storms out, wants to storm back, grandiose threats...
Sounds manic to me. Anybody ever investigated that possibility? What does your Dad think? What does your Dad want to do? And whose household is your mother in? - are she and they safe, is the issue.
My Dad told her to stay with my sister. She is furious! Says she misses him,says it is my fault he told her that.. oh geez. I say she misses torturing him... He told her he is not leaving here. She cannot come back here. She is less than happy, as you can imagine. So the poor man has calls and texts all day from her . She told him today she will sue me, take everything I have.. I still can't figure out what for. He said to me I will just go then she will stop bothering you. I told him. Don't you dare! Today I saw my Dad cry. It was hard.
I am ok, and thank you all. I will keep Dad safe. She will not come back here. I may hide his phone. ( my brother told me to do that! ;). ) Not sure I can do that to him... but it's a thought.
I keep thinking, this is nuts, normal families don't have this. I guess we are not normal after all. Maybe I always knew that. I am emerging from the denial stage. :0. It is not easy. I just turned 60 isn't that enough trauma for one person in a year? . lol.
You are fine. No need for sorry. You needed to vent and likely need to do more. Feel free to unload.
Wouldn't true friends be happy for you when things are going well for you? I don't understand it. The old saying laugh and the world laughs with you, cry and you cry alone should be the opposite in my case.
It's like the overweight woman who suddenly loses her friend when she slims down. Pretty sad state of affairs if you ask me.
If it's a friend you would rather not lose, someone who you really like but who has this tendency, try the head-on approach - when her response to your good news is grudging, look her in the eye and say "be happy for me!" You might be able to jolly her out of it.