Elderly mother so stressed about minor things

Yes me too!

I recognised myself in a few of those posts- oh dear!

Spandi you can only do so much. Ours would have us 7 days on road if we allowed it.. its hard keeping your own things going too house job kids etc.

I agree, you feel bad for feeling bad, but my mother had a wonderful life, never had to think about looking after her parents as her older sisters took care of everything. We never got on and now I feel she has got a hold of the best years I have left with her needs.

I’m going through the same with both my elderly parents who divorced many years ago so there’s stress coming from two separate houses 🙈. Just this week DF worrying about something minor that happened 20 years ago and unable to sleep. DM phoning about anything from minor information like letting me know the online shopping has been (why should I care?) to actual important things like needing medical attention.

I feel it’s making me the same as them!! I’m stressed and becoming burnt out to the point I can’t remember things and I am now getting stressed by tiny things.

When will it end? I feel like I’ll be a shadow of myself by the time they die. My health and peace of mind will be ruined beyond repair! I’ve no advice OP but a lot of sympathy for you and PP.

I have experienced of similar things;

Cannot go out & do more than one thing, in one day

Getting anxious at regular appointments

Not wanting to change appointments, to help the person taking them to the appointment

Anxious about various other small things

Example
They normally collect an item on a certain day, at a certain time.
This week, I was allocated this task, but I was reminded that the shop would sell out early.
I went at a time, that was convenient to myself & the item was available as I expected.

Well that's quite sensible think.
I have seen people on 2 occasions this week who have fallen lying in the street in the freezing conditions. They couldn't be moved and were lying on ice in great pain. Both had medical personnel with them but the wait was for the ambulance...
The first one was a woman half my age and it made me really cautious and limiting my activities.
The other one I saw from a bus yesterday. Person was lying across the edge of the kerb beside a busy road in the dark.
2 paramedics but again couldn't be moved until an ambulance arrived.
It was quite sobering.
Staying in and being wary of ice and wind is sensible.

I have found some comfort in reading what everyone has said.
Thank you. I needed this!

Oh my mother frets about the wind, if its a tiny breeze she goes into a panic, in fact its one of the reasons why she wont go out of her flat on her own, in case she is blown over!

My mum exactly the same, is 87, when she knows she has a normal BP check up or something as simple she will not sleep for the week before and afterwards go on about how dreadfully stressed she had been. She was always babied as the youngest child and then by my dad, so she has never had to take responsibility for anything. We wonder if that is one of the reasons. I do everything for her. But recently she has started stating that any event, i.e someone dropping something in a shop, happened the week before, by the same person. A sort of extreme deja vu. Does you mum have that?

How familar all of this is. My late Mum was in a retirement complex but realistically she just left it too late to move. This meant that the change from her old house to the complex was HUGE even though I was on hand to help. Previously I had lived over 2 hours away.

The other thing to bear in mind and I am going to be harsh here is that its not your role to keep jumping to their tune. You fix something and then there is a nod and then another silly issue comes up.

I used to drop in 6 days a week and had to drop down to 3 days a week because a 30 min visit turned into hours of fixing things i.e a light bulb went and she thought all of her electric would turn off. I dont like standing on chairs and yet she guilt tripped me into doing by crying. There was an option to wait for the handyman to visit but she didnt want to just in case....

We really do need to look after ourselves and think if we did everything they wanted and let them make daft decisions would they be any happier? They also block out just how time consuming they are whilst saying they dont want to be a burden.

@VexedofVirginiaWater I think that’s it with my FIL (86) - gets worked up about things that 12 years ago wouldn’t have fazed him at all and I can feel he gets flustered if he has more than 1 thing ‘going on’ in a day. I do think no longer working contributes to no longer being able to cope as well with multitasking in many elderly people - along with new technology or ways of doing things that to them seem illogical or’fiddly’ -it’s not always Alzheimer’s or dementia- my FIL described it as his ‘ram’ is full and no room for learning more !

I can see some of this in myself (age 70) - and I experienced it with my mother. My mother died aged 87 and although she did forget things, I wouldn't have thought she had dementia. She did get stressed about things that wouldn't have stressed her - certainly before the age of 60 anyway. I put it down to narrowed horizons so that there wasn't the same breadth of stuff to occupy her mind. I can see the same with me too so I do try not to involve my sons.

I kind of see how people limit their socialisations too - tbh I often can't be bothered and I can get stressed if I have to drive somewhere unfamiliar, especially if parking is tricky. I really value days when I have no appointments. I have groceries and prescriptions delivered and I have a home hairdresser (but she also cuts my sons' hair too so it saves them a job at the weekend, and of course it's bank of Mum lol).

I don't feel I forget things to a worrying degree, I always was a bit forgetful - but maybe it's worse than I realise and I can't remember! 😉I honestly feel it is just an age thing with certain people.

I really recommend arranging an initial conversation with her GP to put you all at ease and start considering how you can make life easy and safe for her which in turn will make it easy for you.

If you do start to go down the dementia route with your mum my advice is to put initial care in place early doors so you can all start to get used to it and build on things as time goes on instead of you falling in to doing a lot yourself and feeling burnt out by it and it becoming harder to implement external help. Websites like lottie.org/home-care will show you what kind of at home support might be available in her area if you wanted to start lookign t visiting carers - I know it can sound scary but even just 1 hour a day of companionship/household tasks or things you're starting to pick up might be a good place to start.

I hope this helps

It’s not a competition. Just because your worst day to date isn’t ’as bad’ as someone else’s doesn’t invalidate the emotions you’re going through. Everything is scary or hard the first time. Some things get easier, some really don’t.

Before my mum was diagnosed with Alzheimers, she had a fixation about their conservatory sliding doors being slightly opened. Dad had to keep closing them as she would become quite agitated as she "didn't want little animals getting in".

Another thing we noticed was she also became very set on having stuffed toys and my old doll from back in the 50s. She wanted to dress the doll which she did and all the teddies, about six in all, had to be on the bed.

She died in 2010 and it's quite sad remembering how she changed.

I’ve certainly noticed my FIL who is86 this week tends to fixate on what to me seem really trivial things - if he is waiting for something like a letter or a call about something he finds it difficult to then be actively involved in other things - basically his multi tasking has hugely declined I feel - however he’s physically in good shape and still sharp on many things

My DH used to help older people with DIY in their homes and experienced similar.
He had a strategy where he would ask people to write the jobs on a list in their kitchen, and he said “let me work and I will finish this current job, then I will come and find you, and you can show me the next job on your list”.
I think clients gained some comfort from just writing it down and reassurance that things would get done, but not instantly.

My DM is currently like this with my DB, she wants minor little jobs doing instantly - because they are on her mind, but DB has a lot going on.

I can feel myself migrating the same way alas…

My mum is seventy-four now, and definitely getting more fretful about things that she wouldn't have even given a second thought to when she was working. We had quite a disagreement last autumn when I refused to leave the house at 9pm on a very wet Sunday November night to walk down to the Post Office to post a letter she'd written to her cousin. The post box 200yds down the road wouldn't do, it had to be the Post Office in town. Saying I would post it the following morning didn't help; apparently she "Would just sleep easier in her bed", knowing it was in the hands of the Royal Mail rather than sitting on the dresser overnight.

Yep, v common; when they haven't got enough to think about, small things become big. Did you ever see the "OMG such anality from PIL!!!" thread in Classics? Might at least be good for a laugh when it's driving you demented.

My parents travelled a lot in early retirement, they last went abroad about 6 years ago, their last few holidays were those all included coach ones where you get picked up in a group and everything is done for you, they did a few in this country too. I flew with my Mum a couple of years ago to a funeral at the other end of this country so no passport control but she found security really confusing with the plastic bags etc and we wouldn't do it again unless there were similar circumstances. Also we were picked up by a cousin, taken to their house and stayed there then driven back to the airport the next day and used taxis at our end so it was very straightforward an actual holiday would be much harder.

My parents went abroad recently (on a cruise), and mum just couldn't cope with it - the flight was the worst, but just the general unfamiliarity was too hard. They had another trip booked, but they've cancelled it. It's really sad to think that they'll almost certainly never go abroad again now. There were lots of places they still wanted to go.