To have walked off and left DM in the cafe?

[ChinaBear]

Went out for coffee with DD 1yo and DM. DM had a toasted sandwich. I’m allergic to wheat but only if I ingest it. Even a crumb will make me ill. DD reached out for my coffee on the table and DM moved my cup away (which was unnecessary anyway as it was already out of DD’s reach). I asked her not to touch my cup when she has wheat crumbs on her hands because I’ll be poorly if it gets in my mouth.

A few minutes later she did exactly the same thing again and I said I’ve already asked you not to touch my cup with wheat on your hands! DD can’t reach my cup, I don’t need you to move it. Then she did it again! By which point I was getting angry and said STOP TOUCHING MY CUP YOU’RE GOING TO MAKE ME ILL!

The final time she picked my cup up by the rim and left visible crumbs from her fingers right where my mouth would touch the cup. So then I couldn’t drink it at all. I picked up DD and said What part of “don’t touch my cup do you not understand?!” And stormed out.

I’m utterly furious. A large coffee with syrup and cream is a rare expensive treat to have to throw it away. DH thinks I’ve been mean by storming out and leaving DM to get the bus home.

Limekiwi - why are you so obsessed with what you wrongly term a self-diagnosis? The OP has very clearly saidmthat her mother can barely read, cannot write, is clumsy, has poor social skills, has had lifelong issues with not appearing to take in what is said to her... who the fuck cares whether she has a label for that or not?!. She clearly has significant difficulties with social behaviour and interractions. If the OP is entirely NT and grew up with her mother, so is fully aware of all this, she should be capable of acknowledging that whilst her mother's behaviour is wildly irritating, it was 100% predictable and not aimed at upsetting her dd. She has had enoug experience by now to know her dm cannot help herself, however fucking irritating.

I'm not I don't care if she's got a label or not either. Was just wondering how you'd know she had it without a diagnosis.
You do know if you have a serious allergy or intolerance though without a diagnosis due to the facts of extreme or even fatal reactions to foods though.

She might not understand the nuances of intolerances/allergies, but she should be able to understand "don't touch my cup".

If OP’s DM does have dyslexia and dyspraxia; then it really might not be that simple! Murphy’s Law - if something can go wrong, it will and that applies just as much to cognitive processes, as if a virus has gone through the software and bits are missing:

1. Poor auditory discrimination - difficulty in picking out language against background noise, like in a cafe
2. Poor attention as part of ADD/ADHD (can easily occur with dyslexia or dyspraxia) - keep switching off during conversations, and it’s not necessarily obvious to other people
3. Poor working memory (frequently occurs with dyslexia) - can’t keep information coming in, in the mind for very long; gets forgotten as more information pours in!
4. Poor auditory processing (dyslexia frequently occurs with a developmental language disorder) - it’s gets worse with anxiety; the brain hears the sounds of language but struggles to process it and work out the meaning. Rather than takes no notice of what you tell her; it could be you might as well be talking to her in Korean because she is not understanding the sounds coming in!
5. OP says her DM has a different perspective - that might literally be true! Dyspraxia includes visual perception problems - DM might really see things differently! DD1 knocks brightly coloured plastic cups over at mealtimes all the time, because her depth perception is very poor compared to our’s!
6. A communication disorder, which includes not understanding social conventions, non-verbal communication or the unspoken rules of conversation like turn taking, white lies, etc!

DD2 is very bright but has ADD - switches off in conversation all the time! I could ask her to make me a cup of tea. She looks blank and says what did you say? I ask her to make me a cup of tea! She goes off to the kitchen and gets distracted by the cat. She comes back and asks me why did she go to the kitchen? For the fourth time, I say to make me some tea! It is very exasperating, but she cannot help it and it’s nothing to with intelligence!

Well.. what a delight you are.

This sounds like an intolerance not an allergy.

Many people use the word allergy when it is an intolerance.

People who are not dealing personally with allergies or celiac (which is actually autoimmune, and not an allergy), do not take them seriously at all. Partly due to self diagnosed idiots, drinking syrupy coffee in gluteney cafes. There's no way it was not cross contaminated before she even drank it.

It's not a fashionable excuse to be precious, or a weight loss diet, some of us get dangerous reactions.

You treated your 82 year old mum with utter contempt and disrespect: you should be ashamed of yourself and apologise to her !

I should say it’s not a case people with a language disorder can’t understand what we are saying at all; rather that they may struggle in the same way people with dyslexia can struggle to read - and dyslexia often goes hand in hand with language disorder (because they can both be aspects of what is fundamentally the same root problem). Times of stress or background noise make it harder for them!

'When DM eats something the entire world gets covered in crumbs and she has half of it on her face for the rest of the day. She is quite elderly though (82) which is why DH said it was mean to stomp off and leave her to get the bus '

Shame on you op. She is also dypraxic and 'generally clumsy' yet you stormed off and left an 82 yr old to make her own way home?!

Here's a tip. Meet somewhere more appropriate next time, her place your place? Somewhere with big tables where your coffee cup could be better managed? Your poor dm.

Bullshit 4letter I have coeliac disease and am perfectly fine drinking coffee in a cafe. We dont all hide inside for fear of contamination.

Lots of people on this thread trying to excuse the OP's mum's action on account of her age or dyspraxia when by far the most likely explaination is simply that her mum is convinced she knows best.

BarbarianMum - not seeing why that is the most likely explanation. Please explain...

Do you actually know the OP's mother?!

'when by far the most likely explaination is simply that her mum is convinced she knows best.'

By far the most likely explanation is the dm was possibly distracted and worried that the small child may accidentally have knocked a cup of coffee all over herself.

Op, lots of people have significant medical issues and eating/drinking out is a minefield. You've got to anticipate problems and handle things much better than this.

Carry your own takeaway cup and then you'd not have the spillage problem. I have a severely disabled boy who li6ves liquids...this is what I have to do for safety.

Oh dear. I totally get the allergy thing and it is so hard to live an anywhere near normal life if you have to be constantly vigilant.

But your mum is 82 and it sounds as though she's just forgetful. She was, after all, trying to make sure your DD didn't hurt herself. And she probably (?) just meant to be kind offering you half her sandwich.

I am wondering, as a dyspraxic person myself, whether OP's mum was actually worrying about whether she would knock the cup onto OP's DD and was moving the cup out of her own reach.

I can understand the anger but I do think your reaction wasn't very nice.

That’s just very weird, like a naughty child who deliberately and very obviously keeps touching something because they’ve specifically been asked not to.

Sounds like she thinks you’re making a fuss about nothing because you didn’t have the allergy when you were in her care.

To say if you were being unreasonable leaving her to take the bus home would depend on her circumstances. If she’s capable and fit, no issue. If she’s infirm or unwell (sounds like she may be!) yes you probably were.

Sounds like the tip of a whole other iceberg tbh, just such odd behaviour.

Oh, 82 with problems of her own? Yes you probably were being a bit unreasonable then.

There's a lot of casual ageism on this thread!
Didn't the OP say she gets the bus a lot by herself and usually makes her own way about?
OK, I agree it wasn't nice to just walk off and leave her, but people are making out she was ditched and helpless in the middle of nowhere!

I don't think it's nice to leave anyone in a cafe whatever there age to make their own way home.

The OP stormed out and left her there without checking she understood that she wasn't getting a lift back. Whilst her DM was wrong in the first place the OP behaved badly in response.

Neither do I, which is why I said it wasn't a nice thing to do.
It's just all the people making out she's a crumbly old lady who's losing her faculties because she's in her 80s.
OP said she regularly buses it by herself.

Is your mum of the "not in my day" generation? I find that my mum is dismissive of most things and actually I just tolerate her now rather than want to spend time with her. It's sad but i feel like I can't say or do anything without her giving some snidey comment or giving a pffft response such as with allergies or money struggles etc

Your mum sounds like hardwork. I probably would have stayed but asked her to order me another coffee. But then I'm a bit of a pushover with my mum.

I get the impression from your OP that your mum does stuff like this a lot, so you don't have much patience with it anymore.

The OP also said after her mum who cannot eat without getting crumbs everywhere and all over her face moved the cup the first time she then took a drink and placed it back where she wanted the cup to be. But has such a fear of cross contamination? She drank it anyways. I think it’s a power struggle and she wants to always be in charge and right.

The only thing that I would add is that my mother has had a lifetime of being different & unable to cope with social norms etc; she started descending into dementia when she was 70 & I around 40, with small kids.
I didnt understand what it was then (repetitive behaviours & not listening to my parenting preferences, expecting me to do everything with 3 v small children, having become disabled myself with the birth of DC3) but she has now full blown dementia & my regret now is that I wasn't more pleasant at the time. I too have severe allergies as did 2 of my DC & she hasn't got a clue what that means. She has lacked any understanding of that all of my life, which just emphasises the difficulty of diagnosing when dementia starts.
(Obviously she may not have dementia, but your description rang bells for me.)