Losing the plot - me, not the elderly relatives

[Thingamebobwotsit]

Do you ever just feel like you are losing the plot with elderly relatives?

I have one (DF) in the very last stages of Parkinson's. This should be taking up most of my time and emotional energy. Instead I have huge demands from DM (they are no longer married) and wider, extended family.

It is like I am the go to sensible one who all the 70+ years old in my life expect to sort out their issues. And when I say no, sorry can't do that right now, all I get is kick back as they expect me to be available on tap. It is like I have suddenly gained 4 additional stroppy teenagers in the family.

I have my own family and kids, and work too.

I am an only child with very few cousins so I suspect this plays into the additional demands. And I am trying to outsource as much of it as possible but I am really feeling the pressure right now, when all I want to do is curl up in a ball and hibernate while I grieve for DF. I had no idea this is what my 40s would look like. And yes I have stepped back from all of them whenever possible, but it still keeps coming. I don't know whether they just forget they have asked before or that I said no, or whether they hope they will eventually sway me. Who knows?

Seriously thinking about emigrating! 😄

There isn't really a lot of purpose to this just needed to say it out loud!

I'm in somewhat of a similar position to you. My mother is in her 70s and she does have more and more demands of me and often it can be mindless and pointless and often she has no comprehension or understanding of me or my life. Sometimes work can be long and intense, sometimes I am ill.

Like I remember instance where she wanted me to put the computer on the TV so that I can scroll with her all the offers the online grocery shop had. There were over 100 online pages and she wanted to see every offer. It actually took over two days over the course of a weekend and looking back it was so sickening.

Another time she wanted to read all of the online condolences left on a page on a person that she didn't see in over 50 years.

There has been so many requests that are just unreasonable.

I find that I can't reason with her any more. You wrote in her post about a 'kickback'. This is what I used to get and the behaviour is still there to some degree but I know how to manage it better. I don't reason with her any more. I lie to her. Lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie

• the battery is dead
• the computer is broken
• my bank card is not working and I need to go to the bank (this is when she wants online orders). Sometimes she might want more makeups and shoes and other stuff. Sometimes her requests are unreasonable. Like if she finds a cream that she likes and if it's on offer she will want me to buy 3 or 4 of them with my money. She does pay me back but the initial sting is there. I find I have to lie. I don't mind buying or two but not when she wants more and more. Another time she wanted me to buy a cream she saw in a magazine but I remember I bought it before for her and it didn't agree with her and I knew there was no point trying to reason with her. I had to lie about my bank card and my bank until her wanting and eagerness for what she read about slided and fell off her rader.

You say you are getting kick back from your over 70s relatives. You can't reason with some people so don't. Just lie. Lie. Lie. Lie. Lie. Lie. Lie.

If they want your time just say you need to have a look at your schedule, there's something coming up with work that you might not be available. Just make it up. Don't just give them a hard no. They can be like fucking toddlers who cannot take a no.

I am just after thinking of another scenario where I don't reason with her any more and I lie.

My mother doesn't know how to use tecknologoly. My family sends me all the pictures on the different platforms like messagener and WhatsApp for sharing with our mother too. So I do show her the pictures.

I used to print pictures for her. Depending on the number of pictures, it can cost a small fortune for printing pictures.

I was due to print out pictures a few years ago but then my mother broke out in another unexplainable anger to me that just didn't make sense. I was so deflated after another outburst.

I can remember times where I paid 30 or 40 pounds on printing a batch of pictures for her and that's how she turns around and treats me. Like fucking dirt at the end of her shoe with her outbursts.

A time came where I thought - fuck her. I am not going to print out more pictures. She doesn't respect me. She can never appreciate what I do for her. She's someone who is computer and smartphone illitrate and relies on me for pictures and that'd how she treats me. With outbursts.

There's no point trying to reason with her on this and pointing out all her outbursts and asking for an apology before I print out more pictures. So I just decided not to print any more. I won't tell her. I won't reason with her. I lie to her all the time. It's been about 2 and half years since the last batch of pictures I printing and I will never print any more for her for as long as I live.

I am not going to reason with her. I just make excuses of she ever asks and say things like - I was meaning to print pictures but I was so busy and I never got a chance.

'that's a good idea...I must look into that'

That's another way I say no to my mother without saying the word no and whatever it is - I will never look into it.

I remember another incident with my mother - I came home from having my hair done. I got it lightened and coloured.

My mother displayed an interest in getting her hair done too. But she never once went to a hairdressers to get her colour done preferring home colour. I must admit it would be nice for her and to boost her up. She wanted to then go to my hairdresser.

I am apprehensive sharing my hairdresser to her because I know she won't appreciate his prices and she will likely get angry. Likely not to him but to everyone that will listen to her and she will likely bad mouth my hairdresser. I love him far far far too much. Sharing my hairdresser is a big fat hard no. But I told her I will check his online bookings and he is usually booked out weeks if not months in advance and some crap.

I wasn't going to tell her the real reason that I just don't feel comfortable with a potential shit storm of anger that she may display if she's not happy with his work. You can be not happy with something but to turn around and nearly have someone's neck on the line is not on. I think someone could raise an issue with a professional and see if they can rectify it and that should be it. My mother would likely just destroy him and his name no matter what.

So all I did was lie to her and just redirect her to a different salon.

I am not willing to share my hairdresser.

Oh wow @Featherpink .

It is the life admin that grinds me down. I have enough of my own I struggle to keep on top of!

The elderly can be very hard work indeed. I remember when I was a child thinking it was very unfair that my parents used to lie to my grandmother about what we were or weren't doing. I remember being told things like "don't tell grandma we're going on holiday", or "don't tell grandma we've bought a new car". I was too young to understand what was going on behind the scenes when I wasn't there.

As adults, with both me and OH having to care for our respective mothers in old age, I now understand!

We're both honest people (to a fault) and we never lie, not to each other (we don't even do "secret/surprise" things for birthdays etc., not to our son, and not to friends/family or work colleagues, etc.

But, reluctantly, we had to start lying to our respective mothers when they both started getting irrational, illogical and needy.

MIL was the latest and the hardest. She'd always been a pleasant and passive person, always doing things for others, not a hint of selfishness in the near 40 years I knew her. As she lived just 10 minutes away, on a daily basis of us would have been to see her, take her shopping or a drive out, do a bit of gardening for her, do some DIY for her, or some life admin for her. We'd been taking her on family holidays with us and our son for around a decade, but had to stop because of Covid in 2020. So we were (and had been) very engaged with her welfare and included her.

But turning 80, she turned into a monster. Constantly phoning us (several times a day). Getting argumentative about trivial things. Claiming she never saw anyone or did anything (literally once said that on the phone less than an hour after we'd spent half a day with her). Looking back it was clearly the start of dementia or alzheimbers. The first holiday we had without her was when we'd told her we were going somewhere (same kind of place we'd always gone with her, usually European/med resort), and she just point blank refused to come with us, saying she hated going abroad, hated foreigners, etc. So we booked it for us only, and then we had a couple of months of hell with her flip flopping between being angry we weren't taking her and wanting to go. Completely irrational and we'd never seen her like it before. Then that kind of behaviour started in other ways, i.e. refusing to go to Tesco with us, saying she hated it and wanted to go to Sainsbury, then the next week, refusing to go to Sainsbury - exactly the same flip-flopping. It just became easier to not do things with her.

By the time we went on the first holiday without her, she made it a living nightmare for us. Phoning us on our mobiles several times a day, asking when we were coming back, claiming she "needed" us for something that turned out trivial. Next time we went on holiday, we simply didn't tell her and made out we were just at home struck down with a cold and were housebound until we recovered - it was just easier to lie to get her off our backs. (Obviously, we'd made sure she had stocks of food etc in the kitchen but she was still doing small shops herself).

That kind of lying had to become the norm unfortunately as she was ruining our lives with her sudden mood swings, irrationality and neediness. We did have to reduce contact as it was affecting our health. Ironically, the less we did for her and the less we told her, she was actually better and easier to deal with. We could just breeze in, do a bit of irrelevant small talk, check things over, make sure she was OK, and go again, and she'd be fine. But if we told her anything important/relevant, like when our son got a place at Uni, it was back to anger and irrationality, complaining and arguing about why did he need to go to Uni, why spend so much money, if he has to go, why does it have to be so far away, etc. Basically, anything other than her routine and she'd not be able to cope and fly off the handle for no reason. Unfortunately, that meant that instead of us including her in everything, we had to stop telling her things, had to stop doing things with her, etc. Very sad indeed. We knew it wasn't her fault but that doesn't help cope with it.

Nail on the head. Running one household is enough. Running a second with an unwilling and un co-operative person is just too much, especially when they argue and complain constantly about what you're doing for them.

Yep, l can 100% relate. It seems like no one gets that l have my own stuff going e.g. full time work, 2 children under 2, studying, chronic dehabilitating health condition etc. So l can't run around after them and constantly change things at their ever varying whims. The response is lm "selfish and thoughtless". Plus lm the only girl with 2 brothers so there's a vibe they can not possibly do anything as they have Very Important Man jobs. I would say we are all equally busy and l live furtherest but the spotlight is always on me. Luckily my in-laws are super reasonable and understanding

I have firm boundaries. That no one likes and escalates to try to get over. It's rather exhausting. I'm already dreading Christmas. I'm tempted even though it's in March to send a message saying l am not hosting. I'm sick of being ill at Christmas and being expected to run around after other people, l would prefer to spend quality time with my very young children

@WhatFreshHellisThese send the message now. Two things - you will never get the time back with your kids and this age Christmas is super precious. And second, you won't get any thanks for busting a gut.

Message now, face the flack early on and then you can have a nice run up. And if you can book to "be away" for a night or two in the days preceding Christmas to give yourself a good excuse for not being available l, I would do it too.

This I have done several times. People don't like it, but they get over it.

It is just so exhausting.

I feel for you, it is really tough and being an only child must make it worse. You must look after yourself and hold your NO with your demanding mother and extended family. Your father's condition it sounds like medically is the priority, so tell her and everyone else that you are focusing on making sure he has the right care and support and they will have to find help elsewhere. And know this (because I have been there) the sky will not fall in. All that will happen is they will be fed up; and that is a them problem.

This is it for me. Every day and every week in my work is different and it can get busy. There's an extra layer of tremendous stress now in the form of my aging mother. Shes not very old. She's in her 70s but still, her mind can be utterly f*cked up. I remember getting help from a dementia group because I strongly suspect that but I am getting Jo help or support in relation to a diagnosis or ruling it in or out. You see a lot of dementia is usually memory loss. I see behavioural, mood, poor planning and organising and just so much crap.

No body prepares you for the bullshit an aging parent throws at you. Someone on a dementia group explained to me that you can't reason with them so don't and just lie, lie, lie, lie, lie.

Things are a little bit smoother now since that advice. It's still a pack of shit and it can still get very bad at times but taking that into consideration and it's a little bit better.

Lieing was alein to me too but I had to adopt it and take it on when dealing with my mother.

We booked to go away over Christmas after the most painful Christmas Day ever last year, never ever save your sanity and do similar

God its draining. 80s. Had a night away in my friends she kept ringing my phone. I ignored it. I thought theres more siblings for her dramas. Next week its something else. I keep tight boundaries. This doesnt always work as a snot on when I visit if I lay low that week lol. They like babies

I am so exhausted by it. It is like whack-a-mole at the moment - you just think you have one problem sorted and the next crops up.

It is another thread on here which someone discusses the changing demographics and how the squeezed in the middle Mum's tend to be older than previous generations, so the children are younger at the point at which our parents then have increasing needs. Couple that with longer life expectancy but no improvement in quality of life and you have the perfect storm. (I am paraphrasing massively as the original poster was far more eloquent!).

Ah its really hard. My mam needs a hand hold for everything. Think boredom a big part too. My husb says ignore it. But then she keeps ringing... Im worn out at 52

@Thingamebobwotsit i hear you. Everything is priority #1 and must be attended immediately. Yes he’s old, yes he’s physically incapable, yes he’s bored, and yes, he has isolated himself. That doesn’t counter that we both work full time, have our own health issues, have our own children etc etc You don’t need to feel bad for feeling overwhelmed. They lose sight of anything past themselves and think we’re all just sitting round waiting for the phone to ring. I also look longingly on rightmove. We’re not bad people, we are overloaded. They remember a time when the wife would look after the elders- medical intervention didn’t drag peoples’ lifespan out indefinitely then, and women didn’t work in the jobs we work in.

There was little traffic back then. I got she took her mother.. I said most people work now. Seems go on and on with demands) a mood if we dont play her games or co operate.

Sympathy to you all. I have this on the horizon as DM is loosing all her filters. Nothing was ever good enough her whole life, and at 75 she's taken to telling people to their faces.
Expect there is nothing much wrong with her life. She just hates not being the centre of attention. Christmas this year was a particular nightmare as DS was in hospital and I was being pulled in a million directions. I've told my siblings I'm never having her to stay again after that.

Fookin nightmare isnt it. Could be years of this crap.