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My mom is her mid-90's and reasonably independent. She has trouble seeing, hearing and has mobility issues. She is an avid reader. I call every day and usually visit twice/week. I help with ordering her food. We usually get along very well. However, she will sometimes bring up times in the past where I unintentionally hurt her feelings and she keeps thinking she did something horrible to me (which she didn't). I try to assure her that I was just a normal kid growing up in the 1960's; whereas, my older sister was rather atypical. We are all very close and I get along great with my sister. It gets me very upset when she brings up these issues and feel like there is no way out of the conversations. When it happened yesterday, after awhile, I just cut it off, told her I did not want to revisit that issue, told her I was just a dumb high school kid and didn't understand what she was going through at the time. I don't want to be rude. I would really appreciate any suggestions!

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What you said, should be enough. If she continues to bring it up, ask what her point is and remind her that she already brought it up last time. Tell her if she can’t get past it, you may not come for awhile and that it’s mean hearted to always bring it up. You could also tell her that you are going to leave every time she brings it up. Maybe she will stop. If she doesn’t remember bringing it up, she may have early stages of Dementia. Lastly, you could try not to acknowledge what she is saying and steer the conversation elsewhere. I went through something similar and took a lengthy time away from her until she apologized. I was extremely hurt. Good Luck!
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Your mother is in her mid-90s and likely sees her life wrapping up now. She may want to make amends to you for what she perceives as 'past transgressions', and truly wants to know what she did 'wrong' so she can apologize to you and receive your forgiveness. I personally feel you are better off talking about the situation that happened, allowing her to apologize to you, or hashing it out to get to a RESOLUTION, and THEN she'll let go of it perhaps, you know? You can acknowledge why you inadvertently hurt her feelings, apologize for doing so, listen to her side of things, and then move ON. She may need that resolution, for whatever reason, to move past these 'conversations' with you. Revisit the issue, ugly or not, so you can resolve it, that's the bottom line that may actually WORK for you.

If that doesn't work, THEN tell her you've tried your best to explain your side of the story in all this, and that you're now DONE. You'll have to leave her presence if she won't let go of the matter b/c it's beating a dead horse and too unpleasant to keep doing so. Why ruin a nice time between you like this, mother?

Sometimes when dementia sets in, an elder gets to ruminating about certain times in their life and they get stuck in a loop. It can be very difficult to get them out of that loop, but using distraction techniques seems to work best. Offer her a snack, look a photos, turn on a movie, etc.

Best of luck!
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Simple one sentence: "Mom I have no intention of discussing the past; it's over and nothing can be done about it".
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Me, I would just redirect the conversation or point to some distraction. Have a quiver of topics that are pleasant and that require her to think of an answer, like: "I saw the most interesting show on cats today! Did you have cats growing up?" (and on...)
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My DH used to do this with my older daughter who is almost 45. She was pregnant at 15 had her son at 16. Before this we had some problems with her. I babysat while she finished High School and then went on to Nursing School. At 19 she had a f/t job and bought her first car. At 24 she bought a house. At 44 she will be making a 6 figure salary. I told him she made her mistakes when she was a teen. She has more than made up for that. He stopped bringing up the past.

Mom is in her mid 90s, tell her what she is talking about was 80 years ago when u were young and stupid. Had nothing to do with her parenting. It had to do with the personality of the child. I have a younger daughter would not even think about doing half of what her big sister did. Raised by the same parents. Given the same opportunities look at their lives when living home completely different. The past is suppose to be left in the past.
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Many times, old people enjoy living in the past. As the lose recent memory, past memory becomes more prominent. You can't change this phenomenon. Just ignore what she talks about.
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I disagree with some of the answers. I think you should dive in to the negative memories in ways to let her work it through. For example “What about that is so upsetting? How did it make you feel? Was there anybody else who helped you/listened to you/understood you at that time? It feels like you are stuck with these memories and I’d like to help you get through them. You feel sad/angry/hopeless (whatever she feels) now. Now I don’t know is she is capable of such conversation but it is worth a try to help her out of spinning her wheels in the mud. It worked with my father but if she has dementia she may be permanently stuck and I would ask about happy memories and play music for her, preferably from her youth. Best of luck.
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My previous answer may not fully apply to your situation since she is addressing hurts from you. Still, I would explore her feelings and see if she can elaborate on how she felt besides hurt. How it made her feel like a bad mother. How important it was to feel like a good mother and how hard she worked to be a good mother. Did it feel like you were accusing her of being a bad mother? And then focus as much as you can on the good things she did. If she has dementia, this will continue but every now and then empathizing with her feelings rather than trying to ignore or correct her perceptions works.
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My mother has always been rather difficult, so I cannot identify exactly when she began to display dementia behaviour. But, maybe 10 years ago (she is now late mid-stage) she started visiting my house daily, sometimes for as long as 3 hours at a time, to complain about her MIL, SIL and how they wronged her 50 years ago. Same four stories over and over. I asked her why she was so fixated on these incidents as the offenders are long dead so she would never be able to clear the air with them. She became angry with me that she simply needed someone with whom to discuss her problems and I was selfish for not wanting to be there for her. No back and forth. She just wanted me to listen while she complained.

Hindsight is 20/20 and I now see that was a red flag. Then came the self-isolation, then the paranoia and suspicions. Be vigilant. Consider keeping a behaviour diary.
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