Advice on how to cope with elderly mother stuck in a negative mindset, complaining and ranting, but refusing help.

"She complains but doesn't want solutions.."

Then you have to move out of earshot. Seriously. OK?

I think those of us with a default fix-it mode struggle NOT to engage.

Those trained from birth to 'fix' & soothe Mamma Drama have it even harder!
But I am confident it can be done with practice.

Removing the page marked *Must always avoid a melt-down* & replace it with *I am not the complaints compartment*.

This is how I am meeting my day today. I have a work-colleugue that just complains & complains like it is a sport she wants the gold medal in. People offering solutions is water off a duck's back. No advice is listened to or taken up.

I wondered if it was *low resilience*? Every tiny problem loomed large for her as she had never learnt the skill of problem solving?

But it dawned on me to look for her aim. It appears not to be to solve problems - but to gain attention. Using complaints to gain & hold other's attention.

I am going Grey Rock as my experiment this week.

You’ve gotten a lot of good advice. The only thing I would add is that if you are impacted massively, wait until she gets sick, needs full time care, etc. If she’s already unhappy with everything she will lose it when you try to employ caregivers or implement whatever else she needs. Pace yourself. These situations only get worse.

If I didn't know better I'd think your mother and mine are the same person. My life has been almost identical to yours. The only difference is my mother doesn't just 'flick the switch' for doctors. She can have normal and even engaging conversations with other people too. It's only with me and occasionally my sibling (but very rare) that it will be negativity, complaining, instigating, orneriness, gaslighting and verbal abuse.

She was always miserable, very manipulative and a real downer for as far back as I can remember. I've been the family scapegoat and emotional whipping post since then too.

Here's how you handle it. The same way I do. When she starts up with the complaining and negativity that's when a phone call or a visit ends that is then followed by a period of total ignoring.
This is the one way to handle her. It's the way that protects your mental health.

You can make the offer to bring in homecare, but likely she will refuse. There is such a thing as the 'Right to Rot'. If she doesn't have dementia she can decide for herself if she doesn't want to have any kind of life. So leave her to it then.

Don't light yourself on fire to keep others warm. Nothing anyone says or does is going to make one bit of difference to your mother if she won't let it.

If she's like my mother in this way and pretends to not understand what you mean or tries to lay the guilt-trip about no one caring about her, do what I did.

I used a visual aide to help my mother understand. A movie called, 'Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban'. It was the third in the series and had my mother watch it. I explained that she is like the dementors in the film. Anyone who spends time around her is filled with despair like all joy has gone from the world and will never return. I explained that author J.K. Rowling who wrote the books had people like my mother in her life who were the inspiration for the dementors of Azkaban.

Of course, she finds a way to blame me for why her life is what it is as I'm sure your mother does too. They always have at least one scapegoat to blame.

If you and your family want to have some kind of relationship with her get together and have an intervention. All of you tell her how much thr manipulative behavior, misery, and negativity has impacted your lives. Let her know that if she refuses to change her behavior and go to counselling for it, that she will no longer have a family because the lot of you will put her out of your lives.

This is what I had to do. I didn't see or speak to my mother for six years. The choice is theirs and they do get a choice. That choice is get off the self-pity, negativity train or lose your family.

Your mother is the only one who can make that choice for herself. So let her make it. Whatever she decides is on her. You've done nothing wrong and her misery is not your fault in any way.

Mom: complaint
You: what do you plan to do about that?

That's as engaged as I would get.

Never offer solutions or support to a person like this. That's not what they want.

There's a great website called Out of the FOG. That's Fear, Obligation and Guilt.

https://outofthefog.website/

Thanks for the response. No children involved, mine are grown up and independent, well adjusted adults- I didn't pass this on to them, through self-awareness and sheer hard work on myself and my relationships. When I say family, I mean myself and my brother and our partners because it takes up so much of our time trying to support mum at the moment. You'll tell me that's our choice but it's so hard.

Forgiveness is tricky, when you're constantly reminded of all your deficits and all the things you haven't been for your mother from the day you were born. I know she obviously had a hard childhood and probably has some kind of mental illness but even with that understanding, the constant onslaught from her makes it so hard to move on. I'm constantly learning new ways to deal with it and to heal. Exhausting.

More counselling needed!

Thank you.

Grey rocking? Boundaries? I'm sure it gets VERY tiring!

This is hard--but what you do is walk out.

My DH will annoy my kids with his political rants--they don't agree with him and gets angry and negative. They will simply..walk out.

One Sunday we were having family time--he got all in a lather about something and the kids asked him to please stop, as it was actually becoming offensive. He wouldn't..and when he went to the bathroom, the kids all packed up their families and left. He came back out and was shocked to see it was just me sitting there.

He learned a big lesson. Got in a fight with our YD while she was here for Christmas. Actually staying with us. She kept asking him to stop arguing with her, he wouldn't, next thing we know, she and her DH are leaving to go stay in a hotel.

He'll learn, but it's just how long will it take for him to 'get it'.

Don't give your mom the audience.

My DH likes to say, "Some people love misery so much, they meet it half way." My mother was like yours is. A perpetual self-appointed victim. Except nothing had ever happened to her! No crime, nobody was truly against her (contrary to her narrative), she was never harmed or robbed or even had a car accident, yet the sky was always falling. She was always super ugly and negative to us, the family members, but if someone knocked on the door, the raging and snarling stopped on a dime and on went the Nice Mask for them to see. She could lay it on thick for OTHERS, but especially for the doctors. Others thought she was All That. We all knew better.

So as she aged, mom developed dementia. As I believe the vast majority of these types of Negative Nellies DO. They have untreated, undiagnosed mental disorders that only WE get to see, but that take a big toll on their brains for decades and turn into dementia in old age. I'm not a doctor and this is just speculation on my part after living with my mother, seeing her sisters all go this route, and reading this forum for many years.

Even WITH dementia at play, these types of women can Showtime with the Hollywood Oscar winners. My mother lived in Memory Care Assisted Living and had mostly everyone convinced she did not have dementia and there was NOTHING wrong with her! That's how good an act SHE could put on. Meanwhile she was accusing me of locking her dead siblings up in the closets.

The key to keeping your sanity intact with a parent like this is to go low contact with her. It's not your job to make her less miserable or convince her you're not "against" her. If I had a dime for every time my mother accused me of "being against her" I could buy a condo in Hawaii. Just live your life and let her live her life. Check in periodically, do the requisite tongue clucking and the "gee that's too bad mom" statements, and call it a day.

We all choose how to live our lives. And happiness is a choice as is misery. Mom's made her choice. What's yours?

Like already said the best way to cope with your mother is to limit your time and phone calls with her.
She has made her unhappy bed and she chooses to lie in it, but that doesn't mean that you have to lie in it with her.
You're an adult now and you must do what is best and healthy for you and your family. And sometimes that means cutting all ties with someone for your own sanity's sake.
You will NEVER change your mother. You can only change yourself and your response to her. Hopefully you've had enough counseling to know how to do that. And if you haven't, time for more counseling.
I too got short changed on the parent end of things, and after I chose to forgive them both, I also chose to cut all ties with them for my own mental health's sake, and I have absolutely have no regrets about that decision. We all have to do what we have to do to move on from whatever trauma we may have experienced as a child and not allow the dysfunction to trickle down into our immediate families.
So again, limit your time with your mother(if you feel you must see her occasionally)and whatever you do DON"T EVER let her move in with you!!!
And when she starts to talk negatively, just say that you will come back when she can be more positive, and leave. And do that every time. Perhaps(and that's a big perhaps)she will get the message loud and clear that you won't be tolerating her nonsense anymore. But don't hold your breath.
Or just cut the ties once and for all and get on with your healing and start enjoying the only life you have.

How old is your Mom? Old enough to have dementia? It starts gradually. Intensified stubbornness. The seeming total loss of reason and logic no matter how much you reason with her. No empathy for you or others. Losing her sense of time. Negativity, anxiety, agitation. Socially isolates. Sometimes paranoia.

She knows how to showtime for her doctor but if she is give a cognitive/memory test (draw the clock face, remember 3 words after 10 minutes), how does she fare? I bet not good.

You will need to learn how to redirect her conversations as soon as she starts with negativity. Doesn't have to be a smooth segue... just abruptly change the topic to something neutral or positive and utterly unrelated. Sometimes it works to point to something random and ask her a question about it. Or show her a picture on your phone "Did I show you this cute photo of _____?" If you can't successfully redirect her then just walk away. I do this plenty of times with my Mom. It angers or baffles her for a minute then she forgets about it. It doesn't "feel" good but it will help you.


Does she live with you? Is anyone her PoA? At some point you may wish to transition her to a facility and you will need the legal ability to make this decision for her even if she doesn't want it. Otherwise, it may require guardianship through the courts.

You tell us this:
"My mother has always been emotionally manipulative, for which we have sought counselling after challenging childhood. She has always believed life is against her and fitted everything to that. "

Now tell me why you would believe anything will change?
Because is won't.

You then tell us that "this is impacting massively on our family".
Unfortunately, that is on YOU.
You are an adult now. It is up to you to move away from people who have this sort of impact on your family, as you are RESPONSIBLE for protecting you family, if there are young ones, from such behavior.

Limit your interactions with your mother.
Be certain never to take her into your home or to become POA for her. If she fails and needs help leave her to the hands of the state as tho she never had an progeny to lean on.
Then get help for yourself so that you do not pay this behavior forward generationally.

I am sorry you drew the mom-card out of the deck that you did. But that is not to be undone. Unfortunately your mother has limitations so severe she cannot "mother" anyone. That won't change. You must now make a good life for yourself using the many tools in this world to do that. I sure do wish you the very best of luck. I hope someday you will find forgiveness for your mom for the deficits that hurt you so when you needed a mom; that will show you have healed.