To not want to see my near 90 year-old grandmother anymore?

[Arachnophobic]

Hmmmm, where do I start? Sadly she has turned into a piece of work and I’m feeling so anxious I can’t bring myself to go around there.

She picked a fight on NYE, called me a bad person and said DD (12) was ungrateful. Back story - she is not happy about the fact that me and my brother are not on good terms.

She has historically made an anti-Semitic comment about my lovely dad. She has made other racist comments in the past. She plays me and other family members off against each other. She is spiteful to her siblings when they call (she has told me what she’s said). She’s lied about being married when she wasn’t, and what hurts the most, is that I recently found out that mum and her sibling had a secret brother that I am sure she knew about but they didn’t. They have both passed now.

I feel a complete bitch but I am juggling problems at home with DS at the moment and I’m on a knife edge whenever I go round there.

Who else is keeping an eye on her?

Barring a completely toxic person, I think there is something of a duty to keep an eye on elderly relatives. (And maybe even then sometimes.) Not just for the relative, but for society at large, someone needs to make sure people who are not as able to care for themselves are managed, and if it isn't the job of their descendants it's certainly not the job of people they have no relation to.

If seeing her is generally not enjoyable, but there isn't anyone else, I'd still try and see her regularly. It's the only good way to keep an eye on things like a deterioration in her health or metal faculties or ability to care for herself.

If there are other family members maybe talk to them about how best to divide up what needs to be seen to.

You can always keep visits short. In any case social and family obligations aren't always about what we want or who we like.

This.

It may be that she felt no good would come of bringing it out, or the dead would not have wanted it known.

She's probably reached the point where she can no longer be bothered to self censor, so she just says what she thinks without any of the filters we normally apply to keep the peace and avoid offending others, and you're getting a warts and all tour of the inside of her head. In fairness she's probably no worse than a lot of people who still have enough to lose that they keep their thoughts to themselves. But if she upsets you, keep contact to a minimum and your expectations very low when you do visit.

Times were very different when your grandmother was young.
It was shameful to have a child out of wedlock so she might have pretended that she was married.
I don’t know who had the secret child so can’t comment.
I would say keep contact brief and it’s good advice as a poster said to maybe time your visits so you watch a film together, or have a bite to eat. Lessen the amount of time she has to start moaning about people.

Ugh. Autocorrect.

"...that you weren't supposed to know..."

Op for all you know your grandmother might have been raped and gave the baby away for adoption. Things like that did happen.

I assumed the child was her husband’s not hers