Has anyone ever experienced this? Being sick or injured and the BPD is mad at u.

[Our abuse recovery guide]

I was having a medical problem last week and needed to go to the ER. My wife attacked me and said a bunch of crazy things. I had to run out of the house and drive myself to the ER. No compassion, just she was mad at me for no reason and I was wrong for having the problem. Very weird. This happens every time I am sick too. Not sure if this is just bad habits she learned from her BPD mother. This is how things happened when they were growing up... My wife recalls many similar situations, when they were 7-10 age range, Her brother was hurt and bleeding from falling while playing, he got yelled at, her mom went to bed and was mad at him and they found a neighbor to drive him to the ER to get stitches. What is going on here? Is this a typical BPD response?

[Benaiah]

I was having a medical problem last week and needed to go to the ER. My wife attacked me and said a bunch of crazy things. I had to run out of the house and drive myself to the ER. No compassion, just she was mad at me for no reason and I was wrong for having the problem. Very weird. This happens every time I am sick too. Not sure if this is just bad habits she learned from her BPD mother. This is how things happened when they were growing up... My wife recalls many similar situations, when they were 7-10 age range, Her brother was hurt and bleeding from falling while playing, he got yelled at, her mom went to bed and was mad at him and they found a neighbor to drive him to the ER to get stitches. What is going on here? Is this a typical BPD response?

[Harri]

Sure, though I don't think it is seen in all people with BPD or even many.    It is possible that your wife learned coping strategies from her mom and they have carried over into her adult way of handling things.

My mom would either over-care, blowing small things out of proportion or would take my illness personally (not sure of the word here) where she would be upset as if if were happening to her and would end up in bed for days, sometimes weeks, totally depressed because "how could this happen to her" and "I can't take the stress of you being sick".  I learned to keep my mouth shut and even today hate it when people get concerned or worried about me. 

About 12 years ago I was diagnosed with a serious illness that scared the hell out of me but I knew not to share it with my family until I got a handle on it as they would just make my ability to cope and process it more difficult, and I would not react well.  I realized I did not need the additional stress.  Later on, after complications cropped up and unable to drive on my own, asking for a ride to the hospital was a major event.  I ended up calling a cab (before Uber existed) or used the ambulance.

The thing is, my mother was the disordered one but my brother had the same reaction you describe from your wife... it was a hassle and a burden for him to go to the store for me or help me with laundry for example (and this was before he moved away.  at the time he was about 10 minutes down the road from me). 

I also has a roommate for a while who said she would be happy to help me and sometimes she was but sometimes not.  I had to go to the hospital a lot in a few months time and when I was 'away' I would let her use my car.  Told her if she wanted access to it, she would need to drive me and pick me up when I called.  Pffft... she acted like it was a burden for her.   By that time she was feeling entitled to my home, my belongings and my car.  and yes, I believe BPD was a fit for her.

I think it is tied to how people deal with stress rather than having BPD though.

[CautiousHopeful]

Hi Benaiah,

I'm wondering if this kind of reaction is related to a pwBPD only barely just managing to deal with their own situation, emotions etc, and that as they often externalise emotions they can't deal with onto others, this may be happening? Maybe it is like they just can't handle someone else being unwell?

The day my father was diagnosed with Parkinson's, my mother just said to him sternly, 'well you are just going to have to deal with it.' There was no giving him a hug, no saying we will be there to support him, no emotional support whatsoever. I tried to make up for this over the rest of his life, by trying to help him feel loved, safe, supported.

I remember having stitches as a kid in my left foot. My mother just got angry when she found out, and she ordered me to do jobs in the backyard as soon as I was home from the doctor's, and I had to hop about on one leg trying to do these tasks. But at the same time, a bit like what Harri describes, she would sometimes over-identify with illness as if it was personal. I remember my brother once having a headache and she seemed on the verge of emotional collapse because of it. Likewise, her mother would go down with an illness and end up in bed if her father was ever sick. My grandfather once said to my grandmother, 'can I ever just have an illness on my own?'

So I am just wondering if it is a maximum load thing? They are often feeling stressed or troubled by their own feelings, and someone else being sick is too much for them to deal with? I think in an overloaded state, the empathy part of the brain can kind of shutdown. Just some thoughts anyway. As Harri suggested, it may also be what your wife learned from her mother. It is interesting she can reflect on how her mother was in this regard, but seems to repeat this pattern of behaviour. This is like my mother repeating her mother's behaviours, but not seeming to be aware she is doing it.

[CautiousHopeful]

Hi again Benaiah,

I just remembered the words I was trying to think of when I replied to you before. Those words are 'self-soothe'. I think as pwBPD have great difficulty self-soothing their own feelings/emotions, it can be really hard for them to be soothing towards others. I recently read about a study looking at the neurophysiology of pwBPD, and it found when exposed to emotional content on a video their nervous systems did not self-soothe but got increasingly stressed, whereas the non-BPD people in the study could self-soothe - their nervous systems knew how to calm themselves down. It seems to be part of the lack of emotion regulation that typifies BPD.

So just thought I'd mention that in case it is helpful. It may not be so much a matter of being intentionally uncaring, more being unable to calm and manage their own emotional state and thus they are not emotionally available to help others in a a supportive way. Added to this, they may feel some shame in not being able to do this, and shame in BPD seems to be externalised onto others as anger, hence actually becoming angry at a loved one who is not well.

I don't know if that helps, but thought would mention those thoughts just in case they are helpful.

[JNChell]

Hi, Benaiah. Yes, I’ve experienced similar things.

If you’re willing to share, what was your medical problem? Why was your wife mad about it?

We can’t/don’t diagnose here, but the behaviors that you describe speak to a personality disorder. What are your thoughts?

Most importantly, we’re here for you. Stay connected with this community. Not only when you feel bad. Talk to us as much as you can. That’s where you’ll find the benefit.

[Benaiah]

Thank you for the input everyone. I think it is more of a learned behavior - learning the bad habits of the BPD. I don't think it is BPD in my wife because she has learned to recognize bad habits and change them. This one just seems to stick around because when it happens, I don't have the energy to confront the problem as I am usually recovering from something. Maybe that's why this hasn't been addressed yet.

My wife is going through almost like a recovery from C-PTSD because of all of the insane things her mom would do growing up. Our whole relationship has really been me trying to teach her not to live in chaos because that is how she learned to live and thought that it was normal.

She didn't realize that people had health problems before she met me and thought that when she met me it was very weird that I had health problems. Its not that people in her family didn't have health problems, its just that her mom would do the same thing to them and not help or anything so they have never really been around their extended family when there is a medical problem. like they write it out of existence or something. When I listed out the medical problems her extended family had she was blown away that she didn't even realize it.

Its a slow and long process trying to help someone overcome their family's BPD habits. We have been no contact with my MIL for 9 months now. The interesting thing is that we ran into her dad in the store the day before and its like she magically reverted to some old habits even though they didn't talk about much and the interaction was like 3 minutes. Before we went no contact it is like she was enmeshed, and even with a brief contact, this fog like made her act really different. I am also wondering if this contributed to her reaction the day after. Like re-enforcing some thought pattern or something because of the contact. After thinking about it, she has improved in this area overall, but this one was a major leap backwards. Its almost like contact with the BPD's flying monkeys can put us back in this weird fog.

Could be a little overload/Maximum load like CautiousHopeful mentioned being a contributing factor as she was finishing up a hard semester among the other stresses of life. We are both on overload as it is with moving/jobs/work, and her school.

Turned out it was just a bad asthma attack. Didn't know what was going on. A little hypoxia type symptoms. She was mad because I didn't know if I should go to the ER or not and that I should have told her earlier that I needed to go to the ER. (Because I have control over the timing of medical emergencies?)

I'm thoroughly confused. For some reason this is one thing we can never talk about after the fact, and she changes the past/denies what she said/did. This is an issue that is just sticking with us. Based on other situations like this, we will probably hav a conversation about this in like a month and then she will realize it. This only happens when we are no contact with the BPD though, which also makes me wonder if there was some type of thought pattern interruption from running into her Dad. Not to be disrespectful of my wife's thought patterns, but just curious what makes these things happen.

Has anyone experienced having contact with a BPD or BPD Flying Monkey making someone revert to old bad habits for a brief period?

Thanks again everyone.

[Harri]

Has anyone experienced having contact with a BPD or BPD Flying Monkey making someone revert to old bad habits for a brief period?

Sure, it happens all the time, but not just with pwBPD.

Have you ever gone with a friend to visit their parent and all of a sudden it is like they are a another person?  They change how they hold their self, the way they talk, the amount of eye contact they make.  It is fascinating to see.  In my opinion it is a sign of being poorly differentiated and that can happen with or without BPD being a factor.

Good question.

[CautiousHopeful]

Hi Benaiah,

Sorry, I misinterpreted your original post and thought you were saying your wife had BPD, and was responding in that light. So yes, it sounds more like it may be a learned behaviour.

Yes I can relate to reverting to old patterns after spending time with my mother, even after talking to her on the phone, though it has more impact in person. It can be somewhat destabilising, and I think given it is our parents we first learn from, if they were emotionally dysregulated when we were growing up, we can internalise this and also have dysregulation triggered in us even into adulthood when we see them. My brother gets triggered too, and is very strict about the amount of contact he has with her. I can feel kind of foggy and disoriented, especially if my mother is particularly unbalanced after I have seen her.

Sometimes after seeing my mother I'm now starting to ask myself, what do I need right now to get back into some kind of equilibrium? I'm only just starting to really consciously do this. It might be things like just taking some time out to go for a walk, spending time with friends who are balanced people to be around, reading books or watching videos that are inspiring and insightful, doing photography which I love - anything that helps me to feel more normal again. I'm sure you are a very balancing influence for your wife. Differentiation from a parent seems to be a gradual learning process, where it is possible to go backwards for a bit and become enmeshed again, but it sounds like you are really helping her to know that life doesn't have to be chaos 

[JNChell]

Not hijacking the thread. This really stuck out to me.

Have you ever gone with a friend to visit their parent and all of a sudden it is like they are a another person?  They change how they hold their self, the way they talk, the amount of eye contact they make.  It is fascinating to see.

[HappyChappy]

Hey Benaiah
,
We were effectively taught “boys don’t cry” and I’ve not cried since I was 10, wish I could. The behaviour sounds very BPD, so probably learn’t if your wife doesn’t have BPD. A BPD would also invalidate any illness you suggest, as their excuse for doing nothing. My BPD didn’t take me to A&E twice, when I had an asthma attack – bizarre because it was life threatening and when my Dad got home from work he instantly saw it was dangerous and rushed me in, only to be told off for waiting so long.

Our BPD sent us to school regardless of illness and would refuse to pick us up, to the point of being reprimanded by the school. In her case, she simply didn’t have empathy and seemed to assume we were making it up. But on one occasion the school nurse was trying to show her the thermometer, showing I had red hot flue and she screaming at the nurse “He knows how to make his temperature go up !”. She refuses to look at the thermometer. Using denial and avoidance to avoid doing stuff that didn’t benefit her. She would invalidate all illness, to avoid having to do stuff, she wasn’t maternal at all. This taught me to never go to the Dr and never make a fuss. Ironically she was also very good a eliciting sympathy for her own illness. If you wife learn’t this, she’s more likely not to go for sympathy and play down all illness, her own included. With my own kids, I fuss over their health more than their mother does, its the paternal thing,  but I need prompting to  fuss over adults, which I will happily do. Have you spoken directly to your wife about this ? What are you wives levels of empathy like ?

Harri and JNChell the phenomenon you both refer too, is the idiom "putting on airs and graces" an example of this  ? Here's a working class woman doing it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGt-jvU5Iag (Keeping Up Appearance)

[Notwendy]

Yes- I have seen it.

My father died after a long illness. My mother's behavior during it was bizarre. She was at times, angry and emotionally abusive to him and to me as well. I even called social services because I was concerned about him being left in her care and spoke to his medical providers about it. Yet, my father did not want these issues brought into the open.

I think the idea about someone with BPD having difficulty with managing emotions and having enough to deal with - with their own emotions makes sense. I am sure this situation was distressing for my mother. It was for all of us. I also think projection has a part in this too. While we were all feeling sadness and grief, she was projecting her bad feelings outward. I don't think she recognized them as her own feelings but believed others were responsible for them.

The Karpman triangle helps explain it too. My mother's perception is in victim mode. My father was her rescuer. When he got ill- he also was in victim mode in a sense- he needed help and care. But with my mother in victim perception, she didn't perceive it this way.

[isilme]

Yes.  I think this is not uncommon.

The person with BPD has trouble managing their emotions on a good day.  If they are overwhelmed with feelings, there is no room for your feelings.  Their emotional "bowl" gets full quickly, empties quickly, fills again quickly.  It's not a big bowl, like a salad bowl.  It's like maybe a small cup of soup bowl. 

Here is what I "think" my BPD H thinks when I am injured or ill:

He is upset I am ill
He is upset he can't make me not ill
He is upset he might be made to look dumb or embarrassed by not knowing what to do
He is upset I might abandon him as the result of being ill (hospitalization/death)
He is upset I have messed up his day/plans by being ill
He is upset he feels that way because he knows it's kinda mean and selfish
He is upset there may not be a "scheduled time" when I won't be ill
He is upset he feels that way about this, too, because he knows it's kinda mean and selfish
He is upset he might need to step in and help with chores or taking me to the MD
He is upset he feels that way about this, too, because he knows it's kinda mean and selfish
He is upset with me that I made him feel all of the above making him upset with me for being ill in the first place
He is upset I can't perfectly validate all these feelings above, because I am in poor shape, being ill

I find in my household, there is almost a time limit for help and understanding.  I can sometimes count it down to where I will be ordered to just get better already.  This has been fun since I am now fighting a chronic illness, trying to get it identified and treated.  Thank goodness I may have finally found an MD who can help me.

Bac to the emotional bowl... so, their emotional soup bowl fills up with all their feelings, and they lose it yell at us and it empties.  It can fill with empathy and caring, but it's about one soup's worth of those emotions.  Once those emotions are spent, the feelings of inadequacy and anger at feeling inadequate fill it back up and need to be spilled out again.

[HappyChappy]

Thank goodness I may have finally found an MD who can help me.

Great news Isilme ! 

This small bowel of emotional soup is an interesting analogy.

[JNChell]

Great video, HC. Is it bowel or bowl? Hopefully it was bowel because that was some funny  !

Anyway, that video portrayed a full blown narcissist. Hopefully she isn’t like that in real life. Christ, we could come up with some screenplays. Hmm.

[todayistheday]

Based on my behavior now and what I've seen with my Dad, it's possible that I did when I was a kid.

My behavior is that anytime I am sick or hurt, I tend to minimize it and cover it up.   There are lots of examples.

My Dad had a back problem several years ago. He ended up being almost paralyzed due to it.  When he was tripping and falling, Mom yelled at him and accused him of putting her on.  She finally did take him to orthopedics.  He ended up needing emergency surgery to relieve pressure on a nerve.  Before the surgery, he was sending me messages in private because she was yelling and screaming at him because he could not walk. The messages that I was receiving were heartbreaking.  I had planned to go there when he had the surgery.  I ended up going two days earlier to run interference. 

On the flip side, when she has something wrong, she's mad at everyone for not taking care of her.  I go help just to shield my Dad.  She won't let anyone do anything except me then tells me that nobody will do anything (which is a lie.)

[LonelyButTrying]

Happened to me a few months ago.

I've been going through enormous stress, as my father's original diagnosis of stage IV colon cancer was deemed terminal, and after having been in the hospital twice in January alone, the cancer was deemed terminal, with a prognosis of six months, and hospice was the next step.

I've lived a life mostly of isolation because my viewpoint when I was growing up and well into my 20s was, "Why would I want to bring anyone else into this?", meaning the emotional war zone my sister and I have lived in for 32 years with my parents' marriage, having to emotionally fend for ourselves every time (no other family to reach out to). I graduated from high school early, for example, just to get out of there.

So this new realm was ultra-stressful to me, not only because of my father's cancer getting worse, but because I'm not used to people being around like this. I started toying with the thought of wanting to get to know more people, having more people in my life because this life has been lonely enough as it is. Only recently have I embraced it more because there are different stories to know, different lives lived, and that would certainly be a change from what I've been through day and in day out (dutiful son that I was after high school, I stayed home because I felt that I couldn't trust my workaholic father to take care of my disabled mother. I was right).

My mother is uBPD, won't seek counseling or anything that could help, sniping that my father needs it more than she does. My father's not blameless in any of this, as he's fought right back at her just as bitterly all these years, and his financial irresponsibility is frightening as we get closer to his formal retirement from the school district he works in (meanwhile, I'm still looking for work here in town, a town that's more about networking, which took me a long time to learn). Even so, all things considered, even with so much to worry about in the midst of two and a half years that have been the worst of my life, he's been the nicer one to my sister and I.

Anyway, a few weeks after my father got out of the hospital the second time, I felt headachy and nauseous during the night. Needed to puke. I rushed to the master bedroom bathroom, got there, but missed just a bit. My mother bolted up from her bed, came to the bathroom, saw what had happened and yelled at me for missing the toilet, even though most of it had ended up in there, and was complaining about how now she had to clean the floor. Nothing about what I was going through, not even asking me if I was ok, if I needed anything. I ignored it as best I could, washed my hands, and went back to bed in the living room while she continued complaining (two-bedroom apartment, so my bed's in the living room, with my bookcases on the other side of the room, which is always a nice view). It was one of the first times I didn't fire back at her, which I've gotten better at in the months since.

[Notwendy]

I am sorry your father is ill. I understand how hard it is to see your father deal with an illness and the impending loss. I hope you have a support system. You mentioned trying to meet people. Now is a good time. I would not expect your mother to be supportive to you, but don't take it personally. She probably isn't able to. I hope you can find some supportive people. Perhaps there is a support group at the hospital for families. That's one place to start.

My father passed away after a long illness. Not once did my mother show concern for me or how I might be doing. I was devastated.

She didn't show concern for me when he died either.

If I said to her " I lost a father" her only reply was a louder " I LOST a husband". It was all about her. I understand that is a devastating loss to her  but she didn't understand the impact on the adult children.

[LonelyButTrying]

Thank you. Over the past week, I've been looking into those hospital support groups, seeking a weekly meeting. As my sister and I are driving more in town, it has become more possible.

As my sister so aptly said earlier today, "Why do you think I like going to work and school?" Similar to you, Notwendy, we couldn't go to my mother after the fights finally ceased momentarily to tell her how scared, worried, concerned we were because we knew she'd say, "What about what I'VE been going through?"

Now today she's going on and on about how much she misses Sanford, Florida, how the zoo expanded, the airport where they used to take me to plane-watch. Never mind that we all have choices in life and it was her choice to keep moving with my father, and keep us moving as a result. Mostly, it's like living in the Tennessee Williams play "The Glass Menagerie," her rehashing the past like Amanda Wingfield.

Add to that more complaints about my father's hospice nurse, even though he's there for my father, and pestering my father about drinking more, though he is making an effort now, and on and on. Many times, even before the cancer, she's always said, "I wish I could be somewhere else." So yeah, I can see not expecting my mother to be supportive. Onward.

[Notwendy]

What I think is going on with my mother is not personal to me.  For some reason, she has a tremendous amount of inner turmoil. I think it takes all of her focus. If she can't manage her own emotions well, she doesn't have any reserve to see someone else's or be supportive to them.

I learned long ago to not look to her for anything- emotional support, or even validation. It's not because she chooses to not care about me, it's because she isn't capable of it.

My father was her emotional caretaker. It was difficult to see that when he needed support, she wasn't able to give it. I am sure it was difficult for her to have her husband go through what he did. However, her way of managing these feelings was to go into victim mode. She doesn't see her feelings as being hers but someone doing something to her to make her feel bad. She then "fights back" and does hurtful things in return. This is her way of managing her difficult feelings.

Not that I have to tolerate her behavior towards me. I don't. But it also helps to see this as how she copes, rather than to feel her behavior is personal to me. Somewhere in 12 steps for co-dependency groups I heard the slogan "don't go to the empty well to get a drink of water".  I don't see my mother as being capable of handling feelings besides her own.

I think finding a support group at the hospital is a great idea. Shortly after my father died I started attending 12 step codependency/Adult Children of Alcoholics groups and they have been a source of emotional support as well. The ACA groups also include adult children of dysfunction as families with a pwBPD have similar behavior patterns as families with a member addicted to alcohol and other addictions.

[JNChell]

I was only taken to the doctor if the condition was visible. This is most likely why I don’t go to see a doctor nowadays. It wasn’t so much that my parents got mad at me for expressing pain or sickness, they ignored it.

[LonelyButTrying]

What I think is going on with my mother is not personal to me.  For some reason, she has a tremendous amount of inner turmoil. I think it takes all of her focus. If she can't manage her own emotions well, she doesn't have any reserve to see someone else's or be supportive to them...

Wow, Notwendy, that's everything. I read it a few times because that's my mother to a tee as well. You gave me some really valuable ways to go about it, and I shall, especially with her in the living room bitching about yet another thing that happened to her today that she didn't like.

[Turkish]

Yes, and my ex had no mercy. It related to her going "off the reservation" and cheating on me.  All about her...

[Turkish]

More relevant to this board...

I have ectodermyldysplasia. I don't sweat, little to no sweat glands  Heat can kill me,  no joke. Charles Darwin wrote about observing "my people" in India,  those who remained by the waterside to cool themselves.  My mom did a good job of protecting me until one time when I was 12.

It was almost 100F in the mountains.  I begged her to leave me on the 25 acres in the woods.  I would have been ok,  but she insisted on taking me to the central valley.  The AC in our old truck was broken. She promised to stop and get out fixed. In retrospect, I should have run into the woods,  but I trusted her.  

We stopped. But the mechanic couldn't fix the AC. I was trapped.  We made it to the valley and the mall where my mom sold her puppies.  It was 112F that day. The AC mall was a respite where I recovered, kind of.

On the hour drive back I got bad. I remember collapsing over the seat of the '73 Ford truck. The engine heat hitting me.  I was too far gone to care,  pins and needles over my whole body, tunnel vision and patterns like when you press your hands over your eyes.  It was the closest i ever felt like dying,  I was slipping away. By that point,  the heat didn't bother me.  I just felt like going to sleep forever.  

We arrived at my swim team practice.  I went into the room to change. It was likely over 110F in that building. It took me 10 minutes to change, I had trouble moving.  After I changed, I sat under the pool shower for over 10 minutes. The water was warm and it didn't help me cool off a lot.  I climbed into the pool which I had first should have done, clothes and all.  It helped, but I couldn't do laps. I climbed out, still tired, but better,  and my mom took me to the hospital to get evaluated. Of course by then I was ok.  It was night and cooler. 

Despite my mom rescuing me from stupid baby sitters years before who didn't take my disability seriously (she once picked me up with a fever of 105.5F) I knew after that incident that I couldn't trust my mom,  or anybody for my safety except myself. 

[Notwendy]

I'm glad that helped LonelyButTrying. After many years of feeling hurt at my mother's behaviors, it has helped to realize her behavior and what she says is more about her than about me. I also experienced her family as being very invalidating - to everyone. They aren't bad people, and they don't have BPD but they are narcissistic. I was able to have some sympathy for her having been raised in that family. On one hand they don't admit there are any issues with her and proclaim she is wonderful- yet when they speak about her it sounds patronizing to me. Still, I don't want to be the recipient of her behavior.

Turkish, I think your mother probably didn't have a clue. My mother likes to tell a story about how I "threw up on her floor on purpose" when I was a toddler. Classic victim story- what toddler purposely throws up on someone's floor? More likely, I had a stomach ache and needed a parent to comfort me. And why is she telling this story decades later? I know my children threw up when they had stomach aches when they were little, but it isn't a significant thing to recall.

I don't feel I can trust my mother either.

[Cloudy009]

Yes. I just mentioned in another post how my BPD mom came with no pants or underwear on and wrested the phone out if my 92 year old grandmother's hand while she was trying to call 911 because she thought she was having a heart attack. My mother just kept screaming at her and would not let her call and insisted on taking her time to get dressed and go to an all night clinic. Luckily my grandmother was ok. My Mom loves if I'm crying or mentally unwell if it doesn't seem like its her fault if there are other people around to make a scene. She also loves to not believe me when I tell her something bad happened to me. Like one time in my early 20's a man followed me home to her house and I called the police and she said to them I was making it up.

[JNChell]

My grandma on dad’s side ended up with Alzheimer’s. She had to move in with us eventually. My mom was abusive towards her. Looking back, it was sickening. I haven’t thought about it for a while. My parents stripped her of her money. She eventually had a severe stroke and spent the rest of her days in a nursing home.

My mom was awful and berating to her. Alzheimer’s eventually caused my grandma to ask the same question minutes apart. Her memory was leaving her. My mom would become enraged. Grandma eventually forgot how to use eating utensils and would try to eat with her arthritic hands. Mom would ridicule and hit her. It’s almost like mom’s kids were growing up, and here’s an old person that I can pick on. It’s so weird to know a person that has to live that way.

Anyway, yes, if these folks aren’t the center of attention they can become very mean. Children in adult frames.

[JNChell]

Turkish, could what you’ve described been a precursor to the seizure?

[Turkish]

No.  That was two years later.

[LonelyButTrying]

My mom was awful and berating to her. Alzheimer’s eventually caused my grandma to ask the same question minutes apart. Her memory was leaving her. My mom would become enraged. Grandma eventually forgot how to use eating utensils and would try to eat with her arthritic hands. Mom would ridicule and hit her. It’s almost like mom’s kids were growing up, and here’s an old person that I can pick on. It’s so weird to know a person that has to live that way.

Similar to this, I've been reminded yet again today never to get sick in this household, which was probably also a motivation for eating better and exercising more.

My father's been having trouble with his stool, mainly because he never drinks enough water, hasn't for years. He grew up in a household where water was for dirty people. So the habit became so ingrained that he could never extract himself from it.

In light of being in hospice, it becomes more crucial so his body can pass waste. My mother's been on him about it all morning, arguing with him that what he's been doing to take care of himself (which hasn't been much, I agree) is not working, so she's in charge of it now and she's sniped at him whenever he says he doesn't want to drink ("You WILL drink. There's no choice."). Understandable to a degree.

My father came out of the bathroom just now, in a bit of pain from all this, and it hasn't served him anyway that he doesn't move much from his recliner (a lot of issues there, related to upcoming retirement, feeling useless and all of that). He was moaning a little bit from the pain of walking back to the recliner and she said to him, "What are you moaning about now?"

It reminds me of when I had a breakdown in May 2010, partly brought on by being grossly overweight when my diet was mainly Extreme Moose Tracks chocolate ice cream and Dr. Pepper, and therefore little sleep, as well as my mother saying every single day how much she hated Santa Clarita, hated living in it. Every day. It affects a person.

I tried to tell her I wasn't feeling right, trying to explain it and she snapped back with, "There's nothing wrong with you. Just get up and do something instead of laying around." I was trying to work this out, trying to figure out exactly what was going on with me, and that's what I got.

My father needs to start taking care of himself better in the midst of this, but I do feel for him with her going at him like that. I've been there. But I've remained detached in the past few days, merely observing it, not reacting to it. It has helped.

[LonelyButTrying]

Oh yes, and there was the moment when she was going on and on about how my father needs to drink more water because she doesn't need the hospice nurse coming around so often. Meanwhile, the hospice nurse is there for HIM!

What's been helping me through this, health-wise, is lots of tea, changing my diet for the better, trying to get to bed earlier (I'm working on it), and the motivation to never get sick in this household.