Elderly mother anxiety

[babbi]

Hoping someone with experience can assist please .
Mum is 77 and has always had anxiety... never sought help ... just spent a life time fretting quietly which I suppose became her norm .
Now though she is getting worse daily and is working herself into almost hysteria over the smallest of things .
We all try to help where we can but we work full time so poor Dad who is very patient is dealing with this daily and it is absolutely draining him .
What options do we have please ?
Ideally we would like her to seek help via GP but she is hysterically upset at the thought of talking to anyone so kind of a vicious circle.
Is there anything a GP can realistically do ?
Medication?
No way will we get her to a therapist / counsellor.
We are concerned that we could be stressing her even more by pushing her to get help for no good reason if they can’t help her ..iyswim.

For context .. today complete distress as someone she knew more than 20 years ago has been admitted to a nursing home . She is terrified people will judge her for not visiting the person ASAP . We have explained you didn’t know them well enough to visit them in their own house for 20 years .. so why the need to go now ... it’s a friend of a friend - definitely not close .
No one is expecting anything of you .
But she is beside herself about doing the right thing ....

She spilt a glass of wine and cried because it had to be mopped up .

She is upset because a very distant relative has moved home (apparently- for sale sign was up and now gone - we assume the person moved ) ... and she doesn’t know where to send a birthday card to ?!
We never send cards to this person !!

It’s very tiring to constantly reassure her that everything is ok .. we want to help her but don’t know how ...
It’s difficult when her worries are logical and real to her but trivial and non logical to us ..

Thanks for reading ...

I hate to say this but in my experience excessive anxiety to this degree was the first symptom I noticed when my relative became ill with dementia.

Thanks very much for your response .
I fear you are correct , this is exactly the same traits and behaviours displayed by my aunt ( her sister ) who subsequently developed dementia and passed away from it ...
Thanks again for taking the time to reply .

I wish I had the answer for you. Mil is 96 and we always thought she would worry herself into an early grave !
The doctor , on a routine appointment for her blood pressure , offered her a light anti depressant to help manage her anxiety but that made her cry.
I generally just catastrophise along with her ! Sympathy seems to help but that’s in short supply some days !
I have to have an operation soon and then radiotherapy and we are dreading telling her as she will worry so much and make it all about herself !
I do feel ,in a way, that she is very self-centered but she says it’s because she feels for other people and considers their feelings ( unlike me !)

Go talk to her GP yourself using the 'so worried about dad' argument

Maybe something along the lines of Valium might be possible

My father gets along OK as long as you keep solving a problem - not all the problems, just one. It makes him think progress is happening.

I'd suggest listen to the problem, then make reassuring noises about how you will sort it. Don't try to rationalise it away, that won't work, and it'll just demonstrate that "you don't understand". So - nursing home -"I don't know what their rules are about visiting - why don't you send a card and I'll post it" - relative "I'll ask Cousin Z if they know the new address," ...etc. (Of course, you don't actually do any of these things)

Basically what you are doing is accepting they feel there's a problem, and showing them in can be solved. Not denying the problem (by attempting to rationalise it and show it's not there), which leaves them feeling you haven't understood, and with no hope that the problem can be solved.

Don't expect this to be a long term solution - there will always be another problem. Just keep up with a steady trickle of problems "solved" and don't let it get to you.

Thanks all ...
we have an appointment with the GP ...for this week .
Meredinto - great minds think alike ..
I have a couple of birthday cards that aren’t actually going anywhere !
Thanks for your input - it helps to hear your suggestions - so maybe I’m getting a couple of things correct .
My brother is now fully on board which is a great help .

So sad isn’t it when people have to get old ...

@trumpton ... thanks and good luck with your operation and radiotherapy..
Take care xx

@Babbi
Thank you for your thoughts .