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I thought my mother was unique, never thought there could be another just like her. I know exactly what you going through. Mom has not been diagnosed as yet with ?Alzheimer's but yes she has dementia and growing worse. They are the same as they always have been. Mom thinks the world evolves around her and no one else better even think of getting even a sniffle. I lived with her for 21 year's until 9 month's ago when I was forced to relocate because she started punching me in the face and pulling my hair. I stay with her all those year's after my step-father passed away and felt she couldn't be alone. She doesn't even appreciate that I gave her 21 year's of my life and now I am disabled in a wheelchair often. I could say much more but is futile. My offer of advice for you would be to go to Police and your neighbor's, explain to all your mom's condition. I'm sure neighbor's already guess as much yet they have a tendency to not believe the younger. You must protect yourself. Get it in writing from her doctor as fro her condition. Take that and file it with the Police Department. Remain calm always (easy to say). Never raise your voice at her no matter what. My mom had gotten into the habit even while i was there of calling the Police for everything, from the TV cable going wrong because she punched the wrong key and I couldn't always reset it, so she would get mad and call them. She told all her friend's and neighbor's how terrible I was. No truth in a word she said. Finally after a 100 Police calls they found out the truth and begged me to take her to a home. I had a nervous breakdown in the end of trying to care for her myself. I fell on the stair's and broke my pelvic bone, she still wanted me to do everything for her. My doctor said i must take care of myself. Now she has 3 caregiver's and they rotate spending the night with her. She has 24/7 care. No, she can't afford this. What I'm having to do is speak with her financial planner and we'll have to send monthly payment's to her checking account to pay for caregiver's. Mom went out of her way on Christmas day to shun me and spoke kindly to the caregiver instead. That's just their narcissism. When they are ungrateful, you must help yourself to survive it all. Mom is 85 and stronger than me. Be kind to your mom, but don't let her roll over you. That's the best advice I can offer for now. God bless you in what you are doing.
The bottom line is if you were raised by a narcissist, you will actually miss her when she's gone in spite of all the chaos. Keep in mind that it isn't forever and she isn't going to change but that she loves you in her own strange way and needs you in this last chapter of her life.
I feel good about myself now that she has passed knowing I did my best.
She actually said she loved me several times before she passed and I knew she was scared. As tough as they are with that difficult personality, you will miss her when she is gone so hang in there for now and you will be glad you did later, thanks.
sharyn - you described my mother to a T except to add angry all the time - "My mother was always paranoid, distrustful, suspicious and very difficult to get along with. She was very verbally and emotionally abusive to us kids and emasculated my father so badly. " I think you handle your situation very well.
onlyoneholly - you described well what happens to those of us who were brought up by abusive parents. I am in that position "However, now circumstances require that you have to deal with it up close every day. A child who loved and was loved by a parent does not resent the little quirks of old age, but a child who was hurt will find the burdens multiplied by tens. A simple criticism can hurt like a slap because you are already hurting."
My mother has borderline personality disorder and narcissism. She does not have dementia, though is losing short term memory as part of aging. I wish I could attribute her behaviour to dementia, but it is same old, same old - the cutting remarks and temper continue, and her sense of entitlement may have increased. She claims elder abuse when things don't go her way. It is just another tool in her arsenal.
weedwitch - If needed, for your own survival, consider a facility. Mine, like teach4lisa's, is in one, a lovely place, has home care 4 x a day and complains constantly, and wants me to get involved in making things better for her. Unfortunately, nothing will ever be good enough for her. In the past I have been accused of this and that. I have had to draw some very firm boundaries as it is affecting my health. My mother is 100 and going strong. I am 75, and find that in my 70's the stress of her negativism affects me more physically than it did when I was younger. I wonder if I ever will have a life without this stress, as in some way she is healthier than I am.
I guess what I am saying to everyone - look after yourself. In hindsight, if I had put myself first, and detached, while still seeing to mother's needs but not her whims and deands, I would be much better off now. People are living longer, which puts an additional burden on the caregiver, who also ages. (((((((hugs))))) to all for hanging in there.
My mother is incredibly narcissistic, and although she can be compassionate and helpful, there's often a motive behind it. She helps out so she can SAY she helps out. She says something nice or tries to be sympathetic so she can SAY she has done so. She refuses, absolutely, to admit to any deficits due to her dementia, and will snarl and contort her face into the ugliest expressions, spitting out absolute lies about how she's showering daily or how she's vacuumed her apartment and I'm just "trying to browbeat her" whenever I try to wash dishes or pick things up.
Her personality now is simply an exaggerated version of what it was before she developed dementia. I liken it to someone who's a "mean drunk" - their true self emerges when inhibitions are lowered by alcohol. Her inhibitions are lowered by having lost whatever filters she had that prevented her outright "Me me me me me!!" approach to life before. Nothing was ever her fault, nothing was ever enough, etc... before, but she tempered her expression of that to suit the person she was dealing with and because she knew society in general and friends and family in particular wouldn't accept her being totally selfish. Now there's very little preventing her from expressing it, especially when she's "challenged" by any comment or question that implies she's not managing her life as well as she once did (and she didn't manage much of it well even decades ago, either). It makes caring for her especially difficult, because one runs out of patience with the childishness.
Just yesterday I heard from an old friend who's a year older than my mom. She volunteers at a school, she's helpful to her own kids, she's active and happy, and it was great talking to her. I have another friend who's 92 and although she's getting a little less sharp, reads the New York Times every day, can talk about any world event, tries to learn new things (I met her when her husband hired me to teach her to use the computer 20 years ago, and even since he died 10 years ago, she still wants to learn new things and stay "with it" as best as she can). She lives alone most of the time and makes the best of it. She doesn't try to make anyone feel guilty or like she's "owed" anything.
Seeing people who can age without falling apart mentally makes looking at the state my mom is in both painful (I feel bad for her that she has dementia) and maddening (because much of my mom's situation - financially, and certainly in terms of how she drove away most of her friends over the years, increasing her loneliness now - is of her own making). Only the fact that she can't remember things and can't follow procedures or plot-lines in movies or books (to entertain herself) is "not her fault." If she would just cooperate with attempts to help her, I would have UNENDING patience for her dementia-caused issues. I can answer a question 50 times in a row and not sound peeved. I can explain something 10 times and write instructions or simply eliminate her need to deal with it - and wouldn't mind a bit. But her comments and haughtiness and eye-rolling and foot stamping and fist-clenching - they make me want to just walk away and let her fend for herself.
Of course, she won't HEAR that she has any role in her current situation or that she's not a stellar person who makes my life easier. She actually told an interviewer from the Dept of Aging that she's "the only person who does any work around this house." And she believes this, and not only does she think it, she doesn't bat an eye telling anyone who'll sit still long enough to hear it (50 times).
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!
My mother always hated that I a) called a spade a spade and told the truth. Not a good thing in a denial-steeped family. b) I was always very independent and I think she thought I didn't need her. The fact was that I did, but I learned early not to count on her love or support and to fend for myself. I think God granted me my temperament to help me survive her attacks but early on, it very much took it's toll. I married badly to someone just like her, someone who I could never please. Someone who cheated repeatedly, was abusive, etc. We had three kids and now that they are all grown, my oldest daughter is close to her dad who never gave her a dime for college or saw her much but he has told her how everything was my fault and she is now close to him and never speaks to me. The other two kids I have good relationships with.
Anyway, my parents married at 17 and 20. My dad was raised by an enabler and an alcoholic, so he was well prepared to accommodate my crazy, selfish mother. They have been together so long he is as crazy as she is. They are also fairly wealthy so now that they are old, everybody close by is clammoring for their stuff and their cash. Sad to say. The brother who lives near them is now POA and their executor and due to this position, although he and I used to be close, we no longer are. I do agree he was the best choice for doing these things but again, in exchange for that position with my dad, who I am sure he always wished would be proud of him and give him an 'attaboy' like the other brother, the partial price has been he and I have been distant. He confided to me that my mother wants to write me out of the will and my dad is 'on the fence'. He asked me 'what should I do?' and I said 'the right thing'.
It is a mess. EVERYBODY goes along with my mother's craziness. She has always been erratic and mean but my dad sees a 17 year old in a brown dress (he reminisces about that all the time) and he believes once married, always married. He turned a blind eye to her abusiveness and has always tried to make sense of her behavior. Recently, at his 80th birthday, she went around telling everybody what she was going to do 'when Daddy dies'. I was not invited, by the way, although I know all of my parents' old friends. My mother reasoned to my father that I wasn't invited because we were all going on a cruise together (we paid for it) for my dad for his birthday. It was a surprise, so we couldn't tell him why we weren't there till the day of. My son was invited, though, and he went with his wife. They had him parking cars, running around helping with things like he was hired and not family. He was so hurt; my parents didn't introduce him as their grandson, yet made a big deal about my missing out of town brother's kids who called to say happy birthday. I know they punish my kids because they are MY kids. They are an extension of me. Later that day during the party a big, drunken argument ensued about my mother getting married again, of all things! People left as two of my siblings argued the merits of either of my parents getting married when one died or not! So crazy I can't even imagine! It culminated in my younger brother and his wife getting kicked out! My brother called me later that night, still inebriated, and said to me "If mom out lives dad, we are all screwed'!!!
Two weeks later my dad had met with my brother and 'explained' that my mother is just afraid of being alone (accounting for her telling everybody she wants to get married again) and supposedly, all was well. Meanwhile, my mother called me to gossip about my sister and I shut her down. Her response was the cold shoulder throughout the cruise, she wouldn't come to dinner when I was there, etc. In fact, she tried to get my dad to make me apologize or she wasn't going to go! We had put all this money up and she was willing to ruin it for him and he wanted ME to apologize! They went but we have barely spoken since then. I have had a lifetime of this BS.
My dad has told me he thinks she has Alzheimer's. Again, an excuse for her behavior. I suggested several times she get to a doctor if he thinks that, but he says 'when she gets worse I will". I explained that if caught early, there is more they can do to stave it off. On one hand he admits she is verbally abusive, even to him, yet he wants me to say I am sorry because she is driving him crazy. I get monthly nasty grams with religious and Bible references. I know she does this on the sly and he doesn't know. We are at a point now where I have really no contact with either of them and the rest of my siblings and I have been painted as a terrible person. Up to this year, since we live in a resort area in the south, they have come down - not invited, just tell us they are coming - to stay for over a month each year. They pay no expenses and are cheap about even taking us out for dinner. My mother stomps around when there is some real or imagined slight, she interrupts conversations or turns Fox News up as loud as it will go in the middle of a conversation, or slams out the door and leaves for hours on end for who knows what reason. Of course, after last years' disaster and what has transpired since, they are not coming/have not asked/are not invited but it has been a tense miserable mess every year. My husband has been a saint but he refuses to have anything to do with them now. He has seen enough.
I do not think my mother has Alzheimers, because she seems still so calculating and manipulative. She isn't out of it yet she does frequently re tell stories or repeats things she just said. It seems to me almost that she is so full of herself that she doesn't listen to anything anybody says, so if she asks a question she never really did hear the answer, which causes her to ask the same question. She cares really only for herself.
One of the classic arguments with her when she last visited here two years ago was a knock down drag out that she initiated. She cried and blurted that 'nobody thinks she has an opinion that counts, but she could have been a CEO if she wanted to". (She has never worked in her life). My dad was carressing her arm and she knocked his hand off. The more he tried to tell her how 'valuable' she had been in his business (she never did one thing to help him but spend money - my grandmother was his round the clock secretary/assistant/you name it) the more worked up she got. I just said that "wow, you sure have a lot of confidence. I worked all my life and managed people and I don't think I could be a CEO". Anyway, it was a mess with her crying and being dramatic. Please, put a gun to my head!
By the way, my mother can schmooze people if she wants to. She can be sweet, charming, great if she wants to impress somebody. And she will work that against me, so they think I am the one who just can't get along with her. Very conniving.
I do believe she is mentally ill but Alzheimers? As someone said above, you would hope their NPD behavior would stop if they had it. God help us all if it gets worse!