Appalling behaviour-dressed up as old age-it has to be addressed

@BlueLegume I've just seen your latest post, and my approach may not work given the extreme nature of your mums manipulation. That must be so hard.

I do think that sometimes you just have to take a different approach. Have you got POA? If yes then could you arrange a daily call from a carer -paid for by mum - to check in on her. If she refuses entry they can escalate to social services. If you don't have POA then call social services or get local police to do a welfare check in the circumstances you previously described.

I hate to say it but if she chooses to live in squalor without food, then you need to let her. It is her choice. It may take an 'outsider' like a social worker or police officer to talk sense into her. Yes, you will 'look awful' to them , but you know the truth. You know who she is, and you know that you can't and should not expect to sacrifice your life for her poor life choices. It's not your job, not your responsibility. Be clear about how you can help, offer solutions to her issues but then leave her to it. She's a grown adult. An old one but as long as she's competent, it's her choice to live how she wants.

Hello op, this is so relatable, except my mum is actually nice - just infuriating

The whole 'finding a reason why the solution offered to the problem articulated cannot possibly work' , I now have a new strategy

Me: So, this is your problem?
Mum: yes
Me: you have 3 choices: solution a OR solution b OR do nothing and keep the problem. Which would you like to do?
Mum: <wheels out lots of reasons why a and b won't work >
Me: ok so you are choosing to do nothing and keeping your problem. Ok. I'll leave you with that then. Please don't mention it to me again , or I will remind you of this conversation and that you have chosen to keep the easily solvable problem. If you change your mind, just let me^ know. It just to say, you are choosing to keep <insert problem here>^
Mum: well there is no need to be so rude about it. Oh ok I'll go with option a then, but I'm not happy about it <insert stream of grumbles, excuses, ranting here>
^
Me: Exit and make tea /have large gin^

There are much longer versions of this conversation, but the essence is there. She will also then claim victory and expect plaudits for having been so clever as to have come up with said solutions when adopted 'I don't know^ why anyone didn't do this sooner, it's marvellous!' 😂

Seriously though you are not alone, look up mobilise.co.uk for support. If you are lucky and your local council has fully subscribed there's even more help available in that site too.

My mum lives miles away and is getting more frail, needs more support but doesn't want to move closer to any of us as she couldn't possibly ever live in a flat. Fine, but I've explained clearly that we can't drop everything to sort out things for her. She has to organise services to do that -and pay for them. Eg she needed an urgent prescription the other day. Pharmacy couldn't deliver, neighbours were all out or busy, she wouldn't get in a cab, or ask cabbie to pick it up. Wouldn't use deliveroo or whatever. So told her she'd need to pay for one of her carers to do it. That I wasn't going to drive 6 hours to do it as I'm working and it's just nuts. That this is one of the consequences of choosing to not move. That she will have to have other local emergency procedures in place. She sorted it.

I felt awful but it's the reality. If she'd had a heart attack and was in hospital that would be a real emergency that I'd drop things for, of course, but it's not. It's just inconvenient life stuff that gets more complicated as you get older and can't drive, fall over or are just frail. I sound so hard, but if I didn't do this I'd have a breakdown. Almost did. Have learned from that.
^

Thank you for your response @BlueLegume
I am sorry you have had to live with it and wish you all the best for the future.

@BlueLegume @Lexy70
Help me understand. I definitely don’t want to belittle anyone, and no you are quite right I have been very blessed to not have an abusive parent.
So help me out because I have been confused again and again by people I come across keeping on taking the abuse and never saying ‘no’.
I can imagine it being unbelievably complicated and hard, but why not allow consequences to stand and allow her some discomfort from her own actions?
If you order food and she won’t accept it, why do you then go and buy her more to deliver in person, or go and clean her house because she won’t allow anyone else to? Or whatever the scenario is.
I am not talking about not supporting your dad with the things she won’t provide for him. I am talking about allowing her to keep acting with no consequence.
Yes, she might be hungry for a few days or live in dirt. But that would be of her own choice, and she also has the ability to make it right by accepting the support in the way you/ services are offering it.
you said that she actually said that she only wanted her daughters to do it.
What do you honestly see happening if you just said no? I get that it would feel like a massive game of chicken to see who blinked first, but wouldn’t that pain be worth it compared to what you are doing now?
I can see that someone who had never heard from a friend or a counsellor that it would be ‘ok’ would struggle. But I get the sense you have been through counselling etc about the dynamics but still cannot say ‘no’. Why not? I really, really do not get it. You are right.

I grew up thinking very consciously that I wanted to be a different kind of person and very definitely a different kind of mother.

My own was distant and cold, apart from when she frequently lost her temper, screamed, hit and once chased me (aged 16) around the house with a knife. We grew up in a very dysfunctional, conflict ridden household.

She also drove away my first boyfriend by contacting his employers and lying to them. He had to leave his job and move away. She then ‘arranged’ for me to get into a relationship with a man twice my age that she liked. I was just 17. She made no attempt to protect me from him and put pressure on for me to carry on seeing him. He was a sexual predator, as well as emotionally and physically abusive. She then spent years talking about him and wondering how he was after I finally managed to get away following a final beating that put me in hospital. She lied a lot, and used suicide threats to manipulate people, gossiped about me and said very nasty things about me behind my back - that my sister gleefully repeated to me. When my sister’s two children were being neglected by her husband while she worked nights, my mother lied about that too, denied having discussed it with me and denied that we agreed to talk to social services. There is a great deal more. . .

I started having major anxiety attacks whenever I spoke to her or thought about her. She and my sister also minimised the serious health problems I have while simultaneously expecting me to take responsibility for both of them and I realised that there was no hope. I haven’t spoken to either of them for 6 years. In general I have felt better, but the guilt of not being in touch is often difficult to bear. I think about her every day, but know that I just can’t deal with her or my sister anymore.

I've been away for a few days and am catching up and nodding along with a lot of posts.

Mine is also horrible about mental illness and sneers at people with depression (including me).

At the same time she seems to be quite anxious and is always turning up at and leaving things early and creating drama. And yes, seems to have no compassion.

I remember going to see her after I has a miscarriage (id had multiple losses), she said "Life's a bitch" then in the next breath wanted DH to took at her new kitchen cupboards.

I have suggested she gets counselling a couple of times but she doesn't want that or antidepressants either, just me and my sibling to enable her.

@JohnPrescottsPyjamas my parents were the same despite me being a cpn. Only uneducated people got dementia. I worked in a "nut house" with the "crazies"

Utterly abhorrent language and attitude to have.

@BlueLegume I think your mum by saying that is trying to convince everyone that because she is/was such an outstanding mother that her devoted daughters will sacrifice everything to care for her. I mean who wouldn't, she is such a special and unique lady.

I’m sure she did. It was all about projecting an image and an illusion of grandeur and superiority. She definitely had severe undiagnosed mental health, or at the very least, complex anxiety issues.

She had an extremely Victorian attitude to MH. She often talked about others being in the ‘cuckoo club’ or the ‘asylum’ She almost believed mental illness was catching. If someone mentioned they had suffered from depression etc, even years previously, would be immediately dropped as a friend and they would only be referred to in a low whisper.

@BlueLegume does she actually refuse to accept the delivery?

That is another level of being obstructive.

Mine is similar, nothing is ever right re food,shopping and deliveries.

@JohnPrescottsPyjamas
Perversely, she was highly judgemental of others; what they wore, their weight, how they lived their lives, what they spent
Do you think that might explain her hypersensitivity about other people's opinions?
She believed others thought the way she did ?

@Bobbie12345 I'm guessing you haven't suffered life long verbal abuse. The legacy of verbal abuse is lifelong. Please don't come on this lovely, understanding thread and belittle what many of us have experienced.

Going NC is not always an option and relationships are complex but to blame the person being abused for perpetuating the abuse is beyond nasty.

One thing my DH reminded me of this morning was how she was obsessed with others opinions of her too. She used to get very worked up that people might think she was untidy, or lazy (she used to open her curtains before she went to bed at night in case the neighbours though she might be having a lie in in the morning!) or god forbid, someone thought that she didn’t have enough money. I tried to tell her over the years, others had too busy lives to worry about what she was doing, but it never changed.

Perversely, she was highly judgemental of others; what they wore, their weight, how they lived their lives, what they spent their money on. In her own social group she was very competitive and aware, but would treat those she considered her inferiors like dirt. Very snotty with serving staff or sales assistants - unless she wanted them to give her a bit of schmooze - then she could be ‘charming’

Very sad way to live a whole life.

Remember it takes a parent to start a toxic relationship, but it takes a parent and a child to decide to continue it.
Whatever has gone before you are now an adult and you have equal choice in how this plays out from here.
If you are choosing to provide a level of support that you are uncomfortable with, and that she could be getting from elsewhere, then stop. Just stop. Make a choice and step back.
Others have done it and you can too.
It sounds like you have a family who need you and you can choose them.
Yes, she will say awful things. But, ummm, so what?

I wasn’t sure if my reply to your post seemed argumentative @TammyJones and wanted to be clear it wasn’t meant that way. I’ll just tiptoe away on these eggshells all around me (that my bloody mother laid down for me 😂🤨),

'Feel picked on'**

Not sure if you meant to quote me, but nothing you said has made me picked on.
I’m in awe of you strong individuals, who have broken the chain of abuse.

This is it exactly @JohnPrescottsPyjamas

"As an adult, her upbringing helped me maybe understand her behaviour, but it didn’t excuse or justify it."

I remember doing marriage preparation classes and the vicar explaining that you tend to model how you conduct your own relationship with what you experienced growing up. She emphasised that didn't mean if our parents had ended up divorced then we would be too(!) but that it was something to be aware of and consider when dealing with all of those issues that come up.

It's definitely nowhere near all elderly people, it's some problematic individuals who get worse as they age. My PILs have been dead for years, they would have been the top end of the Silent Generation. Yet they brought their son up modelling how other people should be treated, how to share work/housework/child raising equally and how to parent well. I have learnt so much from them and him, and he's been the force for change in my life (and why I have achieved so much professionally too).

Great posts. I'd forgotten about Stockholm Syndrome. When I was younger, people used to call my family 'interesting'. I now say that they think theat abnormal is normal. I was very scared, and disassociated. I've always been boggled that the others laugh at some of the nasty jibes my M comes out with. Wanted to abort you etc etc. And pander to her.
She herself had a sadistic alcoholic father and a cold unpleasant mother, who she contrarily loves.
She's said to me that she ' doesn't know why she treated me like she did ', as though she ever stopped. She obviously thinks I still see her as love ( it isnt). She has no self awareness. Her inner child is ...4 ?

I'll read up again on SS. I
In greater detail. I've somehow managed to maintain a relationship with my ( very damaged ) younger siblings, but have always found the fact that some of the most damaged of them (6 siblings) let her do what she does frustrating.

@EmotionalBlackmail Agree absolutely with@BlueLegume Perfectly summed up.

I have no doubt whatsoever my mother was abused emotionally by her own parents too. My grandfather was a drunkard who brought another woman into the marital home and fathered two children with her alongside the two he had with my grandmother.

My mother had some sort of Stockholm Syndrome with her father as despite the fact he was also a wife beater, she hero worshipped him and the fact he maintained ‘good order’ and wouldn’t tolerate bad manners. Not sure how that made him an excellent example of parenting - but she believed it did and often used to tell me her father wouldn’t have put up with my ‘bad behaviour’

But you are so right. Someone has to break the cycle. I can clearly remember thinking, as a child, if I have a family I will never treat my children like this. Scary that even at such a young age, I had the self awareness to know her parenting wasn’t ‘normal’ I guess I saw my friends not going home trembling in fear in anticipation of a smack, punch or an overinflated drama over some imagined incident or being too terrified to ask something reasonable because I had no way of knowing how she would react.

As an adult, her upbringing helped me maybe understand her behaviour, but it didn’t excuse or justify it.