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.

@SockFluffInTheBath I hear you and I started the thread so people could share their stories relating to parents or situations which are not rose tinted and present incredibly difficult situations in dealing with people who have often demeaned us made us feel unlovable etc etc etc. As you say we cannot say these things in real life as unless others have had the same experience with our parent then they cannot relate. I can understand @TammyJones the logic of wanting to understand why people do things but some of us have had to literally grow up navigating very difficult parents which has formed our personalities. For me my mother has always had to get her own way or she has a strop. Due to this and us all giving into her she has never developed any adult coping skills. The pattern is ‘BlueLegumes mother’, strop, threaten all sorts, sulk - we all give into the demands. Rinse and repeat in bog standard situation - until the day when serious issues need dealing with and mum cannot get her own way because it is not possible. I do not want anyone on this thread feeling they cannot speak their truth in a safe space, that includes those who perhaps try and counter the comments those of us using it to vent away.

I was thinking about this thread earlier today when I was reading about that poor woman in France and the multiple drugged rapes. It's emerged that many of the men who raped her had been abused themselves as children. And I'm aware that probably many of our extremely difficult elderlies had a similarly difficult upbringing of abuse (whether physical, neglect, emotional, verbal or sexual).

But they didn't have to perpetuate it. I've worked really really hard to break that cycle. I'm aware how I react to my child is based on how I was brought up but I've put a load of effort into not reacting like that, finding out how I should react and then practising that. I'm very proud that I never have acted out like my parent did (although sometimes I've had to walk away and take some deep breaths first!). Surely if you love your child you'd do that?!

Incidentally, I have had something strangely positive come out of my parent's behaviour. Like many of you, I can read a room and body language in micro-seconds as I was brought up living on tenterhooks never knowing when someone would fly off the handle, over-react to something etc. It's exhausting living like this, but it did mean I noticed something wasn't right with someone at work. The body language, speech, tone of voice didn't add up. I ended up helping her to escape a coercive control relationship which on the surface looked like it was fine.

@EmotionalBlackmail lovely post about the positive impact being brought up as many of us have discussed. I agree that I have used my experiences to parent in a very different manner. Following the Gisèle Pelicot case it is interesting to hear of the impact of their childhoods on the lives of the perpetrators. I am pleased you were able to help your co worker you are right we are good at reading situations. I feel putting my father in a nursing facility-under instruction from clinicians has saved him in his final months/years. My mother made his life a misery. Lovely post.

@EmotionalBlackmail Agree absolutely with@BlueLegume Perfectly summed up.

I have no doubt whatsoever my mother was abused emotionally by her own parents too. My grandfather was a drunkard who brought another woman into the marital home and fathered two children with her alongside the two he had with my grandmother.

My mother had some sort of Stockholm Syndrome with her father as despite the fact he was also a wife beater, she hero worshipped him and the fact he maintained ‘good order’ and wouldn’t tolerate bad manners. Not sure how that made him an excellent example of parenting - but she believed it did and often used to tell me her father wouldn’t have put up with my ‘bad behaviour’

But you are so right. Someone has to break the cycle. I can clearly remember thinking, as a child, if I have a family I will never treat my children like this. Scary that even at such a young age, I had the self awareness to know her parenting wasn’t ‘normal’ I guess I saw my friends not going home trembling in fear in anticipation of a smack, punch or an overinflated drama over some imagined incident or being too terrified to ask something reasonable because I had no way of knowing how she would react.

As an adult, her upbringing helped me maybe understand her behaviour, but it didn’t excuse or justify it.

@JohnPrescottsPyjamas great post re Stockholm syndrome. Depending on my mothers mood she either painted her father as a saint who treated her like a princess or as a gambling drunkard.

Great posts. I'd forgotten about Stockholm Syndrome. When I was younger, people used to call my family 'interesting'. I now say that they think theat abnormal is normal. I was very scared, and disassociated. I've always been boggled that the others laugh at some of the nasty jibes my M comes out with. Wanted to abort you etc etc. And pander to her.
She herself had a sadistic alcoholic father and a cold unpleasant mother, who she contrarily loves.
She's said to me that she ' doesn't know why she treated me like she did ', as though she ever stopped. She obviously thinks I still see her as love ( it isnt). She has no self awareness. Her inner child is ...4 ?

I'll read up again on SS. I
In greater detail. I've somehow managed to maintain a relationship with my ( very damaged ) younger siblings, but have always found the fact that some of the most damaged of them (6 siblings) let her do what she does frustrating.

This is it exactly @JohnPrescottsPyjamas

"As an adult, her upbringing helped me maybe understand her behaviour, but it didn’t excuse or justify it."

I remember doing marriage preparation classes and the vicar explaining that you tend to model how you conduct your own relationship with what you experienced growing up. She emphasised that didn't mean if our parents had ended up divorced then we would be too(!) but that it was something to be aware of and consider when dealing with all of those issues that come up.

It's definitely nowhere near all elderly people, it's some problematic individuals who get worse as they age. My PILs have been dead for years, they would have been the top end of the Silent Generation. Yet they brought their son up modelling how other people should be treated, how to share work/housework/child raising equally and how to parent well. I have learnt so much from them and him, and he's been the force for change in my life (and why I have achieved so much professionally too).

Not sure if you meant to quote me, but nothing you said has made me picked on.
I’m in awe of you strong individuals, who have broken the chain of abuse.

'Feel picked on'**

I wasn’t sure if my reply to your post seemed argumentative @TammyJones and wanted to be clear it wasn’t meant that way. I’ll just tiptoe away on these eggshells all around me (that my bloody mother laid down for me 😂🤨),

Remember it takes a parent to start a toxic relationship, but it takes a parent and a child to decide to continue it.
Whatever has gone before you are now an adult and you have equal choice in how this plays out from here.
If you are choosing to provide a level of support that you are uncomfortable with, and that she could be getting from elsewhere, then stop. Just stop. Make a choice and step back.
Others have done it and you can too.
It sounds like you have a family who need you and you can choose them.
Yes, she will say awful things. But, ummm, so what?

One thing my DH reminded me of this morning was how she was obsessed with others opinions of her too. She used to get very worked up that people might think she was untidy, or lazy (she used to open her curtains before she went to bed at night in case the neighbours though she might be having a lie in in the morning!) or god forbid, someone thought that she didn’t have enough money. I tried to tell her over the years, others had too busy lives to worry about what she was doing, but it never changed.

Perversely, she was highly judgemental of others; what they wore, their weight, how they lived their lives, what they spent their money on. In her own social group she was very competitive and aware, but would treat those she considered her inferiors like dirt. Very snotty with serving staff or sales assistants - unless she wanted them to give her a bit of schmooze - then she could be ‘charming’

Very sad way to live a whole life.

@Bobbie12345 I'm guessing you haven't suffered life long verbal abuse. The legacy of verbal abuse is lifelong. Please don't come on this lovely, understanding thread and belittle what many of us have experienced.

Going NC is not always an option and relationships are complex but to blame the person being abused for perpetuating the abuse is beyond nasty.

@JohnPrescottsPyjamas
Perversely, she was highly judgemental of others; what they wore, their weight, how they lived their lives, what they spent
Do you think that might explain her hypersensitivity about other people's opinions?
She believed others thought the way she did ?

@Bobbie12345 to echo what @Lexy70 said. This thread has been incredibly helpful for those of us who simply cannot just choose what help we give. For me my mother point blank refuses any help except from me and my 2 siblings. You may say we have choice but we don’t. It is awful driving for an hour to see our Dad in his nursing home knowing she is not providing him with toiletries he needs, spends for things like hair cuts and podiatry - all solved by us supplying these. We then go and see Mum who is close to the home and she has a load of stuff she has not done so she knows we are hooked in. Yes, sometimes we in turn step away but when you organise a food delivery because in my case I wanted to spend some time with my own kids who live at the other end of the country - and she refuses to take the delivery it is awful. Please read what @Lexy70 wrote. This has been a really intelligent conversation between incredible people navigating a tough path.

@BlueLegume does she actually refuse to accept the delivery?

That is another level of being obstructive.

Mine is similar, nothing is ever right re food,shopping and deliveries.

I’m sure she did. It was all about projecting an image and an illusion of grandeur and superiority. She definitely had severe undiagnosed mental health, or at the very least, complex anxiety issues.

She had an extremely Victorian attitude to MH. She often talked about others being in the ‘cuckoo club’ or the ‘asylum’ She almost believed mental illness was catching. If someone mentioned they had suffered from depression etc, even years previously, would be immediately dropped as a friend and they would only be referred to in a low whisper.

@Lexy70 yes she refuses delivery. She made it very clear to a social presciber type person’I have daughters I want them to take care of me. Exact words of the SP.

@JohnPrescottsPyjamas my parents were the same despite me being a cpn. Only uneducated people got dementia. I worked in a "nut house" with the "crazies"

Utterly abhorrent language and attitude to have.

@BlueLegume I think your mum by saying that is trying to convince everyone that because she is/was such an outstanding mother that her devoted daughters will sacrifice everything to care for her. I mean who wouldn't, she is such a special and unique lady.

I've been away for a few days and am catching up and nodding along with a lot of posts.

Mine is also horrible about mental illness and sneers at people with depression (including me).

At the same time she seems to be quite anxious and is always turning up at and leaving things early and creating drama. And yes, seems to have no compassion.

I remember going to see her after I has a miscarriage (id had multiple losses), she said "Life's a bitch" then in the next breath wanted DH to took at her new kitchen cupboards.

I have suggested she gets counselling a couple of times but she doesn't want that or antidepressants either, just me and my sibling to enable her.

I grew up thinking very consciously that I wanted to be a different kind of person and very definitely a different kind of mother.

My own was distant and cold, apart from when she frequently lost her temper, screamed, hit and once chased me (aged 16) around the house with a knife. We grew up in a very dysfunctional, conflict ridden household.

She also drove away my first boyfriend by contacting his employers and lying to them. He had to leave his job and move away. She then ‘arranged’ for me to get into a relationship with a man twice my age that she liked. I was just 17. She made no attempt to protect me from him and put pressure on for me to carry on seeing him. He was a sexual predator, as well as emotionally and physically abusive. She then spent years talking about him and wondering how he was after I finally managed to get away following a final beating that put me in hospital. She lied a lot, and used suicide threats to manipulate people, gossiped about me and said very nasty things about me behind my back - that my sister gleefully repeated to me. When my sister’s two children were being neglected by her husband while she worked nights, my mother lied about that too, denied having discussed it with me and denied that we agreed to talk to social services. There is a great deal more. . .

I started having major anxiety attacks whenever I spoke to her or thought about her. She and my sister also minimised the serious health problems I have while simultaneously expecting me to take responsibility for both of them and I realised that there was no hope. I haven’t spoken to either of them for 6 years. In general I have felt better, but the guilt of not being in touch is often difficult to bear. I think about her every day, but know that I just can’t deal with her or my sister anymore.

@BlueLegume @Lexy70
Help me understand. I definitely don’t want to belittle anyone, and no you are quite right I have been very blessed to not have an abusive parent.
So help me out because I have been confused again and again by people I come across keeping on taking the abuse and never saying ‘no’.
I can imagine it being unbelievably complicated and hard, but why not allow consequences to stand and allow her some discomfort from her own actions?
If you order food and she won’t accept it, why do you then go and buy her more to deliver in person, or go and clean her house because she won’t allow anyone else to? Or whatever the scenario is.
I am not talking about not supporting your dad with the things she won’t provide for him. I am talking about allowing her to keep acting with no consequence.
Yes, she might be hungry for a few days or live in dirt. But that would be of her own choice, and she also has the ability to make it right by accepting the support in the way you/ services are offering it.
you said that she actually said that she only wanted her daughters to do it.
What do you honestly see happening if you just said no? I get that it would feel like a massive game of chicken to see who blinked first, but wouldn’t that pain be worth it compared to what you are doing now?
I can see that someone who had never heard from a friend or a counsellor that it would be ‘ok’ would struggle. But I get the sense you have been through counselling etc about the dynamics but still cannot say ‘no’. Why not? I really, really do not get it. You are right.

@Bobbie12345 good questions. I will do my best to address the points but forgive me if they don’t fully explain. Firstly having spent a lifetime trying to help and address her moans about her life it became clear several years ago she just wanted to moan and be the ‘victim’ essentially of her own generally poor decisions. An example would be that our Dad loved sport. He had/has problems with his eyes. Just before COVID my DH had said ‘oh (Dad’s name) are you going to watch the (footy team name) game on Sunday - it’s on ITV?’ FYI Mum has never allowed him Sky etc because and I quote ‘only common people have Sky’. Anyhow Dad replied - I’d love to watch it but I am struggling to see the TV these days. Mum will not have a TV bigger than a 32 inch. Again - big TVs are common. We have several 55 inch plus and trust me we are not what Mum would call ‘common’, but hey ho. DH suggested a bigger TV would help. Money is absolutely no object. Dad got animated and said that sounds like a great plan would you help us sort one out and set it up. Mum shut him down and us saying she ‘would think about it but he can easily ‘listen’ to the sound and imagine it. Yes, listen to a football game in 2019. How generous of her. My siblings and I considered buying him a decent sized TV as a gift - we ran it by Mum and she made it incredibly clear - as in ‘don’t dare do that I will have none of you in this house if you do’ way. Yes we could have defied her but this Sword of Damocles threat is something she has always used and often gone through with when she doesn’t get her way. We couldn’t risk not having access to Dad who was clearly starting to deteriorate health wise.

In terms of leaving her to live in dirt or without food in the hope she will cave in and accept outside help - we have done that and she won’t. We left her for about 3 weeks earlier this year - that said her freezer had been filled and she had ample stocks of tinned food etc. The period coincided with one sibling being on holiday, one having a pre planned op and the 3rd being struck down with a bad stomach bug. When we eventually all came back to see her she had done absolutely no washing - she is more than capable of using the state of the art washer drier she has - we have written step by step instructions - she had visibly ‘shrunk’ because she had not eaten and she had purposely left all her curtains closed so a neighbour contacted us worried she had fallen or died. So of course we raced over. All I can say is this is our mother. She has always been manipulative. We do say no BUT and it is something you possibly will struggle to understand, we have only ever known these tactics as normal behaviour and eventually one of us blink - never her though. Over the years she has done and said some awful things in order to get her own way. She is renowned for it with neighbours and friends. Even though I know our Dad is not really aware of much in his nursing home I think we all do things for Mum so we can look him in the eye. He had a miserable life with her unless he did exactly what she wanted. She is a very immature one dimensional person. I hope that explains a little but am happy to come back with further details. I know she is in the wrong. She has us at her disposal to actually make things easier. She is addicted to playing the victim to get her own way so she knows nothing else. She is an addict. Her addiction is attention seeking and manipulation until she gets her fix. Addiction of any kind is like a rot running through a family.

Thank you for your response @BlueLegume
I am sorry you have had to live with it and wish you all the best for the future.

@Bobbie12345 I forgot to add the other tactic she has always used to bring us in line when she felt/feels she needs attention. Refusing to answer her phone and also the landline. That is a horrible one and even though we have discussed how worrying it is she just stares at us insolently. Because she knows it works. None of us live especially nearby. She has no one else because she has upset and alienated everyone and now Dad is in a nursing facility even the decent ones who stuck around because he was very social have dissociated themselves from Mum.