...to tell my elderly mum to stop moaning

[FFSN]

She is housebound, disabled, and in pain. I phone her every day and see her at least twice a week (shes an hours drive away) and every conversation is about her aches and pains. I sympathise. I offer advice. I listen. I offer to contact her GP.

However...she wont see a doctor. She has ended up in hospital twice in the last 2 years by ignoring health issues that then escalated into something serious. She is currently suffering severe all over body pain but won't check it out with the GP. Im fed up. I feel like telling her that when this issue escalates, shes on her own and can get herself to hospital.

AIBU to tell her to either see the doctor or stop moaning about her health?

I hear you. My mum was very like this pre dementia.

I did at one point just explode and told her quite frankly that I was sick of her moaning and found myself dreading any contact with her.

It’s exhausting. I just used to repeat some stock phrases to try and change the subject.

“Well you won’t see a GP about this so I’m not sure what you want me to say mum. Anyway, have you watched anything good on TV lately?”

”If you won’t see a GP then it’s not going to get any better is it. Anyway, what are you having
for tea later?”

“It sounds like something a GP might be able to help with, but you won’t book an appointment. Anyway, this weather eh!”

Rinse and repeat.

Can you get her talking about her life when she was in her teens, twenties, thirties?

I am in my early 70s and good health, but as friends die, as two or three of mine have done in the past few years, there are fewer people to reminisce with. Memories need periodic reactivating to stay accessible, and they are fun to remember. Even the bad ones are sometimes OK to revisit after decades have passed. Not only that, but it kind of reactivates the person you were, in a way - a bit like aging rock stars who, once they are on stage, turn into the rock star they truly are, despite the arthritis etc.

I was once housebound for a year with acute anxiety (now resolved), and was so ill I could hardly bear to speak to anybody. I realise now that because I was not talking to people who knew me as friends, my own self was not being reflected back to me, IYSWIM. If she is moaning about her health, the self your DM is getting reflected is not the one she really feels herself to be. We are all 21 inside.

Older people are often content in many ways, and not all sit contemplating death. Instead they enjoy each day as it comes, like my 99 year-old aunt. Sometimes even I manage contentment

So in that case, if you have tried helping and she won't accept it just leave it be. You have tried your best.

I had the same, no amount of help from me made any difference. Had to just cut ties in the end.

Huge relieve all round.