Elderly mother so stressed about minor things

[Littlepixie75]

Hi everyone! I have a question about what seems to me unusual behaviour…. My 76 year old mother has become a bit more forgetful lately and we are definitely noticing some cognitive decline. But one major thing we’re noticing now is how stressed and worried she gets about really minor things.

Like even just having two things to do in one day (coffee with friend then needing to go to Asda) sends her into a tailspin of stress. Also she gets in weird tizzes about odd things like eg a car alarm going off near her house. Getting really worked up about these things. She couldn’t lift an item into the car that she needed to drop to the charity shop (was totally non urgent). So rang me numerous times in an afternoon while I was working and left messages asking me if I could do it, like it was really urgent! Then when I did it (the next day) said she had been “worried sick” about whether I’d be able to “manage” it. Wasn’t even heavy just a bit awkward, but obviously I understood why she wanted me to do it and was happy to help. No biggie! It’s just so odd and really frustrating to deal with. Anyone else noticed this type of behaviour as a sign of general cognitive decline and/or dementia?

We've got the absolute opposite with mum @Mimilamore. She's delighted to be eating meat and dairy and all sorts many days after the sell by date. Ancient old pate and corned beef and even fish. My sister and I are constantly battling it! Mum says they never get ill. We say it's Russian roulette; they might well one day.

Then I went round to see mum's sister, my aunt, who is apparently exactly the same!

I think it's probably because in the seventies and eighties everything had tonnes more preservatives and so had longer use by dates.

• if use by dates existed then

My DM is the same but still gets worked up over silly things.

They definitely did, we found vanilla essence in MIL's cupboard that went out of date in 1978. It survived 3 house moves 🤣.

I bet it tasted just as good as the day it was bought @OSTMusTisNT

my 80 y/o dad stresses about everything and tells me about his busy week planned when basically it boils down to one half an hour thing a day - he also stresses in case one of his waterbutts overflows and floods a neighbour or he isn't in for the postman in case there's a parcel which can't be left. If there's nothing to catastrophise, he will find something to fit the bill. Right now we're stressing about christmas arrangements.

But its not dementia, its just him - don't leap to conclusions unless there are other signs! ( having reached this point about 10 years ago, he has remained exactly the same since)

Mine has always been like this and it has made our relationship difficult for my entire life. I suspect undiagnosed ND for this and other reasons. My Dad has taken the brunt of it and at the moment he is i hospital and can't so it's all coming our way and I am finding it hard to be patient when she is ringing me all the time at work about trivia (and I don't dare ignore calls in case its an actual emergency). I suspect it's only going to get worse. Sympathy to all.

My mum is going that way. Huge fuss about insignificant things. Much curtain twitching. I put it down to her world shrinking. In the meantime my dad is oblivious.

My mum is 81 very similar, one thing a day and that’s it, I’m learning to manage and a quick coffee shop and cake is enough, a whole day out is way too much.

So we do garden centres, coffe shops and smaller trips and outing and I kind of mentally stick to 3 hours.

She needs it all in the diary, even a coffee and if I have to change plans I’ve started to really be mindful as for me saying actulky can we switch to Thursday for her is a very big change.

we have managed 3 holidays abroad, and have one booked but I have a feeling this maybe the last flight and overseas trip and she finds it so exhausting, even if we relax lots just the overall change and stress. She does love it when we are there and spends hours reading and relaxing but when we get home I can really it takes her a couple of weeks to settle back.

OP you sound lovely and it’s so hard being a new person I know exactly how you feel I’ve made the switch from needing my mum to my mum needing me, mentally it gradually happened and I think it’s the most natural shift we make and I feel super blessed to have her in my life even if she does comment on women’s weight a tad loudly!!

This is so reminiscent of my father. A lovely capable businessman, who was increasingly anxious as he aged. And when DM was diagnosed with cancer, he just couldn’t cope. For him I think it was about control, at least some of the time. If the fridge door was open, or something on the wrong place, he had to deal with it. Immediately.

Some of it-if not all, was depression, and anxiety. He was of the generation who didn’t talk about these things and was reluctant to see a GP, and take the support offered, and I felt sorry for him that he was troubled, but at the same time irritated that these things don’t matter, and his reluctance to get and take help.

I know that antidepressants are often given to those with memory issues and can help. Worth taking to GP if your mum will cooperate. And I’m sorry, you sound lovely and this isn’t easy. I’m still sad that my dad’s last years were made more difficult by his own fears.

I remember my Mum getting really stressed from her 60s onwards. She is nearly 90 now and doesn’t have dementia but has some cognitive decline.

I think part of it in the earlier days, was leaving the workforce, family being grown up and relationships and roles altering. It’s like she forgot how to behave normally. Also awareness of being physically and mentally less able. She threatens suicide numerous times a day.

I remember her threatening suicide because of a row with Tesco mobile, of all things. She is socially awkward now and necked gin before a trip to the theatre as she didn’t know how to behave. She is either rude or gushingly nice to strangers.

Everything is a problem to her. Shopping delivery, organising repairs, simple phone calls. She is also paranoid and says everyone hates her because she is foreign (she’s white - EU country).

She lives a 7 hour drive from me (my only sibling is overseas). But she chose to move there. She blames her late husband for that of course. She constantly reinvents the past and refers to events and conversations that never happened.

Yes as PP say, I think some of it probably is undiagnosed depression plus also unprocessed grief from my dad’s death which was over twenty years ago now. But hell will freeze over before she acknowledges that! Sadly I think she is quite emotionally repressed and it’s probably a generational thing but also what @Theoscargoesto says about control is very true.

Like @Theoscargoesto sats about doors, my mum has an obsession with all internal doors in all rooms being closed immediately on entering/leaving. This is to the point she is sitting there twitching if I come into the room and don’t close the door behind me immediately. So now I just always close the door as a matter of course, but if you’re carrying something etc as I often am it can be hard! And also part of me thinks think I’m pandering to this nonsense to avoid drama but it does it mean she will only get more entrenched in this weird habit…?!

My Mum’s the same in only being able to cope with one thing in a day. Same age as yours. Also goes through phases of extreme health anxiety leading to her screaming and accusing everyone of not caring about her etc. But I think she’s still totally with it, as she’s still able to mastermind who she tells what in order to get what she wants from everyone, including by lying if necessary. As in, demonstrably provable falsehoods which, when you point them out to her, she shrugs off with a “that’s not how I remember it. I can’t cope with all of this. I shouldn’t have to be dealing with this at my age”.

However, ALL of the above behaviour is completely uncharacteristic. She was never, ever like this as a younger woman. She was always a devoted wife and mother, generous to a fault, and still is an utterly devoted grandmother. It was the pandemic and the extreme worry that life as she knew it was over. She stopped flying. She won’t drive on a motorway now. She won’t even drive to a new area unless it’s for a medical appointment that she can’t get moved to a local area. Lockdowns terrified her and also gave her an excuse to be utterly selfish and not deal with anyone or anything. She manages all her relationships through FaceTime and the phone. She just finds everything and everyone too much bother. I think she’s using her age as an excuse to be extremely selfish at all times. TBH, I don’t blame her after a lifetime of being everything to everyone!

My parents went abroad recently (on a cruise), and mum just couldn't cope with it - the flight was the worst, but just the general unfamiliarity was too hard. They had another trip booked, but they've cancelled it. It's really sad to think that they'll almost certainly never go abroad again now. There were lots of places they still wanted to go.

My parents travelled a lot in early retirement, they last went abroad about 6 years ago, their last few holidays were those all included coach ones where you get picked up in a group and everything is done for you, they did a few in this country too. I flew with my Mum a couple of years ago to a funeral at the other end of this country so no passport control but she found security really confusing with the plastic bags etc and we wouldn't do it again unless there were similar circumstances. Also we were picked up by a cousin, taken to their house and stayed there then driven back to the airport the next day and used taxis at our end so it was very straightforward an actual holiday would be much harder.

Yep, v common; when they haven't got enough to think about, small things become big. Did you ever see the "OMG such anality from PIL!!!" thread in Classics? Might at least be good for a laugh when it's driving you demented.

My mum is seventy-four now, and definitely getting more fretful about things that she wouldn't have even given a second thought to when she was working. We had quite a disagreement last autumn when I refused to leave the house at 9pm on a very wet Sunday November night to walk down to the Post Office to post a letter she'd written to her cousin. The post box 200yds down the road wouldn't do, it had to be the Post Office in town. Saying I would post it the following morning didn't help; apparently she "Would just sleep easier in her bed", knowing it was in the hands of the Royal Mail rather than sitting on the dresser overnight.

My DH used to help older people with DIY in their homes and experienced similar.
He had a strategy where he would ask people to write the jobs on a list in their kitchen, and he said “let me work and I will finish this current job, then I will come and find you, and you can show me the next job on your list”.
I think clients gained some comfort from just writing it down and reassurance that things would get done, but not instantly.

My DM is currently like this with my DB, she wants minor little jobs doing instantly - because they are on her mind, but DB has a lot going on.

I can feel myself migrating the same way alas…

I’ve certainly noticed my FIL who is86 this week tends to fixate on what to me seem really trivial things - if he is waiting for something like a letter or a call about something he finds it difficult to then be actively involved in other things - basically his multi tasking has hugely declined I feel - however he’s physically in good shape and still sharp on many things

Before my mum was diagnosed with Alzheimers, she had a fixation about their conservatory sliding doors being slightly opened. Dad had to keep closing them as she would become quite agitated as she "didn't want little animals getting in".

Another thing we noticed was she also became very set on having stuffed toys and my old doll from back in the 50s. She wanted to dress the doll which she did and all the teddies, about six in all, had to be on the bed.

She died in 2010 and it's quite sad remembering how she changed.

It’s not a competition. Just because your worst day to date isn’t ’as bad’ as someone else’s doesn’t invalidate the emotions you’re going through. Everything is scary or hard the first time. Some things get easier, some really don’t.

Thank you @SockFluffInTheBath, that is kind of you to say. I suppose I worry about seeming thoughtless of other people’s situations which I know from reading this board can be really dreadful. But we’re all going through our own shit, aren’t we?! And hopefully finding some comfort on here!

I really recommend arranging an initial conversation with her GP to put you all at ease and start considering how you can make life easy and safe for her which in turn will make it easy for you.

If you do start to go down the dementia route with your mum my advice is to put initial care in place early doors so you can all start to get used to it and build on things as time goes on instead of you falling in to doing a lot yourself and feeling burnt out by it and it becoming harder to implement external help. Websites like lottie.org/home-care will show you what kind of at home support might be available in her area if you wanted to start lookign t visiting carers - I know it can sound scary but even just 1 hour a day of companionship/household tasks or things you're starting to pick up might be a good place to start.

I hope this helps

I can see some of this in myself (age 70) - and I experienced it with my mother. My mother died aged 87 and although she did forget things, I wouldn't have thought she had dementia. She did get stressed about things that wouldn't have stressed her - certainly before the age of 60 anyway. I put it down to narrowed horizons so that there wasn't the same breadth of stuff to occupy her mind. I can see the same with me too so I do try not to involve my sons.

I kind of see how people limit their socialisations too - tbh I often can't be bothered and I can get stressed if I have to drive somewhere unfamiliar, especially if parking is tricky. I really value days when I have no appointments. I have groceries and prescriptions delivered and I have a home hairdresser (but she also cuts my sons' hair too so it saves them a job at the weekend, and of course it's bank of Mum lol).

I don't feel I forget things to a worrying degree, I always was a bit forgetful - but maybe it's worse than I realise and I can't remember! 😉I honestly feel it is just an age thing with certain people.

@VexedofVirginiaWater I think that’s it with my FIL (86) - gets worked up about things that 12 years ago wouldn’t have fazed him at all and I can feel he gets flustered if he has more than 1 thing ‘going on’ in a day. I do think no longer working contributes to no longer being able to cope as well with multitasking in many elderly people - along with new technology or ways of doing things that to them seem illogical or’fiddly’ -it’s not always Alzheimer’s or dementia- my FIL described it as his ‘ram’ is full and no room for learning more !