Elderly mum and excessive worrying/anxiety from her- LONG sorry!

You can request a free visit from the fire service, who will advise you what is safer/designed to be left plugged in, and what should be turned off. Would they listen to a fireman - older generations often listen to “authority”?

It's me that.

Hi Grace.It's me that takes the Kalms, before taking mum to the Dr, dentist , hospital etc they do help to take the edge off.Mum wouldn't take them as she doesn't see her incessant worrying as a problem, she just says it's because she cares.

in case it's of use to anyone, I did manage to get mum to take Kalms - her anxiety is worse than usual because of dad's death and she has started unplugging things... anyway, she tells me they are helping...but then again, she doesn't want to worry me...!

I see her enough to think they are helping a bit.

Don’t normally frequent this board but it’s popped up in active conversations. I shouldn’t laugh but some of these posts are just so relatable to my DGM. I feel so sorry for her living with the constant anxiety but it’s wearing too. If she knows we are coming to visit there’s repeated calls saying it’s misty outside, too many idiots on the road, we should be at home with our own families etc. Maybe she just doesn’t want us to visit

In my DGMs case she can’t have anti anxiety meds due to another health condition but I think they’d be so beneficial to her. Even if it just took the edge off her nerves.

Worryingly I can see my DM going the same way

I wish my mum would have anxiety Meds June. She has been on antidepressants for most of her life, just not for the last fifteen years, I've tried to broach the subject a few times, and all I get is , it's just how I am, I care about everyone.What can you say.

Could she get some anxiety meds from GP. Too old to get addicted. My dm was like this in her old age and got anti anxiety meds as its a cruel way to live. We survived it by acceptance and making a joke among ourselves as to what the next
Worry topic would be. That kept us sane. Now she has died we still play the worry game and it makes us think fondly of her and reminds us not to do this to our dc.

Unnecessary not necessary!

I've found this anxiety gets worse as parents get old. My grandad used to worry about all sorts of necessary things now MIL is doing the same the older she gets. I think a lot of it is to do with the fact that they're at home a lot on their own not really doing much.

I’m sorry OP, but this is a wonderful thread.
So very familiar in so many ways, my parents are chronically ill and in their 80s, I live round the corner and work ft. The point about being phoned up, barked at and summoned rings so true, then the anxiety if I don’t respond with Pavlovian swiftness.
Not being able to just chat, I have to run every word through a filter in case it’s triggering. And the bloody unplugging!
So I lie a lot, hide the truth a lot, smile and nod a lot instead of justifying or explaining and I don’t worry about them worrying.

@Tara336 ha ha I like the planes argument. I'll try that one.

@paulfoel I feel your pain! DF could not believe that I would actually not switch off the immersion heater at the flat when I was not going to be there for a few days. He said there could be a fire! I said yes and there are planes flying over us on could crash on us, neighbours could have a flood, there could be a gas explosion.... how many times have any of those things actually happened in your vicinity? He now leaves that subject alone but merrily carries on switching everything off in his own home 😃

@Tara336 Ha ha I can see my Dad doing that.

Another thing he used to do. Bought him a mobile phone. Won't use. Tried to tell him to take it out with him then we could contact him. Nope - wont do it. No benefit to him, no skin off his nose if we need to contact him so he doesnt bother.

When hes in hospital its different. Hes got no way to badger us to visit him so he takes it with him. One time he phoned me and said "tell your brother I can;t get hold of him and want to speak to him. Im not happy with him".

Turns out Dad was turning phone on. Phoning me. Then phoning brother, leaving message, then turning phone off and putting it back in the box until next time he wanted to use it.

Thats Dad for you. Expects people to jump when he wants and wont consider that maybe someone is busy and will call him back.

@paulofel DD unplugs things even if he’s not going out, just to the next room. I stayed with them while I renovated my flat, internet gets turned off the minute he leaves the living room. DP stayed at our house while we went on holiday to care for our dogs, by time we got home sky was buggered, internet buggered because he kept turning boxes off. DM seemed to be able to cope with me traveling round Far East but can’t handle me popping in car to Sainsbury’s 🤪

Oh Purple I could have written this myself.I know exactly how you feel, my mum is in her late 80s and I'm an only one. It's very frustrating, because like you, my mum is quite well and everybody comments on how lucky I am to have a mum so fit and well, and I could scream at them because the anxiety she has is overwhelming, and it causing me to feel physically unwell now I have several stress related illnesses myself now I'm in my sixties.We actually moved house some years ago, to give us some space, which does feel better, it's only a few miles, but it prevented her from dropping in on us all the time.The biggest problem is the phoning all the time,asking how everyone is, if I don't answer, she'll move on to my ac.They don't always answer now, but she won't stop until she gets someone. The easiest way I deal with it is to always let the calls go to answerphone, then you can pick it up when your ready, and as ashamadely tell as many white lies as you can get away with I just tell myself it's for her own good it does seem to calm her down.I could never tell her anything bad, mine and her life wouldn't be worth living.Good luck with your mum, hope you find a way.Good job we love them.

Tara - yeh my Dad used to turn off (and pull the plug out) of every single electrical appliance in the house (even the fridge). Eventyually when he had to set the clock all the time on his VCR (remember them?) he stopped.

One time we were walking back to his house and a fire truck went past. He ran full speed towards his house assuming his house was on fire. Nuts. It could have been any one of like 40 houses in the street (it wasnt even in the street who knows)

Yep do that too with arrival times. Hes in all day. What time are you coming? 4-5pm ish. If Im not there by 401pm and walk in at 402pm I get the "I've been worried sick about you, thought you'd had an accident".

Both of my DP are like this, both have anxiety one diagnosed the other not. My DM catastophises everything!! drives me absolutely mad, ie I found some errors in our business accounts, the person who does our accounts is on holiday, from that she has decided they paid for the holiday by siphoning off money from our business 🙄. DF is an anxious control freak and gets quite nasty if he cannot manage every detail of your life he is absolutely obsessed with fire and will switch every frigging electrical item off that we own causing untold chaos every time he stays with us.

My DM will also obsess over journeys if you say 11am and get stuck behind a tractor on the way the drama is ridiculous! I now don’t tell her until I’m 5 minutes away.

They have both been like it a s long as I can remember and at times I can get anxious (had CBT and tons better) my therapist advised it’s a learnt behaviour

OMG this is my Dad....

If I go on holidays he expects me to ring him the minute the plane lands. He hates me going anywhere because "its dangerous". Outside the uk is a no no - "thieving foreigners". God forbid I go anywhere where there are non-white people too (bit of a racist my dad). London too is a no-go area in his head (2-3 hours away) because the people there are not right (he says).

I take him away every year for the weekend to watch cricket. We stay in hotel. I drive. Hes now said he doesnt like me driving home too far in the dark (i.e. more than 30 mins) because its not safe because I'll be tired. (Even though I point out my car has got headlights!)

Nuts really. I'm 50 years old. Travelled all over europe with work. USA many times. Yet he thinks I'm not safe to drive 50 miles.

It's terrible to think she's sitting there wringing her hands till I call. It is, but it's her choice to do that. Harden your heart, and drive away any guilty thoughts. You've done all you can, so she has to be responsible for the consequences of her behaviour. You are not responsible for how she feels.

this sounds awful but re the "contorted anxious face"

I have raging anxiety but have become much more rational after taking medication. My mother refuses to try medication and that bugs me, because I'm walking evidence that there's a possibility for change.

I asked her the other day if she remembered how it was trying to deal with me when I was anxious about nothing and interestingly she said she can't remember at all.

Oh and I've also noticed that recently she has become VERY worried about food (use by dates, preservatives etc) and general hygiene.

She reads a lot on the internet and believes 99.9% of what she reads.

I've found the best way to mitigate it, is to not give too many details about anything, thus reducing the number of things she could potentially worry about.

This is hard, because I would love to just be able to talk openly, rant about things and moan to her. But I have come to realise that she just can't handle it.

I had to laugh at your 'contorted anxious face' comment though. It all sounds so familiar!

OP I could have written your post, even moving a long way from ‘home’ 40 years ago, and the endless worrying.
I too always have to call as soon as I get back from visiting
As she’s got older and as I’ve got older I now remind myself that in a few years time she won’t be there to call anymore, and I’ll feel sad about that rather than relieved.

Im pretty sure at her age, you are not going to change her, can you manage to accept that? Then you need to put in place boundaries and strategies to manage her impact on you.

Mum I will call you at 6pm
Mum I wont enter into this discussion
Mum if you call I will not answer until 6pm
Mum Im going for a walk and I dont know when I will be back as I might stop off to do xyz

And then remember that you worrying about her worrying is pretty much the same as her worrying about you.... iyswim. So you need to find a place of acceptance that she will worry, and that is OK because it is who she is.