The Drama

[Orangesandlemons77]

Has anyone see found their elderly parents to have become full of drama / relishing drama, perhaps through boredom? Along with their friends?

My elderly MIL loves drama and creates its where there isn't any. Sometimes seems to like it when things go wrong / catastrophises.

I'm finding it a bit exhausting and just wondered off others had this too. I've managed to get their friends being dramatic too- yesterday had one ring to tell me they are stopping all their blood pressure meds etc and asking me what to do. For example.

When I was in A&E getting checked out for possible heart problems elderly MIL fixated on me getting a taxi home after. And how much did that cost? Why didn't you...etc etc

Yep! Catastrophising, conspiracy theories and telling the same stories on a loop even if I say, "Oh, yes I remember this story"... they nod and carry on telling it for the hundredth time (although I have had partners who do this too, yawn). It's more prevalent with my Dad, but friends say they have experienced it with mothers too.

I feel you on this: my stepmother has no interest in my kids, it's all about her own grandchildren, or their cats. They could care less about me or my family and yet still I feel obliged to listen to it drone on and on...

Yes, all of this, stories on a (short) loop, tales about people I neither know nor care about, trivial detail (weather) in response to important news, never asking about/remembering my life, etc., etc. I think that’s all part of cognitive decline and I try not to take it personally (hard sometimes, like repeating for the umpteenth time that my beloved dog died earlier this year). We all hope we’ll be like beveren (don’t know how to link) when we get older, but most of us come here precisely because our older relatives aren't like that (and more worryingly, some of my friends are starting to show similar symptoms).

I am also noticing a tendency to almost 'enjoy' the drama of others personal health problems. Recently a relative has had delirium, which is a concern, but there seems to be no worry about how that person is feeling, it is all about how terrible it is and that the person is 'saying awful things' Yes, well they aren't well.

Also they went to a funeral and told the others there 'how hard it was for the to be there' but they are a distant relative, nothing about how hard it might be fir the direct relatives of the person!

I am starting to have less patience for it and changing the subject.

*them