Elderly mother so stressed about minor things

My Mum’s the same in only being able to cope with one thing in a day. Same age as yours. Also goes through phases of extreme health anxiety leading to her screaming and accusing everyone of not caring about her etc. But I think she’s still totally with it, as she’s still able to mastermind who she tells what in order to get what she wants from everyone, including by lying if necessary. As in, demonstrably provable falsehoods which, when you point them out to her, she shrugs off with a “that’s not how I remember it. I can’t cope with all of this. I shouldn’t have to be dealing with this at my age”.

However, ALL of the above behaviour is completely uncharacteristic. She was never, ever like this as a younger woman. She was always a devoted wife and mother, generous to a fault, and still is an utterly devoted grandmother. It was the pandemic and the extreme worry that life as she knew it was over. She stopped flying. She won’t drive on a motorway now. She won’t even drive to a new area unless it’s for a medical appointment that she can’t get moved to a local area. Lockdowns terrified her and also gave her an excuse to be utterly selfish and not deal with anyone or anything. She manages all her relationships through FaceTime and the phone. She just finds everything and everyone too much bother. I think she’s using her age as an excuse to be extremely selfish at all times. TBH, I don’t blame her after a lifetime of being everything to everyone!

I remember my Mum getting really stressed from her 60s onwards. She is nearly 90 now and doesn’t have dementia but has some cognitive decline.

I think part of it in the earlier days, was leaving the workforce, family being grown up and relationships and roles altering. It’s like she forgot how to behave normally. Also awareness of being physically and mentally less able. She threatens suicide numerous times a day.

I remember her threatening suicide because of a row with Tesco mobile, of all things. She is socially awkward now and necked gin before a trip to the theatre as she didn’t know how to behave. She is either rude or gushingly nice to strangers.

Everything is a problem to her. Shopping delivery, organising repairs, simple phone calls. She is also paranoid and says everyone hates her because she is foreign (she’s white - EU country).

She lives a 7 hour drive from me (my only sibling is overseas). But she chose to move there. She blames her late husband for that of course. She constantly reinvents the past and refers to events and conversations that never happened.

This is so reminiscent of my father. A lovely capable businessman, who was increasingly anxious as he aged. And when DM was diagnosed with cancer, he just couldn’t cope. For him I think it was about control, at least some of the time. If the fridge door was open, or something on the wrong place, he had to deal with it. Immediately.

Some of it-if not all, was depression, and anxiety. He was of the generation who didn’t talk about these things and was reluctant to see a GP, and take the support offered, and I felt sorry for him that he was troubled, but at the same time irritated that these things don’t matter, and his reluctance to get and take help.

I know that antidepressants are often given to those with memory issues and can help. Worth taking to GP if your mum will cooperate. And I’m sorry, you sound lovely and this isn’t easy. I’m still sad that my dad’s last years were made more difficult by his own fears.

My mum is 81 very similar, one thing a day and that’s it, I’m learning to manage and a quick coffee shop and cake is enough, a whole day out is way too much.

So we do garden centres, coffe shops and smaller trips and outing and I kind of mentally stick to 3 hours.

She needs it all in the diary, even a coffee and if I have to change plans I’ve started to really be mindful as for me saying actulky can we switch to Thursday for her is a very big change.

we have managed 3 holidays abroad, and have one booked but I have a feeling this maybe the last flight and overseas trip and she finds it so exhausting, even if we relax lots just the overall change and stress. She does love it when we are there and spends hours reading and relaxing but when we get home I can really it takes her a couple of weeks to settle back.

OP you sound lovely and it’s so hard being a new person I know exactly how you feel I’ve made the switch from needing my mum to my mum needing me, mentally it gradually happened and I think it’s the most natural shift we make and I feel super blessed to have her in my life even if she does comment on women’s weight a tad loudly!!

My mum is going that way. Huge fuss about insignificant things. Much curtain twitching. I put it down to her world shrinking. In the meantime my dad is oblivious.

Mine has always been like this and it has made our relationship difficult for my entire life. I suspect undiagnosed ND for this and other reasons. My Dad has taken the brunt of it and at the moment he is i hospital and can't so it's all coming our way and I am finding it hard to be patient when she is ringing me all the time at work about trivia (and I don't dare ignore calls in case its an actual emergency). I suspect it's only going to get worse. Sympathy to all.

my 80 y/o dad stresses about everything and tells me about his busy week planned when basically it boils down to one half an hour thing a day - he also stresses in case one of his waterbutts overflows and floods a neighbour or he isn't in for the postman in case there's a parcel which can't be left. If there's nothing to catastrophise, he will find something to fit the bill. Right now we're stressing about christmas arrangements.

But its not dementia, its just him - don't leap to conclusions unless there are other signs! ( having reached this point about 10 years ago, he has remained exactly the same since)

I bet it tasted just as good as the day it was bought @OSTMusTisNT

They definitely did, we found vanilla essence in MIL's cupboard that went out of date in 1978. It survived 3 house moves 🤣.

My DM is the same but still gets worked up over silly things.

• if use by dates existed then

We've got the absolute opposite with mum @Mimilamore. She's delighted to be eating meat and dairy and all sorts many days after the sell by date. Ancient old pate and corned beef and even fish. My sister and I are constantly battling it! Mum says they never get ill. We say it's Russian roulette; they might well one day.

Then I went round to see mum's sister, my aunt, who is apparently exactly the same!

I think it's probably because in the seventies and eighties everything had tonnes more preservatives and so had longer use by dates.

@Mimilamore
Omg the use by dates.

Every week, mid week, my mum calls me in a panic about food because my brother can't do a food shop till the weekend. So I turn up with 3 days of shove in the oven food, and then she panics about use by dates.

My step dad is also very unwell but cognitively all there and is bearing the brunt of it.

Oh dear… the anxiety over “ sell by” or “ best before” dates…. 5 mins over allotted window and everybody will die eating the offending foodstuff, even cans. Yes I’ve tried the WW 2 rations talk and the “ sniff it and see” school of thought ( me) all to no avail.
plus the window open a tiny crack because local wandering cat might get in… I’ve suggested Dreamies to get her out but no this has grown out of all proportion and it is now like getting a tiger out of your flat, it has only come in twice, done a u turn and gone again!!!!

Looking back now these were the types of things that led to us getting getting MIL tested and ultimately diagnosed with Vascular Dementia. The earlier signs of forgetting things or forgetting a word would be put down to aging but things escalated to her getting in a tizz over nothing.

Weird things like having a crying all morning meltdown when the bank gave her a £20 note instead of 2x£10 as she 'can't cope with those'. Phoning us up constantly as she had a general chit chat letter to send to brother rather than waiting a couple of days for our usual visiting day.

Constantly coming up with totally daft things that she was frantically worrying about and everytime we fixed it, she had the next one lined up. It ended up with us going through elation when we fixed the issue then deflated 5 minutes later as she started banging on about some other obscure random 'problem'.

Another was inability to plan more than one task, e.g she refused point blank to stay in the house for the Housing Association emergency plumber coming at 9am to sort her toilet (as she had flushed god knows what down it and blocked the pipe) as that was the exact time she HAD to go along the road to buy milk. She couldn't cope with planning for the plumber coming then toddling off to the shop an hour later than her usual routine.

If you have any suspicions at all I would make an appointment with her GP, we spoke to the GP first to explain everything and GP then seen MIL in person and got the ball rolling with the hospital tests.

I read your post and though my mum died 5 years ago, it instantly gave me the the stress and tightness in the chest that I experienced so often with dealing with her in her later years. It got better when she went into a care home and they fielded it with incredible patience (mostly.) Good luck!

Yes my mum is the same.

she has to do a wash every morning. Gets very agitated if it’s not possible (eg staying with me and I have linens in).

This thread has been really enlightening and helpful, so I wanted to just thank the OP for posting and for everyone else who has shared experiences and advice.

I’m sorry you are all also going through/have been through similar. There are so many little things with my DPs that I just wasn’t expecting and have been unsure how to deal with.

I think it was @Littlepixie75who said you have to ‘be’ someone else and not yourself, this is so true and not something I’d really registered. I’m going to approach situations like this going forwards because I can see it will work with my DPs.

Thanks again everyone 😊

You sound like a wonderful daughter OP.

@Littlepixie75
And Ive just realised something.
My nan had a hard life and became quite bitter. Even before dementia set in nothing was ever right, you would visit and she would moan for ages, and always conclude with ' that's just how it is'
My mum says that now, and I've just written it.
I do spend a lot of time just smiling and nodding