Bad attitudes... How do you handle it?

Don't try so hard TO help your mother. Leave her alone to do her own thang and let HER come to YOU when she needs something. Then you won't get child-like scoldings or be accused of insulting her for trying to help. Many elders don't want help, or, in the case of my own mother, she wanted me to BEG her TO help, which I wasn't interested in doing. She would never be the one to 'ask' for something, God forbid, so I had to insist on helping, which she would refuse, and back & forth that game would go for a while, until I decided to quit playing it entirely. You need something mom, ASK me for it like a big girl.

Passive-aggressive behavior is a no-win situation, really, b/c the person who displays it has NO communication skills. That's what the problem is, in a nut-shell.

Here's a good article on the subject:

https://www.excelatlife.com/articles/crazy-makers.htm

And another, with 11 examples including coping mechanisms to deal:

https://www.mindbodygreen.com/articles/passive-aggressive-behavior

The silent treatment is a typical PA 'punishment', so I wonder if your mother uses that little trick to get her way? Mine did, but I quit letting it bother me. They hate that, too...........if you ignore the PA behavior/punishments, that gets to them the WORST of all! I used to look at the silent treatment as a welcome break from all the ongoing nonsense!

Anyway, if your mom wants an elective surgery AND to keep it a big secret (like mostly everything these women want kept a secret), then go for it mom! Give the hospital my number and they can call me if you don't make it, so I'll be kept in the loop that way. Like my husband says, "Say the most ridiculous thing." People who want what they want exactly HOW they want it deserve a little bit of ridiculous treatment from the people they're mistreating once in a while, don't they? :) A bit of their own medicine, so to speak.

Oooh, speaking of 'throwing me in there', my mother ALWAYS used to say, "Just throw me out in the street like a DAWG." That was one of her faves! Or threaten that she'd "Just go run out in the traffic and kill myself" or "Throw myself out the window" at which point I'd remind her she lived on the first floor of the Assisted Living residence so that wouldn't work..........she'd have to figure out how to climb up to the roof to accomplish that task!! Again, you want to play? Let's PLAY ma!!!

Good luck beating mom at her own game by developing a few tricks of your own!

Oh the mixed messages!

No - don't help me.
You don't help me enough..

I'm not telling you about my planned surgery.
Why aren't you more sympathetic about my surgery?

Looks like she is a talented actor who can play whichever part is the most dramatic at the time 😜

Join the play & ham it up!
"I was so worried you were going to be DIE & now I find out you will be SLICED up by a surgeon. Oh NOooooo! What a catastrophe!!"

If not your style, take a seat in the audience instead. Keep quiet. Let her play her games (alone) & only do something to help her if she asks for help in a direct, mature way.(Not hidden in hints, guilt trips or being set up).

First of all the most important thing here that you must learn is how to refuse the game playing. You can't be successful at caregiving or even helping a person if you get pulled into playing their nonsense games.
Your mother pulling the 'help me/don't help me' nonsense is a classic. They want to carry on like they can do it themselves and don't need your help. Season that with some belittling and insult just for good measure. Then the elder realizes they can't and need help and you're supposed to jump to it. No apologies, no hard feelings, and no mention of their previous behavior. My mother used to pull this with me, and I took the bait and the abuse every time.
When you learn better you do better. I stopped playing this nonsense passive/aggressive game with my mother years ago. I've been a homecare caregiver mostly to elderly for almost 25 years now. I learned fast how to avoid playing when my clients would want some games. Like the false "emergencies", staged falls, and other attention-seeking nonsense.
Stay out of your mother's business. Don't offer to help her with anything. If she wants to ask you with respect and gratitude to help her, then do it. Not if she doesn't though. If she says she wants to be on her own, then leave her to it. Don't play the games.
You don't jump through hoops trying to please her when she treats you like crap. You ignore her. If dementia is the reason for her behavior, then do the bare minimal for her and put the rest over to hired caregivers to do for her.
If she gets stubborn or refuses caregiver assistance, the alternative is a care facility.
Don't ruin your life playing her games. Your life matters and your well being is also important.

MAd at least to the elective surgury.. I'd let her know since you know nothing about it you are not comfortable commiting to being "helper" when she comes home! And ask her what you are supposed to do if something goes amiss and you don;t have POA or know her wishes? Either she takes you to the surgeon and gets you some say,, or you go on as if it didn't happen

I got a call this morning from my younger sister, same situation. She'd gone to visit our mother, who is about 8 weeks post-cancer surgery and claims she gets worse every day. She's actually gone from a bedridden vegetable who was starving herself to walking without assistance, taking stairs, eating whatever she wants, bathing herself, and even drinking wine. Doing all her usual things, except driving.

Sister asked a question about something and got screamed at, which was triggering, so she left. My mother has always been nasty, sarcastic and verbally abusive to the family.

I canceled my visit today, since that's her mood. I read a book for adult children of emotionally immature parents, and it recommends distance. Observe the parent objectively, don't soak in the vitriol. Minimize opportunities for their abuse. Bottom line: Don't give them what they want, which is to make you miserable.

I think everyone's advice here to stay away until she asks for help is spot-on. Don't be her punching bag. You'll never please her. Nothing you do will ever be right or good enough. There's no shame in walking away when she starts. It's a no-win.

I'm with Beatty, with "helping on my terms".

I wonder if your mom has always been this way, or if this is new behavior.

In my mother's situation, her lack of insight into how she was wreaking havoc in our lives by having "emergencies" every day was a symptom of cognitive decline which in turn had been caused by an undetected stroke.

I'm not sure anyone can always handle that from someone unless they've completely shut down.

Check yourself...how are you really asking the questions (sometimes we might sound condescending to a parent, or accusatory, or angry, etc.), and how you otherwise engage with her. If you're respectful, get a mantra....and I'm not being flip. Make it positive and forward-moving.

I had to start going to appointments with my mother. I'd listen to her fib, I'd set the record straight, I'd get the evil eye. Had to start going to not just let the doctor know things, but to learn what he was telling her, AND a second head and another pair of ears is always better than one.

They get secretive with everyone b/c of their fears.

Can you, instead, see if you can lead her into conversations that make her less defensive/argumentative? Something like, "So what's been going on, Mom? Anything interesting?" (Whatever.) Sometimes people will open up--a stream of consciousness kind of thing--when they don't feel pinned against a wall by direct questioning, which they see an inquisition with an ultimate ending they don't like.

Less inquisitional, more non-leading casual.

Then there's always: "I'm your daughter and I'm worried. If I wasn't concerned, you'd find something wrong with that, too. Pick a lane, Mom, or shoot me."

Edit: Left out important qualifiers.

"I'm concerned about this doctor being a little pushy on this surgery quite frankly, it was scheduled by way of a phone call. I had only heard there was an "appointment to talk about it" then suddenly there it appeared in her online portal."

"I told the surgery scheduler when I called to find out when it was that no one had told me, and the lady was apologetic although I told her she absolutely didn't need to be. She was glad that I called because, "We were under the impression she had a ride home and care for 24 hours afterward." How nice."

It always amazed me when my mom was in the hospital, that it was always assumed that mom would have all of the help at home that she would possibly need, without anyone from the hospital actually CHECKING with the person who is expected to be the caregiver.

I remember speaking *very forcibly* to one of the attending doctors (aka yelling) that the hospital could not release my mom home, because there was NO WAY she could make it up the steps into the house without first getting her strength back - better known as rehab. I remember the doctor giving me the dopiest look, like "what a hysterical daughter. There's nothing to going up steps. What a drama queen!" When she (the doc) began to speak to me like I was some simpleton, I REALLY let her have it. And having had posted here during mom's illness, I learned the magical phrase, the "abracadabra" of hospital discharge speak: "unsafe discharge". They release mom to rehab then. Go figure.

I am sorry that you have to go through this. If I were you, I would not only go to that pre-surgery appointment to tell the doctor that "sorry to disrupt your in-and-out surgical plans, but mom's gotta be admitted for AT LEAST 24 hours after the procedure, because I will not be available or able to give her the post-surgery care she is going to require."; I would also see if that fancy patient portal had a link to "contact the doctor". If so, I would send it to the doctor in writing and then take a screen shot to show what time I sent it. So on surgery day, when you get "the look" from the medical people who tell you they had NO IDEA mom couldn't come home, and they didn't plan on an admittance, and there's NO WAY they could admit her now, so you'll have to take her home, you can whip out your device, show them the message and tell them that finding a bed in the hospital isn't YOUR problem, but it's THEIR problem, since you informed the surgeon IN ADVANCE you were unable to provide post-surgery care.

I just want to thank everyone for their responses, this has really helped me "get it out into the ether" that I'm not crazy for dealing with this kind of behavior and certainly not alone. I told mom if she wishes to go through with this surgery that she's going to have to be observed for a day or two or three, she agreed. I also told her, that if she wants to continue to live in her home on her own I hope she thinks it through and finds ways to do it safely. That kind of took her back a little bit as if to tell me, "that's your job." I also told her that whatever she wants to do medically for herself or feels necessary for her to go ahead and do it, as long as the private caregiver is available, and I have enough lead time to prepare for it. Still wasn't registering all that much and I then just flat out said, "Do you you gotta do mom." "Well, I need you to____" she started, and I said, "No I think you're doing ok you're making all these decisions and taking charge of your situation so you know what you should be proud of that."

After a quiet 30 seconds, I heard barely above a whisper, "Well, maybe this surgery can wait a little longer."

As I mentioned she doesn't have dementia, she's just not thinking it through since there's always the done deal in the room to bail her out. Now this is not to say I won't be there in emergencies, but "get over here and mop my floor," is not an emergency although the way it's said to me on the phone it's like a fire in the kitchen.

Phew...

If you have a dysfunctional relationship with your mother it's unlikely that it will go away, if by now you still feel resentful to her. Trying to be the caregiver of you mother will hurt both of you. It's better for the two of you to find alternative ways to help her in which you're not directly involved.