My Mum is generally fine but when she's in a bad mood or ill she's prone to being an extreme martyr. Thing is, I remember her mother being the same when I was young and it drove Mum fucking insane, and now she's doing it to me. Just to emphasise this is not all the time just intermittent, but I never see it coming or know how to handle it when it happens.
At the moment she has hurt her arm and can't drive, which is obviously annoying for her. She lives in a remote location so can't walk or use public transport. My DB and I have been sorting out the basics for her, we're quite efficient at it because we got used to it during the lockdowns. I haven't been able to physically see her for about 10 days because I've had a virus and she doesn't want to catch it. I phone her fairly regularly, every two or three days, and every time it's "Oh you've contacted me, I didn't think you would. I could have been lying dead for days and you wouldn't have known." But she never needs anything or has much to say except "I don't know why you even phoned, you don't have any news for me".
This morning she phoned because she wanted to pay my friend for dog sitting while she was away (she would normally pay when she picks up her dog, but she came back from holiday with a sore arm so my friend dropped the dog up instead). I said "No problem, I can Revolut the money right now and you can pay me back at the weekend" and she totally went off at me "No, that's not what I want at all, but never mind, I'll sort it out myself like usual". I said that it was just a suggestion and if she wants to do it another way then we can do that. She said "No, no, you just do your own thing, don't mind about me, I don't matter to anyone." Then hung up.
She and I have a very different personality type and way of communicating. It's always been a bit of an issue. She's the type who drops hints and expects people to understand what she means. She would hardly ever be direct, but gets pissed off if people do things that she doesn't want. I'm useless at getting the gist or taking a hint, and not much better at understanding what's going on in someone's mind if they are masking their real feelings. When we were getting DS diagnosed with ASD I did the questionnaire (I think in the Baron-Cohen book) and scored right up in the overlap between the two curves for people diagnosed with ASD and people not diagnosed. So I suspect that someone who was different from me would understand what it is that the wants before she gets to the losing her temper stage. When she was younger we both tried hard to be tolerant of the each other's ways and it mostly worked (once I'd outgrown teenager-hood), but of course she was more independent all the time until recently, now she is older she is more likely to be tired or in pain or injured.
I need tips and tricks to anticipate her needs and moods without blow-ups, because they really upset me.