Finding it very hard to be patient with elderly Mum

[Chicchicchicchiclana]

As the title says!

As she gets older, my mother needs me more and more. She lives "independently" but relies on my as her emotional dumping ground, while my older brother is asked for more practical help.

She has been suffering from diagnosed anxiety on and off for the past 20 years (coinciding with me becoming a parent, funnily enough) but has had poor mental health for as long as I can remember including a spell of full-blown alcoholism for a few years, and then occasional problem drinking afterwards that carried on until quite recently.

Because of the alcoholism (which became apparent when I was in my late teens/early 20s) and her depression dating back to when she got divorced from my father (when I was 11 or 12) I am just not close to her. I stopped phoning her for years because I never knew what state she would be in when she answered the phone - she would answer even when totally pissed but deny she had been drinking.

So. We're not close. I know she loves us and I know she loves my children. I love her in my own way, but she has never been a source of happiness or comfort to me - always an out an out worry. She is a drain, unfortunately, which I think I would be able to cope with now that she is very old except that I didn't have 50 or so happy years with her preceding it! For example, since her anxiety diagnosis 20 years ago I don't think I have had one single conversation with her where she hasn't mentioned it. She believes it's "good to talk" no matter how the listener might feel.

She has taken to ringing me a lot more and sharing every single tiny thing that goes wrong, and talking about it as if it's an utter disaster. The saga over her central heating timer went on for weeks. It is fuss, fuss, fuss. I know this is how it goes when people get older and live on their own without many friends of family left to talk to. I know that. But I have been absorbing all her problems for so many years, it's almost like now she legitimately needs me to help her out a bit mentally - all my resources have gone.

Does anyone understand? What can I do? Please help, it's making me feel stressed. I can't relax.

Oh @Winterlight your parents sound so much like mine.

My dad was also CHC fast tracked...around April. Initially they thought he might have a type of gastrointestinal cancer, but couldn't run tests as he was too frail even then.

The up and down is so tought isn't it? I described it to the practice nurse today as like being on the world's shittiest roller coaster.

MintyCedric yes the worlds shittiest rollercoaster with many more downs than ups.

I feel I’m holding my breath all the time. And meanwhile it’s so hard to carve out any life for yourself or switch off. The call could come at any minute but Ive already had so many false alarms that I just feel a bit numb now.

I wonder if they’ll be anything left of my dwindling inner resources when the time comes.

My mum was talking about getting dad a Christmas present. This time last year he was in hospital and we were all sure he was facing his last Christmas but here we go round again.

Hold on tight and it’s okay to scream.

OP “ She has taken to ringing me a lot more and sharing every single tiny thing that goes wrong, and talking about it as if it's an utter disaster. The saga over her central heating timer went on for weeks. It is fuss, fuss, fuss.”

My parents went through this, it was a phase, dads gone but mum occasionally does this still. Especially with lockdown loneliness.

What I do is try to have a fallback task I can do while ”mming” on the phone. I admit I’ve been caught out a couple of times trying to do domestic chores and she’s heard a noise! But dusting can be done and it feels like I’ve got 2 chores done at the same time.

I also draw so sometimes I just put the phone on speaker, close enough that she can’t tell she’s on speaker - I live alone so not breaching privacy - and draw.

I found I really felt better about the moaning calls when I used the time to do something. Dad was very much “why use two words when you can use twenty.”

Obviously there are times when their distress is genuine and I listen properly. But there are also stories of what the neighbours did to clean the fish pond....time for chore or draw! 😂