Is anybody's mother this crazy?

Oh Shappy - your Mom sounds like my Dad although he didn't talk about his health issues. He did continuously lecture on his area of interest - politics. He couldn't even listen to anything else without suddenly shifting any conversation back to what he was interested in. He had some health issues as he got older but they were treated and manageable until one got bad enough to kill him. Until then he was mostly healthy, lived alone and pursued his interests to the exclusion of everything and everyone else. He was just as self involved and probably would have been diagnosed as narcissistic. He died a year ago at 92, three weeks short of 93, and I miss him. I never thought I would while he was still alive.



Anyway, all that to say although my Dad drove me nuts, I understand now that it was all based in the traumatic things that happened to him as a young child. His father, grandfather and a number of uncles died in the Spanish flu when he was not quite 3. They were farming families and lived in a tiny, isolated, community. His very young Mom remarried a brutal psychopath who eventually killed the other children they had together and himself. Life was very hard for him. I still trust he tried his best as a parent himself. Maybe the key here is that I believe he did do the best he could given the tools he had to work with. That didn't make his own brutality any easier to live with growing up but it helps me to understand why he was the way he was. I hope you can look at your Mom and figure out what happened to her to make her the way she is.



Some people learn compassion from these life lessons, others are so wounded they can only close themselves up and not let anyone in. Just like your Mom and my Dad. I always wondered how my mother lived with him for 60 years. For the record, my mother was certifiably crazy.



I really know just how you feel so keep spitting those bullets, girl, until you feel better. We're good for it. Not a thing you can do will ever change her or her behavior. My thoughts are with you. Like CP 418 said, the only thing you can control is how you react to it and try to do better ourselves. Very gentle hugs........

Shappy.

Sounds just like my MIL ...shes SO self centered I could smother her.

I have known her 25 years, she's poorly (not) and will come and see us 'when she is feeling better' She's 92 now, and fit as a lop, she could give me a run for my money. She lives alone and just sits all day 'feeling poorly'

2 of her sisters were taken ill, she made no effort whatsoever to go and see them even though they lived less than a mile from her, she complained when they didn't come and see her, even though she knew they were dying. She never went near the last few days, she said she'd go 'when she was feeling a bit better' even though she knew they wouldn't last long. She wouldn't go to either funeral, she had 'a bit of 'flu' both times.

Her one and only brother took ill, cancer, she again 'felt too ill to go out', never saw him again. DH called for her on the day of the funeral, after reading her the riot act on the 'phone, but she just would not come out of her house.

She is a disgrace. All her friends are long gone, because of her selfish ways. She just sits all day moaning she's lonely. She won't come to us at Christmas....she's 2 miles away. I used to have terrible guilt feelings about this. All the family sitting down to a meal, while she sat on her own. I used to ring and call in on her to ask her to come, but now I just have lost patience with her, and leave her to stew.

I just wish I was as fit as she is, I suffer badly from Arimidex se's, and feel like death warmed up some days, but I have to keep going, my walking is bad, I have plantar fasiitis in both feet, MIL can trot along nicely when she wants to. She won't watch tv, read, knit, sew nor do anything at all but say she's 'not very well'.  I called her bluff once, after being sooooo sick of her constantly moaning to me about 'not feeling well' and got her GP out, she went mad. The GP told her she was fitter than he was, and didn't ail a thing....she was spitting feathers at me for weeks after that ! I just have no time for her now. We had a family christening a few weeks back, just everyone was there, NOT MIL !! It was her 1st ggg/daughter, and she should have been there. It would be easier to take if she didn't constantly say she was lonely, and no-one came to see her, or bothers about her. 

DH goes every day,( I wish he spent as much time asking me if I felt OK and did I want anything doing !! ) She complains to him that I never come and sit with her, as his 'dear 1st wife' would have done...she's been dead 30 years ! 

So, don't feel bad about your mother. I know I like my privacy, and like to be alone, but if I thought any of my family were very ill I would be over to lend a hand, just like they all did for me (NOT!!) when I was dx'd !!!!

Isabella. 

Dear Isabella, just a thought for your plantar trouble -

before I was DX, I had already plantar f trouble for quite a long time.  As I was determined to keep up with my exercise regime, I kept going with the use of prosthetics in my shoes (without them you can apparently also have sore hips.  and knees.   sigh!)  I also got toe pains, often called moreton's syndrome.  Anyway, this is a meta tarsal problem and can be relieved by getting one of those sort of rubber thingies that spread your toes for you to paint your toenails.  I found it helped loads - I just put it "on" whilst sitting down, or when I went to bed.  Ok, it falls off quite quickly but is only there to stretch things.   I am doing  fairly ok at the mo with plantar etc, even tho I have recently started Femara.  If this is useless info, feel free to chuck a shoe at me!

all best wishes -

Hello again, everyone.  These replies have been inspirational for me [believe it or not!].  I'm 54, have 3 kids still at home, and some days I don't want to leave the safety and comfort of my room [I am in Stage IV, big time pain and fatigue].  But....for my kids, this is probably the equivalent of my avoiding them and they can't be expected to understand.  So, all these grouchy old kooks -  still can't have their way, b/c the stories I read here encourage me to be just the opposite of what their lives were like.  So, thanks for sharing all that you have, and I thank God for how He can take any and every bit of experience that crosses my path, and use it to teach me,  IF I remain teachable.  Thanks again to all of my Stage IV companions--it would be the ultimate loneliness if I felt like I was all alone in the experience of facing this bizarre situation.    Marykay

Thanks for starting this thread, I wanted to start it myself, but, if my mother ever found out, there would BE HELL TO PAY!!!! 

As long as I'm venting;  If it ain't one thing, it's YOUR MOTHER.

My mother is 80, is a spoiled brat and ridiculously high maintenance and LIKES being that way. She has a forked and sharp tongue and doesn't know when to SHUT UP. She has put me down for one thing or another all my 56 years.

She had bc, chemo and Tamoxifen for 6 years. I went with her to some chemo, but she can't seem to remember me going.  She's had all kinds of surgeries from cosmetic ear lobe tucks and eye lifts to massive amounts of dental work. This woman is the most selfish person on the planet. We (the normal parts of the family) are constantly surprised at the levels she will go to in order to "Look Good". Or sometimes just cause she wants to spend money. She thinks it grows on trees and she does NOT have unlimited funds. She changed Dad's will before he passed, to make her the one and only beneficiary, when Dad had specifically planned for her and for their 3 kids. I'm the middle one.

She, in the past year has spent hundreds OF thousands, spending on CRAP that has no value. Yes, she's done some fixing up of the house... mostly cosmetic improvements, new doors inside, new rock drive outside.. Oh, and her teeth, her wardrobe, new appliances all over the house, including a jetted tub installed in the place of a perfectly good regular one. Then, she went to the lot and bought a brand new Cadillac, wait... that wasn't enough, it needed to go out of town and have a fabric 1/2 roof bolted on with what looks like gold nuts, cause that's 'pretty'. (One of Dad's requests to her was that she NOT go out and buy a brand new car.) He knew. He put up with a lot more than we ever realized.

She yelled at me when I was the only one who responded to a crisis at her house. She has alienated ALL of the friends she had in town, and my brother, who lives out of town, this extends to include her alienating 4 out of 5 grandchildren. She has called and hired contractors and let them walk all over her. She made me fire the staff and shut down the family business in a swift but uninformed sale of a retail property that was bringing her monthly rent money.

There's more but I gotta fix dinner...

~Connie

My mother was evil.  She raised a daughter to be just like her.  I have nothing to do with either of them.  I suspect that my mother (Im adopted so I dont have to worry about hereditary factors) has met the devil and taken his place.  She only spoke to me about when I grew up and the things I would buy her when I was working.  My mother considered herself a lady and was disappointed that my father did not take her to parties where she could dance and dress elegantly.  She studied elegance and practiced it.  I was never good enough for her.  I dont know what she was thinking getting a kid to screw with her head.  I was introduced as the adopted daughter.  I was never allowed to forget that I was adopted.  I should be grateful for the food and housing she provided.  I should be grateful for the good schools I got to go to.  I should keep my mouth shut was to what dad did behind closed bedroom doors.  After all I was to blame for it.  My life was hell until I left.  My children have survived my mothering and both are willing to go with me to appts so I must not have alienated them too badly.

That childhood gave me the armor for todays battle.  So I suck it up but refuse to say thank you.  My father died when I was 18.  My mother - I suspect that she passed on because the telephone is now listed in my sisters name.  Same address.