Why does she do this?? My Mother

[lolaflores]

Every single time I mention ANYTHING...she makes no comment other than to tell me about someone up the road who had that.
I have ongoing back pain (had it done 9 years ago but seems to be back to square 1)
At the moment, I am walking with a limp
"What's wrong with you?"
"Back is playing up "
"Oh, I was with (insert name of someone ) the other day and she has that..." and off she goes into some convoluted explanation of the over all situation.
Its getting worse the older she gets.

I keep as much as I can out of her reach but it seems even the speed of our internet connection is a topic to have light thrown on it by someones experience.

My DH is being sent overseas for work. Like a fool I mentioned it as it's going to be quite a change to life. Again, no comment on how that a going to work, just a lengthy story about someone she knew once. I finished the call a bit abruptly. As a rule I dont call her because the conversation is so one sided but can anyone help me understand this? If I understood I would get so wound up.

OP, no one likes it when they're trying to talk about a problem and the conversation always ends up about being something or someone else. Someone needs to have the time and space in the conversation to elaborate on the topic and they need to feel listened to, and that the person in front of them is empathising with them and able to focus. They also don't like having their problems minimised by being compared to other people's problems. In that regard she's not doing a great job apparently and I hope you've let her know how you feel. Don't just sigh or something. Actually sit down or talk to her in a more serious way about it.

I don't know her obviously, but I agree with @thisisnotmyllama that she could be relating. Some people, when they have no interest or are bored with what you're saying, take the conversation in other directions. However, in your mum's case, it could be that she is genuinely interested and what you're talking about is making her think of all sorts of other people or memories that are also connected to your topic. She is doing the equivalent of hearing a bit of information and saying 'Me too!' although in her case it's 'Another person I know has that! You're not alone!'.

I assume you don't feel like you feel listened to and that you feel the information is going right over her head and not sinking in because she immediately relates the problem elsewhere. What stands out to me is the extent, and regularity that she's doing this, and I can understand that would be very frustrating.

Couple of things that I would like to say,

With regards to post menopausal women being selfish.
I dont think this sweeping comment is a factor inb this.
If anything, my DM has always been this way though out my life. If anything, I'd been looking forward to a more self aware older DM but that's not what's happened.

I doubt very, very much she is or had been autistic or on any spectrum though I can see the point trying to be made.

And I do feel for people who lost a parent and would give anything to speak to them even if the conversation is not very exciting
Because I have this issue with my parent (and I only have 1 as my DF died when I was a child) does not mean your pain of losing a parent is any the less difficult for you. The point of my post was that this behaviour of my DMs is getting to me. It has done so for many years I am finding it really getting to me now.

I agree some of her tendency to this is probably a part of the aging process, which helps me put some perspective on it. But is saddens me because she has never been able to ask me how something is affecting me or what an experience has been for me. She has never been able to not be in the centre of everything

If she ever asks a question it is so she can pile in with either her experience of it or what I should do about it.
And shes not for changing now no doubt

@FreeBritnee

My mum is similar. My understanding is post menopause women become less caring, more selfish due to hormonal changes. I just put it five to that.

You have no idea how dim you sound.

Every single woman in the world over the age of 50, eh?

🙄 to the post menopausal women comment. There are plenty examples in this thread of men making self-absorbed tedious comments. It's not something only women do

But mens selfishness isnt blamed on a hormone change. And the suggestion being they were really delightful before that unfortunate moment.

If you’re certain she’s not non-NT or just socially isolated, then my feeling is that it’s possibly generational.

I don’t know your DM’s age but assuming she’s at least in her mid 50s, she’ll have been brought up by a wartime generation for whom the stiff upper lip was paramount. Talking about problems, embarrassing details, god forbid a display of emotion - just not done, dontcha know? And as for asking for further details about someone’s problem - goodness me, what are we, American? [This would be their thinking].

I think you both just have very different perspectives as to what constitutes good listening and conversation. She was probably brought up to believe that the best conversational tactic if someone mentioned a problem was to express brief sympathy and then change the topic, to avoid any potential embarrassment or awkwardness. By recounting a neighbour’s similar problem, she IS listening and she IS empathising, in the only way she knows how and in a way which she believes to be ‘polite’.

If you need something different from the conversation, such as space to talk at length about yourself, or her to show she cares by asking you searching questions, I fear you’re going to have to spell that out to her, and perhaps accept that she may still not be able to do it because for her it’s likely a totally alien way of talking.

This is more to do with they being self absorbed than being menopausal. They are not listening and do not care about you have to say to them, to them your opinion does not matter. Someone who is self-absorbed is preoccupied with their own interests, feelings and experiences, too much so to listen carefully to others. They do not have any real sense of empathy.

Most people just find it more pleasurable to talk rather than to listen. Some people are off the scale.

We come from a culture where a silence has to be filled. The quality of material filling the silence is of absolutely no importance.

I have watched my mother discuss THE MOST excruciating details of her life with strangers. It is not stuff upper lip or embarrassment around topics. I've been listening to it in the same format for 78 years and am marvelling that it has remained unchanged in all that time.

It sounds like she has poor communication skills.

One poster mentioned isolation.

If you don't work and don't do much other than tv and neighbours, the world becomes very small.

My mother was like that in relating everything back to herself but she did in in a more dismissive way.
I think some people relate back to share an experience as in they get it but might carry it too far.

She was a SAHM the entire time and her life revolved around taking care of her family. She was quite intelligent.
I believe she lacked communication skills as she just didn't talk to a wide range of people.

I agree with you @lolaflores that blaming this on hormones is off base.
I think it's a flawed attempt to connect. They're sort of saying in their limited capacity ''I heard what you said'' and playing an emotionally limited bingo in their head. ''Snap, Marie next door had a bad back''. Because they fail to make that next step to a more natural connection by asking about your experience of having a bad back. The response I'd want would be to be asked ''has that been depressing?'' ''has it affected the practical things you usually do, are you coping with that?''

She isn't capable of that connection but in her own limited way she's saying she heard you but it's more like ''bingo''.

My DM is very busy. Ever stops. One of her fears is dementia ot any form of incapacity.

I worry l will end up like hee

My mother aged 76 blames my attempts to communicate with her, my attempts to be heard on hormones! I'm 51. I might be menopausal, not sure, heavy periods dealt with - tick, progesterone only mill back to back but so far my biggest symptom is extra ordinary clearsightedness and a determination to stand behind my own perspective and not to be swayed

My peace of mind isn't a sacrifice to her peace of mind and that is probably interpreted by her as selfish?. Why can I not just erode myself to perpetuate her rosy perception of herself!!

All The HORMONAL LADIES
put yer hands up!!!
Me too.
There are days when I have never been more grateful for menopause and what it has helped me gain

But if you heard my DM ...hers was worse
Still having it by all accounts

I agree with previous posters that your mother is trying to show empathy and interest by relating the conversation to her own experiences.
However, do you not think that this happens all the time on MN? A poster will explain the issue at the start of a thread and posters pile on to write about their experiences with their mothers or aunts or friend's sister's boyfriend. It is the nature of forum chat. Posters want to describe their own experiences to others. They don't know your mother personally, so they end up relating it to their own situation or the situation of neighbours two doors down.
Your mother is trying in her own way to contribute to the conversation. You can try saying, as my sister did to our mother ( see what I did there?) I am not interested in your neighbours situation, I am only interested in my situation. Most of us ultimately want someone to listen sympathetically while we talk. It's the basis of counselling and organisations like Samaritans.
Hope you can find a sympathetic and interested friend to listen to your problems. A problem shared etc.

@lolaflores

My DM is very busy. Ever stops. One of her fears is dementia ot any form of incapacity. I worry l will end up like hee

You won't. why would you?! You're two different people. Two different ways of processing the world.

I don't think we're destined to end up like our mothers at all! That's a threat to keep us in our place. Be quiet, be accepting. Don't be demanding, don't like it how you like it, like it the way that suits everybody else, be flexible, be accommodating, Be no trouble and that message is loud and aimed at all women really, no matter what we're like, no matter what our mothers were like, no matter what the relationship was like! Any ''difficult'' woman risks being told she's turning in to her mother, as though all women were inherently difficult.

So I don't worry about turning in to my mother.

I look like my mother but I'm the version who internalised her insecurities, not externalised them. I've blamed myself for every self-doubt, she has projected all insecurities outwards.

I'm the version that didn't construct a rigid framework of defense mechanisms around myself. I'm the version who accepted that her narrative was the price of a relationship with her. Until I no longer accepted that.

I seem a lot less confident than her no doubt but I wouldn't swap her self certainty for my self awareness. I can grow.

There was a similar post some months ago. It was full of people saying their older relatives are the same. I was so relieved that it wasn't just my mil who does it. It's become a bit if a running joke nowadays.

I had to tell her that her son was starting chemo for a rare condition. He'd been unwell for some time. I was dreading having to tell her that he was so ill. So I gently broke it to her...and she replied alone the lines of "oh my lord, you know Jenny who lives above the shop!?, her sons cousin twice removed who lives on Mars and only eats cauliflower and has nasal polyps?....she's got that!!!!" (I'm exaggerating it wasn't Mars lol).
I was just gobsmacked. Had to literally stop her and say did she understand I was telling her that her son was seriously ill.

Weirdly it feels at the time I tell her something that it doesn't go into her brain and she just waffles on about who's died on the estate or who's started shopping at Aldi, then find out she did listen because she's gone around the whole family/friends and told them all about it.

Baffles me

I don’t know your DM’s age but assuming she’s at least in her mid 50s, she’ll have been brought up by a wartime generation for whom the stiff upper lip was paramount. Talking about problems, embarrassing details, god forbid a display of emotion - just not done, dontcha know? And as for asking for further details about someone’s problem - goodness me, what are we, American? [This would be their thinking]

Excuse me?! I'm 50 next month and there's not a whiff of stiff upper lip I me. I was brought up by the most marvellous mammy who wanted adventure and excitement for her girls- the opportunities she didn't get as she was married, happily I may add, very young. So these women in their 50s you talk about are not a homogenous lump, they are the ones like me who are educated and read widely; clubbed their way around the country in the 80s and 90s, including illegal, outside raves; travelled in South East Asia and South America; worked their way around Australia in an old camper van and were pretty hedonistic thanks very much.

I also have a 10 year old, as well as teens, and I think I'm still pretty down wif da yoot. I read/ watch a wide variety of things and am aware of most things in our world. I'm a huge proponent of attachment theory and nurture so am extremely aware of others and my place within their discourse. My mammy, if she was here to contribute, at the age of 80, give anyone a run for their money on world issues and how society ticks. If I'm as wise as she was one day I'll be blessed.

Put your sweeping generalisations in your pocket.

@MissMarplesGoddaughter

I feel your pain. There is someone at exercise class who I hardly know but seems to have latched on to me. She asked how I was and I smiled and said fine. The lock gates opened and she gave me an in depth description about how she wasn't fine as she needs 6 hours sleep each night, but last night she had 7 hours by mistake (!) and it had put her out.... She is never well, always has some ache or pain or moan or groan.

I try to avoid her as much as possible....

MissMarples I get that this might be annoying but, she's probably lonely (if as you say 'the lock gates opened' you might be the only person she's spoken to in days). She might well have posted on MN that she's lonely and asked how she can make friends in her area and been told, take up a hobby, talk to people you meet there. Have a little compassion. You don't have to be her lifelong friend but a little friendliness wouldn't cost you anything.

I had what was once a very good friend of mine, who I hadn't seen for some years. We went on a 'catch up' night out.
She asked me how I was and I began telling her about a very serious illness I had had recently.
Only two minutes into the conversation and she stopped me to tell me how this had happened to a friend of hers that she worked with.
I ended up listening (politely) to the story of this friend for the next hour.
My friend never asked me what happened next.

I saw her again a few times after that, but she always had a great way of bringing the conversation back to what she wanted. I used to think she wasn't really listening to me and that she was just waiting for something I said, which sounded familiar to her and jump in.

I don't see her now.

queendanu you got it all there. I am policing myself to some degree but wont give up my difficult status. The word Karen does not get used in our house.
I am trying to develop a method of ot commenting on everything I hear. To see where a conversation will go if I say nothing. Imagine what may come up if I dont throw myself in its path.
It only matters to me. No one else. To see the person in front of me enhances my world so much more than me making the world fit round me

I know what you mean. That acceptance of personalities that would have annoyed me 15 years ago is where my mother and I diverged. (Different things would have annoyed us, but that's not the point!). I am trying to just 'be' and accept the differences. Not be threatened by anything. Observe and to have so, so, so little internal judgment that no comment is forthcoming. I had to ''grow myself up'' at about 35 though. I was turning out like my mother !!! But I took back the reins.

@blissfulllife

There was a similar post some months ago. It was full of people saying their older relatives are the same. I was so relieved that it wasn't just my mil who does it. It's become a bit if a running joke nowadays.

I had to tell her that her son was starting chemo for a rare condition. He'd been unwell for some time. I was dreading having to tell her that he was so ill. So I gently broke it to her...and she replied alone the lines of "oh my lord, you know Jenny who lives above the shop!?, her sons cousin twice removed who lives on Mars and only eats cauliflower and has nasal polyps?....she's got that!!!!" (I'm exaggerating it wasn't Mars lol).
I was just gobsmacked. Had to literally stop her and say did she understand I was telling her that her son was seriously ill.

Weirdly it feels at the time I tell her something that it doesn't go into her brain and she just waffles on about who's died on the estate or who's started shopping at Aldi, then find out she did listen because she's gone around the whole family/friends and told them all about it.

Baffles me

This is so interesting, and something I see in my own family. (Sorry if I'm merailing - I can see the irony).

I think it's disassociation, isn't it?

OP, for example, I'm assuming your mum loves you. Finding out that your child is suffering is emotionally hard. Letting her brain immediately jump to someone in a similar situation with whom she has no emotional connection may be a way of distancing herself from those difficult feelings.

I'm no psychologist, but that's how I explain my family's reactions.

Having said that, when I phoned my mum to tell her I was engaged, she launched into a story about her dog's swollen anal glands. I occasionally remind her of that, (but only when she's pissing me off).