Why does my Mom abuse me?

Thanks! I will read those over. She is very manipulative and very controlling and I try my best not to get sucked into her negative world, I just want the best for her and I try to remain an adult and not revert back to the controlled child who had no power. Right now I am gong to hope that the psych assessment is more revealing then it was in my small town hospital last year (she is currently an inpatient at a large teaching hospital in a city I live near). When they contact me to give me the findings I will suggest megace but I think it remains her choice to take it as she is cognitive and capable of making her own decisions. I think upon discharge if she is not admitted into a care home and back to 55 plus (we have lots of support with home care there) I think I have to step back, stop filling her fridge every week with cooked meals, and just let her make her own bad decisions, I feel like i have done as much as I can, I have given her over 100% effort and love . . . I don't need nor expect a thank you but a positive outcome would have been wonderful. I . .. no SHE is beyond that. For now I am stepping away as she is in the hospital and my sweet mom in law visits her daily in my place (MIL doesn't get the abuse that I do)

I am so thrilled I stumbled on this site last night whew! You were all a saving grace to me.

Here is a plethora of threads on OCD that you can check out at your leisure:

https://www.agingcare.com/search.aspx?searchterm=ocd

TammyLee here is the only thread on AC I could find about anorexia. It's not terribly helpful, but the Megace tip might be a good one. https://www.agingcare.com/questions/get-anorexic-elder-to-eat-properly-145211.htm

Now I'm off to find good threads on OCD in the elderly. I think that would be a better avenue to approach with your mom's age. I think there's a fine line between everyone saying you can't help her, she knows what she's doing and someone with mental illness who may know but not understand the implications of their behavior. I'd give it a few more tries and if nothing helps, then I'd let your mom do what she wants to do and work on dealing with how that impacts you. You're obviously a loving daughter despite the treatment your mom has and is giving you. It's so sad that some of the most abusive parents have the most loving children...

Mm-mm. Tammie-Lee's mother is bulimic. Tammie-Lee are you familiar - sorry, what a stupid question, are you familiar with this condition - of course you are, up close and personal. I mean, have you had support and advice on it, from specialists or special interest groups?

It's an almost impossible condition to deal with when it's so deeply embedded. Tammie, this is going to sound really harsh but you cannot help her and you must help yourself. Leave it to the experts and walk away with a clear conscience. Repeat: you cannot help her. Repeat and repeat to yourself: this is not your fault.

She is in the hospital due to cardiac arrhythmia's and a large pleural effusion which was drained for 900 cc's. Anyways she has refused to eat for the last two days and psych has been consulted to see her tomorrow. In the past psych has come back to say she is 100% aware and able to make her own choices and we can not force her to eat. That's true, but it is not helpful.

I had asked her MD to put my mom on Celexa however her MD fails to see the whole picture and chose Venlafaxine because she felt it was more of a depression then an eating disorder or OCD. It is very difficult when dealing with small town MD's who don't understand what you are saying.

I have learned with my mom, that her rages and all the negative are not about me. They are about her. I just happen to be in front of it when it explodes. I wish I had known that when I was a kid and internalizing all that.

BTW, some elders have success with treating obsessions with Celexa. They start at a low dose of 25 mg, then build from there until an effective (or maximum) dose is reached. Has your mother tried Celexa (Citralopram)? My mother (87) is on it and has very few side effects.

If your mother used to weigh 250 lbs, I imagine she was rewarded with a lot of compliments when she began to shed the pounds. With an obsessive personality, it was probably enough to plunge her deeply into anorexia. Does she also have a perfectionistic personality. The young woman I know did. She stressed a lot about having everything perfect. She always looked perfect. She had to make perfect grades. She was my student and I handled her very delicately because I knew what I did mattered a lot.

At 72 things are so different. If she could get with a group of women of comparable age in a treatment program, it would be ideal. This is not your fault by any stretch of the imagination. You're doing the best you can in a difficult situation she created for you. I hope that one of our professionals here will have some good advice. It's a holiday weekend, so maybe someone will be along in a day or two. The only things I've ever known that work with anorexia nervosa are treatment programs followed by management of obsession, nutrition, and psychological restructuring.

Many elderly people have anorexia nervosa. her OCD added to this is a bonus. Medications to treat OCD are highly unsuccessful in the elderly. I think the OCD controls her more then the anorexia, she starts weighing and it can get to every ten minutes, if she didn't have that drive to do the constant weights perhaps it wouldn't lead to the rest. Psychiatry has seen her twice since she has lived here with me and both times have simply said that she is well aware of the choices she is making. We don't have many eating disorder rehabs here in Canada, some are in another province that is about 2,000 miles away and wait lists are tremendously long and I doubt they accept 72 year olds. Plus she would refuse and I am not about to form 21 her. She does really well when she is in the hospital and she thrives in a structured environment. It is just getting her there and putting up with the words and comments directed to me. Her latest favourite is "I am like this because of you" ya mom, I am the cause of your life long OCD and your history of distorted body image and complete life long disconnect from anything outside of your house . . . argh

It sounds like your mother has anorexia nervosa. I know you realize that already. I have never seen anorexia in someone over about 40, probably because it is so deadly. I don't think there is any discussion here about anorexia nervosa, only anorexia that comes with old age and end of life.

Anorexia is so difficult to treat. And a person who is watching can get abused. I wonder if at your mother's age she thinks if she can control her weight, then she will look younger. I imagine her image of her body is very distorted.

I wondered what type of counseling she is receiving. I know it is difficult to treat and even harder to watch. I don't know how old she is, but wondered if the damage to her body may be great by now. I would suggest having her committed to an eating disorder clinic, but I don't know how well she would do with all the young women -- they may make her feel worse.

I wonder how prevalent anorexia nervosa and bulimia are among elders. I had always considered that someone was either cured or no longer with us if they reached a certain age. I knew one young woman who struggled with anorexia. It almost took her life, but with the help of antidepressants and counseling, she was making it through. It was a very long process.

When your mother lashes out at you, just imagine you are a duck who is letting water slide off its back. Her words are out of the depth of her despair and nothing to do with you. I wish I knew something that worked with anorexia.

Oh and f course she also has OCD. I tried having her here with us in our home but it was impacting my children. My mom would be up all night milling about and doing her tasks such as sorting safety pins by size into pill bottles and reorganizing her panties a thousand times and slamming the drawer. So many examples but my kids would here her all night. OMG and the falls, so many falls because she takes too many T3#'s and doesn't eat.

Any suggestions on search words that will bring up similair posts/discussions?

Are you serious? I feel like I just won the lotto, there are other people putting up with anorexic elderly parents???? okay, first she doesn't have dementia or delirium she knows full well the words she says to me. If someone else like my husband is present she won't talk badly. She actually scans the room before she starts in on me, my husband has hid and has heard her words. She was always very large (250 pounds) when I was a child and teem to twenty. I was the last to move out and she started weighing herself every half hour, had all her clothing weighed and starved herself. My dad put his foot down eventually but then he died and she got worse. When I picked her up from her home to move her out here with my family she weighed 91 pounds. She always abused her body, drank 4 litters of pop a day smoked two pcks of ciggarettes a day, ate boxes of exlax. Anyways I have tried three different living arrangements with her here over the last 3 years. I brought her here because the hospital in her home town said she is no longer allowed to live alone, failure to thrive. This last bout she was flushing her food! She knew the health care aids and I were checking the garbage, she wouldn't eat in front of us, she would flush her meals. She is in the hospital right now because her heart was going into atrial fib and I opened up our joint Visa statement which I have not looked at for months . . . she was buying weight loss pills.

Which eating disorder is it? Some of the parents on the group starve themselves, while others eat compulsively. My mother is a compulsive eater. She is diabetic, so her snacking is a big concern.

JessieBelle it is really starting to affect me, she is getting more and more verbally mean. It is bringing up dealt with memories of her mothering in my childhood. Some people should not have been mothers and she is one of them. I have two siblings very far away that have nothing to do with her other than an interest in her money.

That sounds harsh, I thought I was doing a search, not a post. But yes, my mom is absolutely horrible to me, swears and places blame. She has eating disorders (ten years) and now can no longer live without 24 hour care as the abuse on her body involves so many systems plus a failure to thrive (10 years) has all caught up to her. We will be moving her into a 24 hour care environment.

A lot of us are in that teetering boat of elder wrath. What's going on with you? You'll find a lot of sympathetic ears here.