Appalling behaviour-dressed up as old age-it has to be addressed

[BlueLegume]

Hi all, having followed and contributed to several threads on ‘Elderly Parents’ I want to thank so many of you for helping me look at my/our situation. I won’t name check you just yet but you know who you are. This thread is not to be unpleasant about the elderly who are having a hard time. It is to address a very honest point that my parents have always been difficult. Impossible to discuss anything important with, always known better and having watched them alienate good decent people I am angry that they made no effort in life to do anything other than fun stuff for themselves and now expect me and my siblings to pick up their mess. It seems so many middle aged people have fallen foul of these ‘war babies’ as my mother still refers to her and Dad. Yes I accept they were born at the end of the war and they will have had to live in a post war country. For our mother that is all she talks about. She doesn’t accept they had the boom years post war which she has photo evidence of living it large in the 50s and 60s. She was an incredibly authoritarian mother yet after a few drinks would party all night. Always a case of do as I say not as I do. Now as I approach 60 I am wracked with worry and anxiety because she now ‘can’t cope’. It’s ruining life . I have all the therapy theories and have shared much of it. That said I am mad at the fact I am still dictated to or it feels so by her. Father is in a nursing home after a lot of denial that was what he needed. She will not have any help in the house so it is all falling to us. We are broken. My own family are fed up and rightly so. Selfish as it sounds I did not retire to look after a very unpleasant woman who has never liked me. I appreciate that sounds very bitter.

Your life would be emptier and colder if you lost which one? It has to be that clinical. You get one life, make it as happy as you can.

He's fine, thanks! Prostate cancer is very slow, as you heard from Chris Hoy this week - Stage 4 prostate cancer, and 2-4 years left. He's coping by blind optimism, so Ime doing the same, and trying to make sure we get as much fun as possible. Today we were fungus hunting in the hills with friends, which in my quiet world counts as fun

I'm sorry, that's going to be difficult for you. You obviously have to respond to that cry from your DH, but you may feel guilt. Remember, your mother may have no-one, but Social Services will pick up the pieces. Nobody will pick up the pieces if you lose your DH.

@MereDintofPandiculation fungus hunting in the hills with friends sounds marvellous!

🤣 I've just come from the charity shop thread where it's all about 'killer fungus' lurking in secondhand shoes, so this really mystified me for about 10 seconds there!

@MereDintofPandiculation totally understand your comments about not wanting to think about ‘after’. It sounds like you and your DH are embracing and enjoying what life has thrown at you - I salute that. Any comments made by me about my parents really relate to things like the fact they were advised 5 years ago Dad’s mobility would be an issue so they might want to plan to have one facility on the ground floor to make HIS life easier and more manageable. Our mother refused. She did have a stair lift fitted though - which was what she was advised to NOT do as Dad’s condition and stairlifts were considered a dangerous mix. Also they didn’t do joyous things such as you are - they sat and moaned that they had ‘always done the right thing’ so it was ‘not fair’ that he had got x illness. I hope you had a great day out it sounds fabulous. Great memories to make.

@SockFluffInTheBath thanks for the sensible comment. @MereDintofPandiculation as well. You are both right. I sense he is just drained with seeing how much of my headspace and our life is taken up thinking about and mulling over the situation with my mother. It is like a pause button has been pressed on our lives. Got a counselling session tomorrow and need to find some tactics to not let it consume me. I try to be normal but he can see when I am thinking about the situation and it must be hard for him.

DH always used to say he could tell when my dad had been on the phone because of how he brought me down. He died 20 years ago and my mum took on the mantle of keeping me down in my place. I finally went NC about 2 months ago and it’s amazing. There’s no one constantly throwing a net over me, I feel like I can breathe for the first time. I’m not saying that’s the right path for everyone but we all only get one shot at this, why let someone else keep taking the shine off.

@SockFluffInTheBath yes any contact with my mother takes such a toll on me it is like having a 48 hour migraine. I am keeping my distance at the moment but I still get a gnawing feeling of being a bad person for doing so. The reality is nothing, absolutely nothing I do or say is ever met with anything other than negativity. It is soul crushing. She has definitely pressed pause on life - enjoying anything feels wrong.

The guilt is absolutely what stops us walking away. I reached a tipping point one day, over something relatively trivial, and that was it. I’d wanted to do it for so long but Good Daughters tolerate their Bad Parents. One good thing from it is that I am completely different with my own children. The cycle is broken. Look after yourself @BlueLegume do whatever you need to do or can do, day by day.

@SockFluffInTheBath yes yes yes to how I am with my children as well.

Awful, awful stories and all so similar. Mine was a primary teacher who regularly hit me and bounced me around the room by my hair.

Bad apple, difficult, unlovable how awful to label a young girl that. It decimates your self esteem never mind how much work you do on yourself.

It has a life long legacy of damage. Yet these mothers are delusional and want to play happy families.

@BlueLegume I'm the same, only felt like a complete human when loved by my husband. Before that I was promiscuous, alcohol and drugs whilst at uni. Luckily out of it by 23. I am teetotal,have been 20 years,directly as a result of my piss head parents. It drives her mad I won't drink.

Yes to the thin good, fat bad. Dad frequently refers to new readers etc as "fat birds" and mum cackles in agreement. Curry order with no meat, seafood pasta- pick out the seafood. A lifetime of disordered eating with her.

When I was retired from my job due to neuro condition her first words were was I finding it hard to keep my figure. I was on steroids, tonnes of horrible epilepsy meds. All she cared about was that I was overweight.

@BlueLegume is your husband being serious? How difficult and upsetting. Thinking of you but please prioritise your husband not your witch of a mother, she doesn't deserve you.

The trouble can be; that these sort of parents have us into people pleasers at the cost of our own mental health. I still find it very hard to say no to people, overthink response snd feel endless guilt that I might have inadvertently upset someone.

When I was at work, I was often complimented on my people handling skills and my ability to defuse confrontational situations. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a gift, it was a learnt survival skill as a child. I didn’t know what sort of mood I was going to be confronted with on a daily basis, so I had to think on my feet and adjust accordingly and be prepared for another emotional hand grenade to be thrown into the mix from nowhere.

If you are courageous enough to go NC, I urge you to do it. I so regret the wasted years trying to appease someone who was never going to change and who would continue to suck me dry to feed her needs. She always maintained she was so incredibly popular and well liked so I should have just said, “Perfect! Call any one of your dozens of friends instead. I’m done”

@Lexy70 so sorry to hear that happened to you but absolute hats off to you in terms of how you have turned things around. My husband is so lovely and has been incredibly supportive- he is just sick of me having this sword of Damocles hanging over me as it impacts his life too. It was a knee jerk reaction really to me ruining yet another meal with talk of her.

@JohnPrescottsPyjamas I've been told the same and prided myself that I was an empath. Not anymore. Like you I was trained from birth to be hyper vigilant to non verbal signs. Overthink,overanalyse, can't assert myself. Always worry that deep down I am a flawed and bad person.
This is the legacy of my horrible mother.

@BlueLegume glad it was just a knee jerk. Hope everything ok now xx

@Lexy70 the part about your husband completing you and your risk taking before him is identical to my late teens/early 20s. I met DH at 22 and he honestly saved me from myself.

@Lexy70 @SockFluffInTheBath saved by my DH as well. My mother just labelled me as a slattern 🙄 but clearly I was looking for someone to love me hence dangerous behaviour.

@JohnPrescottsPyjamas

When I was at work, I was often complimented on my people handling skills and my ability to defuse confrontational situations. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a gift, it was a learnt survival skill as a child. I didn’t know what sort of mood I was going to be confronted with on a daily basis, so I had to think on my feet and adjust accordingly and be prepared for another emotional hand grenade to be thrown into the mix from nowhere.

This resonated with me so much. I was often allocated the 'difficult' or aggressive relatives (healthcare) because "you manage to get on with them and calm them down so well"

Yeah because I was trained to do it from childhood. I also found confrontation incredibly difficult and would feel physically sick and anxious if I had to check a colleague on poor performance even if they were totally in the wrong. It would take me ages to build up the nerve to do it. Only to be surprised they were ok with it. I was so used to my mother 'blowing up' if you ever said she was in the wrong or questioned her.
It is totally a trauma response. I would always do anything I could not to upset people. It took me years (into my late thirties) before I would say no to unreasonable requests and I still have to take a pause at times before I instinctively agree to do something I don't want to for fear of upsetting people.
My ability to read people, their tone, and non-verbal expressions is honed to perfection from years of training interpreting my mothers, to judge her moods.
I can spot a wrong un a mile off.

I was as well, and I knew I was, I just didn’t know how to go about it. I met DH at work, and I am thankful everyday for him.

Interesting - secondhand shoes are something I can’t face,along with knickers. Nice to know my fear of other people’s foot fungus is justified.

Did you have the feeling that you needed someone to love you warts and all? That it didn’t count if someone loved you when you being lovely?

@MereDintofPandiculation I suppose yes is the answer. I always pushed people away as I couldn’t understand what they saw in me as it had been hard wired into my brain that I wasn’t pretty/clever/nice/funny/academic etc and therefore if my own mother couldn’t love or like me how on earth could anyone else. I find old photos of me as a child quite upsetting because I can see the worry behind the smile. I adore my kids and they know whatever they can reply on me for support or encouragement well anything. I guess this phase of life with my mother reminds me I have never had that and even if I did ever share a worry about something she would make it about herself. I hope your fungi trip was fun?

@MereDintofPandiculation Off topic, but I want to know what Funghi you found. I was out myself the other day. Found my first hedgehog mushrooms and they were delicious. I love a good mushroom hunt.

Yes when I met my DH I was astounded that somebody could like and love me because I was so flawed and difficult. I really thought I was vile and ugly and wouldn't show any flesh or dress nicely.

My parents used to loudly and inappropriately speak about how they were going to have a joint suicide pact and take the "pill". Asked many many times to stop doing this Infront of grandchildren but this spurred them on.

Since turning 80 5/6 years ago there had been no mention of this. Just horrific and rude entitled behaviour towards all NHS staff.

My DH and myself both were, he still is, mental health nurses. My daughter briefly thought of doing this. Was told Infront of both of us that she was "too good to be a nurse" .

They think being a nurse is the lowest of low.