I am 65 and my is 86. She tries to make me feel guilty and does a great job at it. When I am with my daughter she calls me 2 or 3 times and then I feel like if I don't go home I will be in trouble. Feel like a kid again. She has limited mobility and gets tired when we go to store. She sometimes stays in car and once again makes you feel guilty for leaving her there. She is making me crazy and now I am having heart problems because of it. I try to get her help but she said she doesn't need it. She wont get hearing aids or her teeth fixed. I am just fed up. The bad thing is she has been like this forever.
Generally we grow up and after long and long we forgive our parents for their limitations. In many cases parental limitations were severe and had profound effects on our lives. The only way to get over them is to move through them and that often takes the help of someone trained in helping us find insight.
I hope that you are not doing caregiving for your Mom, and that you do not live with her or her with you. That enmeshment as you enter you senior years and she enters her final years would continue an inability to move on with your life.
I sure hope that you get relief and insight for your coming years. You are entering those retirement years that are some of the best years of your life, free of child care and free of parental care, and a time when you can, if you choose, see and learn about the world in the most productive ways. When you come to your Mom's age you will be ready to sit back cushioned by wonderful memories; that is my wish for you. I at 80 am right there.
I would stop answering her questions and stop taking her out, unless necessary.
Watching Teepa Snow videos on YouTube really helped me deal with my own LOs.
I ask because she is probably scared if she is alone and she probably isn't safe being alone.
A good sitter will be able to distract her and make time fly. It will free you up to put her calls on do not disturb or even block her calls while you get an uninterrupted break.
I want to tell you, it is completely okay to tell her to stop when she is pushing boundaries. No explanation needed, just stop.
You matter too and if this situation is no longer working, it is okay to change it. She isn't going to be happy but, what will she do if you drop dead because of the stress?
PS: dementia usually makes people more of who they are. Guilt trippers, manipulators, meanies, etc. lose any filters and that makes them even more of what they were pre-dementia.
I don’t know where in the spectrum your mother is. (Some mothers aren’t responsible for their behavior: for example, sudden dementia.) (BUT you said your mother has always been this way with you).
We’re daughters - and some mothers are truly horrible towards their daughters. If you were a son, she wouldn’t treat you that way - she might even like, and compliment, everything you do, you the SON.
Knowing that,
you therefore know it has nothing to do with you. It’s just that you’re a woman, so she’s against you.
You’re a woman and younger. And pretty.
I don’t know the solution. I’ve reduced contact with my mom, but not down to zero. Just 5 minutes ago, she made a comment that hurt me.
I’m really trying not to get hurt by her comments, but I do get hurt. I realize she’s like a rollercoaster my whole life: she decides when to hurt me, when to make me mad, sad…
I’m trying hard to get off the rollercoaster. I don’t mean totally stop helping her. I mean, get off her emotional rollercoaster.
I hope you also get off your mother’s emotional rollercoaster.
Preach that truth about mothers and daughters. It's that jealousy and resentment.
Moms who actually love and wanted their daughters are proud of them and happy if they turn out beautiful.
Not my mother. I've told her many times people can't help what they look like. I grew up beautiful. A female version of my father who was absolutely gorgeous. At my second wedding our photographer asked if he could use the picture of my father walking me down the aisle as a display. That was fine. My mother wasn't at either of my weddings because she couldn't get past her jealousy and resentment
What a shame it is how such pettiness ruins mothers and daughters. That should be the closest bond in the world.
The day you turned 18 years old you no longer had to answer to "mommy". Nor did you have to tolerate her nonsense anymore.
I got married two days after I turned 18 and from then on my mommy could go pound sand if she acts up.
If your mother has dementia and she becomes too much for you to handle, put her into a managed care facility. In the meantime, if she's with it enough that you can leave her alone for periods of when you're with your daughter do it. Don't take her calls. Let them go to voicemail. You don't have to justify yourself to her nor do you owe her any explanation for where you go or what you do.
If she starts up, completely ignore her. Don't give her any attention whatsoever.
AlvaDeer is right. No one makes us crazy unless we allow it. Well, you don't have to allow it. If you're planning on keeping mom with you, you're going to have to learn how to ignore with love. If not then place her.
And then, if she chooses not to get hearing aids or her teeth fixed in AL, it'll be HER PROBLEM entirely when she keeps asking WHAT?? when other speak to her, or she sees others backing away from her for her fetid breath! She may just decide to 'get her teeth fixed AND see an Audiologist' when there's other peers to judge her.
Best of luck taking your life back, but more importantly, your HEALTH. Please don't be among the statistics where the caregiving daughter dies BEFORE the elder she's caring for!
You knew how she is, yet it sounds like you live together, I might question my motive for doing so since living with her is affecting your mental and physical health.
As an adult you are her equal not her little girl.
Time to put on your big girl panties and stand up for yourself, make some plans for her to go into AL before it becomes an emergency, what happens if you die first?
My father always said "If you fail to plan, you plan to fail".
All those things where she won't let me wear what I want, drink, or drive
I am working on a plan for next year to completely cut all ties with her
”I’m the boss of you.”