The Drama

Yes, all of this, stories on a (short) loop, tales about people I neither know nor care about, trivial detail (weather) in response to important news, never asking about/remembering my life, etc., etc. I think that’s all part of cognitive decline and I try not to take it personally (hard sometimes, like repeating for the umpteenth time that my beloved dog died earlier this year). We all hope we’ll be like beveren (don’t know how to link) when we get older, but most of us come here precisely because our older relatives aren't like that (and more worryingly, some of my friends are starting to show similar symptoms).

I feel you on this: my stepmother has no interest in my kids, it's all about her own grandchildren, or their cats. They could care less about me or my family and yet still I feel obliged to listen to it drone on and on...

Yep! Catastrophising, conspiracy theories and telling the same stories on a loop even if I say, "Oh, yes I remember this story"... they nod and carry on telling it for the hundredth time (although I have had partners who do this too, yawn). It's more prevalent with my Dad, but friends say they have experienced it with mothers too.

I got run over many years ago and when I rung my DM from A and E to tell her she said ooh I’ve never been run over !!!

My parents do this all the time. We affectionately call them the "fact vacuums". They could go on for hours in this manner

Yep my mum..I know every day what the neighbours are doing and what problems or issues they are having and if Lorraine bloody Kelly says anything about anything its gospel truth and must be adopted into our lives...it is exhausting and pointless,monotonous and boring. Too much time on her hands has my mum ..

@StockpotSoup THIS 🙄you can never grasp their story, its exhausting, meanwhile they dont listen to more important stuff💁

Ideally, yes. I'm an introvert who interacts with a lot of people at work and has a child who is at the non-stop talking stage. My life is full of people
who want my attention. My close friends, when I get a chance to see them, we often talk a little bit but spend the time in companionable silence too.

That's why I find it very difficult coping with a parent talking endlessly about the neighbours.

Oh my, this made me laugh in a I know your pain kind of way! Yes, the irrelevant detail about things & people you don't even know. I just nod & smile

My aunt used to do that. “Ooh, I tell a lie, it was a blue dress-she was wearing”. I was still a child so she would have been late 30s.

I sometimes wonder why most of us will read novels, watch films, tv series etc, all about people we don’t know, yet if an elderly person presumes to talk about a neighbour we haven’t met …
If you start asking questions and enter in to the conversation, it gets a lot more interesting.

My dad would talk non-stop, (in his case mostly conspiracy theories about British Gas), and not ask about us, or not wait for the answer if he did ask. I realised he’d had enough of listening - he listened to the radio all day - and needed to talk. So I started telling him all the family news by email, and then family entered his conversation a lot more.

Sounds like a whole new post 😢

With mine yes frankly. Tedious.
No interest in me or my children and I'm an only one.
Absolute interest in their neighbours lives and the price of bread.

Have a heart, they’re probably leading pretty boring lives and have no other conversation. Would you rather they sat and said nothing?

My parents obsess over minor detail rather than getting to the point.

Mum: Ooh, I didn’t tell you; Margaret rang on Monday…
Dad (interrupting): Monday? It wasn’t Monday!
Mum: It was, it was Monday!
Dad: It couldn’t have been Monday; we went for 20% off at the Shanghai on Monday,
Mum: Are you sure that was Monday?
Dad: They only do it in a Monday!
Mum: Ohhhh… so maybe it was Tuesday she rang…
Dad: I don’t know if it was Tuesday…
Mum: FFS, who cares when it was - just tell me what Margaret rang about before we all bloody die!!!

All the drama queens I know have been younger or my age ?

And most people talk endlessly about trivia. I guess it's easier if it's trivia about people you both know ?

Sounds like you just don't like them that much to be interested in their life?

Honestly, the generalisations about the elderly that go on around here are batshit. Some people dramatise their lives, some don't, irrespective of age.

I'm 72. My son nearly died last month of sudden arrythmic death syndrome. His heart stopped, he stopped breathing, and it was sheer luck there was someone there who knew CPR who kept him going till paramedics arrived and got him back. He's now waiting for a defibrillator to be implanted. DH and I are still traumatised about it but we aren't going on and on about it to everyone we know, let alone going on and on about the weather or our neighbours.

I catch myself talking to my adult DD about things that have happened since I last saw her: I don’t want to bore her! I save up funny stories/things we can discuss. Avoid the trivial!

ExHs Step-mum used to lie a lot. Every time she came back from a trip in the car she had a story. She had to pull over because the police were in a chase with a car. She saw someone get run over. Some woman asked her if she'd ever worked in (location here). A police officer stopped her and asked her if she'd seen (incident or person here). (That was a common one) There was a fire in Morrisons. It went on and on.

I just used to roll my eyes. I think she was lonely and bored. She grew up as an only child who was spoilt rotten, so I think she tried to get the same amount of attention from us. She's now in a senior living home and my exFiL has died. I no longer have anything to do with her which is a blessing.

And this is why I don’t want to fully retire when the time comes. I no longer have my DM but I remember when I’d come back from a holiday and go to tell her about it and she’d give me a daily weather report from her week at home. 🤨

My MIL does this. I believe it’s all about attention seeking

She develops random “allergies” to things so has to have special treatment in restaurants, she once had a “panic attack” because she knew that her phone contact list had details of someone who had died in it and it made her too upset to use the phone (yes really), she refused certain medications as she was just going to “be better” etc etc.

I refuse to tell her anything I think she can use to create drama so all our interactions are very superficial.

Yeah my DM used to do it. I think it's when their lives become quite empty and dull they fixate on tiny events and blow them up into scary important problems. It's sad really and I don't want to end up like that. My DM would phone me then tell me all about a much younger friend at her church and her 3 daughters. On & on about their lives & what the girls were up to. Then quickly ask me how the DGC are then hang up. As if she cared more about a friends kids than her own DGC. I guess it was just more current in her memory towards the end. My ILs don't like hearing about (our) bad news either. They will change the subject. I tried to tell them both twice the other week about my lovely Uni friend dying recently from cancer (only 49 💔💔) and how myself & DH had recently been to her funeral etc & both changed the subject immediately. V v odd. Not a word of 'I'm so sorry' nothing. Yet my FIL can chat for ages about anything & he never moans about his health at all. Old folk are just a bit weird imo 🤣