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I think that is because it is a what is known in psycho-social circles as the "scalloped pattern of reinforcement". This is exemplified by giving a rat food every time he presses a bar (switch) while in another cage another rat gets a pellet of food only once in a while when he presses a bar. Studies show that the rat who only gets the food now and then will keep on pressing the bar waiting for food far longer than the one who always got food. In other words emotionally, because praise or appreciation for an act you would do or for something you did well only came once in a while then you tried harder or kept on trying waiting for the "crumb of food" (acknowledgement) and this can last for a lifetime. Especially I think when the mean and selfish elderly parent is old because we children of the narcissist parent think that this is likely our "last chance" to be finally be praised or at least they will undo the evil and be kind to us before they kick the bucket. My mother isn't dead yet but I doubt she'll ever do that. Keep you posted.
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Babalou, my opinion on why adult children who have the worst relationship with their parents end up thinking they should do hands on care out of a need to do something that might cause their parents to change into the parent that they never were and never will be.
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Oh, the failure to launch kid is definitely in the short line to be caregiver. It's strange, though, that some of these end up living with the parent, but not helping very much. We've had some examples here where an unlaunched son did nothing, while the sister had to come in to help. I see another dissertation there.
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Or because they're trying to re-run the parenting and get it right? I suspect myself of that, sometimes.
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Those are interesting questions, Jessie. I can only look at what's gone on iny own extended family. In one very dysfunctional pocket, the son, the golden child, bery much failed to launch and came back "home" to caregive only to be castigated by the rest of the family. I'm sure someone's doctoral dissertation is here, awaiting research.
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I don't know, either, Babalou. I've noticed the same. Golden children don't seem to be involved as often. Maybe there is a Cinderella complex created by low self esteem in abused/neglected children. Or maybe it is because these children often walk a rockier road than others that may end up in failed marriages or loss jobs, so they are available. Who knows? I don't think it is because the children are trying to win approval, as is often said. That is just a pop-psych answer that doesn't ring true. I have the feeling the story of Cinderella is closer.
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Jessie, it's interesting that you say that. My observation since being here is that it's adult children who have the worst relationships with their parents who seem to think they should be doing hands on care. Not sure why that should be.
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Well, I'm still sitting here this morning. I have been thinking of how much better it would be if my mother would either die or begin to live. Right now we are stuck in this dying that has been going on for 6 years or more. For two weeks she is too sick to do anything, like she is dying, then she perks up for a week. Then it's back to dying. Sometimes I don't think there is really anything wrong with her except she's nutty and dependent.

Isn't it odd that a parent who gave so little can expect so much from their children? And it is even odder when they belittle the person who does it. But what do we do?
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The topper was today when I found out that my father would be dead within one to three months. He is in hospital right now. i gave it one last try and phoned her. I said something to the effect of "Mother, we have to put everything behind us and focus on Dad. I know though he is unconscious most of the time now that he would probably prefer to die at home versus the hospital. He will need nursing help from the CCAC (Community Care Access Centre -free help three hours a day) you know to help with the pills and bath. As well I think we should get his cataract done so that for his last three or so months he can see his grandkids (that she denied him contact with btw). Her response "I don't want anyone in the house" (She has been Form 1-ed twice and fears that anyone with any sense would suggest that she be committed) and even more nutty: "Why would he need to be clean if he is dying?"
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I'd take a bullet for a stranger but sometimes you have to think of the ones that really need you not your little inner child that didn't get or meet with the approval that you should have gotten. Your mother is never going to turn in to June Cleaver, Shirley Partridge or Mrs. Brady and we have to accept that somehow God was on a coffee break or something when our little "baby souls" were sent to earth and we were sent by accident to "Mommy Dearest".
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Sounds like your son is on his way to losing his job and not have a good recommendation from his current employer to a new one. :(
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Thanks TheHatedOne. I am staying away from her. She has gone to live with my son and nephew and is now causing them extreme grief. Honestly, I thought she'd be fine with them since they're really the only people left on earth that she acts like she cares anything about. But nope. Within 24 hours she was up there giving 'em hell. They're about to lose their minds. I have decided she's dead to me regardless of anything. My son asked me to call her today and I refused. I told him I would do anything for him and my nephew but not to ever ask me to call her or talk with her because it's not going to happen. So I'm sitting down here calling around trying to find a suitable place for her to live (not with my son and nephew) while she abuses them and causes them so much stress that my son is afraid he'll wind up losing his job because she won't stop. Even when he goes to work, she's constantly on the phone calling him wanting him to come home and check on the dogs, or come home and fix her something to eat. She's more than capable of fixing her own meals. She not senile at all, she's walks just fine with her walker....she just wants someone to do for her at her command. Last night he cooked dinner and said she complained the whole time she was eating that whatever he cooked wasn't what she wanted and it's no wonder he's single....it just never stops with her. Sorry, made it all about myself again didn't I? Sorry. I'm very sad to hear about your dad. I pray that you get peace before you get too old to be able to enjoy it. That's my fear. That my mother will either outlive me or wait until I'm old and senile so I never get a chance to be happy. Hugs to you. I'm here for you.
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I totally understand you! My nasty father is now in the hospital with massive thrombosis in both sides of the brain, the Dr thinks he will be non functional with this much clotting, but it still makes me sad to know that he´s probably trapped in his body hearing all the staff talking about how badly off he is... iasked for them not to say those things near him & she said they have to; I don´t agree with that! It´s bad enough to be trapped in your body; he´s the type of person who wanted to last forever.
I allow you to stay away from your mother; I have to do the same with both my parents & I know that they are so miserable & would be better off joining my little sister whose passing is causing them way too much pain! Hugs, Hope
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Silly heart you are so right. Some people are just plain ole mean. Nothing that anyone can do will change that, especially when they're old. Looking at it from their perspective, why should they change? They've gotten away with it for 80+ years..looks like it's working for them. I think we, as children, are hanging on because deep inside of us, there is still that yearning for our parents to love us, appreciate us and be proud of us. It has to be that. Because if these people were strangers to us, we would walk away from them the first time they belittled us or harangued us. Right? It's a cruel trick of nature in my book. You spend your childhood trying to survive intact their cruelty, you grow up and move out and you think you've won. You are surviving, you are free of it all. Then they get old and/or infirm and you get sucked back into your childhood. All the old feelings, forebodings and anxieties come flooding right back as if they were just waiting in the wings the entire time.
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Yeah I was going with that one and started bringing her over gourmet food, doing her housework as she heckled me and reminded me of how much I looked like the sister she was jealous of. I thought the "Days of Anger and Cruelty" were nearly over and she sucked me in big time until the head games got worse and she started saying "I always was Daddy's Little Girl" and demanded that I spend more time helping her than my father who was nearly dead in hospital. 84 and still a bully. Ur lucky that dimentia got rid of the horribleness in your mother. With my mother she is going down with the ship as a rotten person and quite proud of it in fact. Some people are just plain mean. I have searched my heart and soul and have a degree in sociology and education and there are just "bad people". It is more than likely mental illness but it is even stated in the Human Rights Code that "a person's illness or handicap cannot hurt other people". I had to walk away.
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Dad, sis, and I endured exactly this sort of tyranny for over 50 years.
Now mom is so aphasic from Alzheimers she can barely finish a sentence and has become clingy and needy.
Not a scary bully anymore.
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My mother made our lives miserable for my entire life for all we three children and for my father who was her ever-loving and devoted servant. He took the emotional abuse for all of his life. Two of we three kids are dead with both of the deaths partially responsible for my mother;s emotional abuse. I left home at 16, stuck with school, married a nice guy who is a great father and my soul mate. He accepts me at my worse and recently when I tried to care for my mother and what it does to me as she berates me as I am doing everything that she is asking and plays her favourite "head games" that she has mastered (she knows every button to press -she has had a life time to figure this out. My dad is now elderly and we have never "argued over a cracker" as I call it and love each other deeply. She kept my dad and I apart for most of my life threatening to sell the house if he contacted or spoke with me. Finally they were forcibly removed from their home. I really did try to look after both but it was breaking me apart. I could only look after two things: My own family and my father and so I made that "Sophie's Choice-sort of choice" so I could retain my sanity. I"m sorry that I just could not be the "bigger person" but it would have been at the cost of losing the mother (me) of my own children and so it's me, my kids and Grandpa who will be going to a lovely nursing home due to his intense health needs. Right now I see him in the hospital most everyday. My mother lost her rights to be his medical decision maker and they gave that to me so finally broken and in bits, I get my dad back and she could care less, she is so selfish. He has lost his use to her and so she threw him under the bus just like she did me more times than I care to mention. She does deserve to die alone, unloved and surrounded only by the paid help who can only stand her because they need the paycheck. I might have to have a discussion with God when I get to the pearly gates but I have decided to save the people I can including myself. That's my best. I'm a retired teacher and I have said that to students and my own children all my life: "try your best and that is good enough" and now I need to take my own advice. I hope anyone out there struggling with this same issue can love themselves and their own immediate family enough to have the strength to make sure that these narcissistic mothers or fathers have shelter, food, clothing and necessities. "Respect thy mother and father". That will cover it and move on with your life. I just had the Christmas from hell and I'm not riding that rodeo ever again, as they say.
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Wow--all of you have suffered so!!! Me, too! I like J Thurman saying we can't let the beasts get away with all they get away with. My 95-year-old Grande Dame just seems to get stronger and more toxic and not only insults and threatens me (I've whittled my miserable visits to Xmas only and even that is dreadful), but threatens everyone else at her wildly expensive assisted living community. She openly insults fellow residents in the dining room during meals and I've had the executive director strike terror in my heart when he told me that they are going to ask her to leave. I live in 500 sq feet (I felt I never deserved more) in another city and don't own a car and have a bad back at 65. This rich and arrogant Pit Viper has ruined my life--making to flee the two nice husbands I had-- and only a great therapist I found recently saved me from jumping off a bridge. Oh there is a little secret: there is NO rent control in assisted living facilities. They can raise the rent/prices at any time with no oversight. What are the rest of us going to do? Wander the streets and live in lean-to homeless sites or in Quonset huts? Remember the poor daughter of Zsa Zsa Gabor who died last year virtually homeless and penniless at 60-something, Francesca? Daughters of narcissistic movie-star type mothers suffer with the "mirror-mirror on the wall" problem--having to adore someone you fear is the essence of masochism and self-neglect.
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My mother would give your mother a run for her money. Mine plotted sons against sons and still Does. I ran when I was 17 and never I looked back. She vile, vulgar, greedy, bipolar nut case and the meanest person I ever met. She lives with her 70 year old step son. She called him a mar Manoni bastard(his birthmothers name)his whole life. The fool is nasty, lazy and kisses her ass to get her house. He is still living in his child hood bedroom and never left. My mother wanted her 3 sons to be like that. She cost my brother 2 marriages with her nasty ways. She lost her youngest sons recently and he was worst than her. Anyone that had met her ran. Fights and screaming daily. As a child the dinner table was thrown at who ever got in her way. Hot coffee and cups in the face as you sat there talking with her. When she dies and leaves me the dollar I have been promised, I will put it on her grave. My father tried hanging himself and failed in the basement. She also set him on fire because he brought a chair in the basement from his first in-laws.
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You may need to see a therapist to help get past the guilt for you have done nothing wrong. It sounds to me that their abuse may have also groomed you to be the one to take care of them using guilt as the button to keep you there.
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I truly understand how you feel. I´m 58 and have also been abused by my mother (and father) my entire life; I´m at my witts end now and ready to use medication secretly; she should have been medicated decades ago...both of them want no meds whatsoever and expect to be served regardless of their rotten personalities...I really want to dttach from these 2 abusers, but the guilt is too great! We are 3 sibblings, but I am leaving with both abusers in 11 days; we´re going to join my sister...my brother has had it with them...Leave if you can, the abuse will just get worse...take care.
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From your description, that does not sound like much of a family to be around and I can see why your siblings stay away. Who wants that abuse?

How did she not alienate you?

A person who has lived like your mom has all of her life is not going to change late in light. They are who they are and that is very sad.
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I am 52 years old with 2 brothers and a sister,all older. My mom is showered with a goiod life from her husband of 26 years. I live on their land in a little one room construction shed in order to assist them in their remaining years and have given my mom gifts, taken care of her property and land for her, and her husband and I wait on her day and night while she sits and takes advantage of him and even of me at times. She is a very self centered, selfish, manipulative and controlling human being that has alienated her children all her life. She was always a cursing, mean alcoholic and though I love my mom, I feel sad for her lowly character. Her mom was sad for her as well. She is now 77 years old,her husband age 70, and her dementia has only increased her cruel character. I am different in the fact that I do NOT find ANY comfort in knowing that many others are going through this same issue. It is a horrible way to live life and I CHOSE to live on their property( of which I pay high rent to them, and do many chores) because in their last years, I wanted to be around family since my sister and brothers all have their own lives and families far away and have no contact with me nor with our mom. I pray to God often to keep me from feeling any wrong feelings toward my mom and for Him to change her but she chooses to be the way she is and maybe this is her result.
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Nice to know that I´m not alone stukinthemiddle, sounds like my mother; always argumentative, controlling, has to have the las word, makes everyone feel unconfortable...every single word can create a scene with her! She was on meds 30 years ago, after some rage attacks against my father the screw-arounder, but I think she was overdosed and became a vegetable, but she got off everything by herself, and has forever used her HORRIBLE personality wherever she is...still going strong & hateful (hates kids too)...
To top the cake we now have my father GreedSer too; mean viscious and won´t give us a penny for his expenses, he also HATES me & even accuses me of having contributed to my youngest sister´s death (she had ca spread to liver)...he seems to be demented, but has pety normal behaviour when strangers are around...I want out, but yes, the killer guilt doesn´t just vanish! We do, however, have to stand up for our rights; I´m 58 (abused since childhood), and at this age one fooot is alreading entering old age; if these abusers last 5 more years, we´re done! We have a life to live! Neither of my parents ever had to care for their elders; it must skip a generation! Hugs to all
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Katistired - AMEN - Preach!

There are studies from 2009 that show the typical caregiver is female, unpaid, near 50, and has 20+ years of caregiving without pay ahead. The financial sacrifice is in the billions of dollars. Not only is it a social well being matter, a matter of conscience, but a huge economic problem for everyone concerned.

With typical being near 50, that means there are a lot of people well beyond that age doing unpaid caregiving, as well as below that age. People in their prime earning years who are not earning, not saving, and in no way prepared for their own old age.

Think also about the training factor. How many home careproviders have had any training whatsoever? Safety training? Medical training? Personal attendant training? Mandatory precaution training? My estimate is very few have. What risk does that put the caregiver and receiver at for contamination, illness, or injury?

I found on my journey through this that if you don't know what to do, it's very difficult to find out. I learned the most from this site and people on it. Who looks out for the home care providers who don't have the education, access, or ability to go do their own research?

My theory is that there are an awful lot of elders out there who are living in substandard conditions with an unprepared care provider. Think about the potential for abuse in both directions. Who will know if the elder never goes out to see a doctor or has anyone come into the house for care work? This is not a good situation for anyone.
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I feel so sad reading these stories. I took care of my grandfather when he had dementia until he died. Even though he really never made time for me growing up. Now I take care of his son, my uncle who has Aspergers and is 70 years old. I just want to say to everyone on this list that you have the right to rescue yourself from a bad caregiving situation. I say this having watched my aunt in a hospital situation and a nursing home, that I felt were substandard. But she had her grandson and his family to help her throughout her life - they were her primary family - and she chose them as her caregivers. I say this knowing how really bad institutional care can be. You are entitled to rescue yourself. This is not about being a good individual. This is about a broken horrible long term care system that treats seniors like crap so that family members have to drive themselves over the edge to make care work. It is a systemic problem and making yourself sick and miserable is not the answer. I firmly believe that it is better to have people in assisted living with additional caregivers, and then use my energy to improve on that, than it is for people to stay at home with family members who are run ragged. Having said that, I also think it is very important to sit down and right to your state/provincial and federal politicians and say that health care should be free and public, and that includes high quality long term care for seniors. This a social issue not only a family issue and it requires a collective social solution. Thank you to everyone for posting so that all of us feel less alone.
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My mom was like you describe, all during my growing up. I've shared some on previous posts. It is painful to dredge up these memories and feelings. Ironic that Alzheimers has robbed her of most of her speech and she is completely dependent on me now.
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REady2scream - I'm confused. Medicaid is financial need based, not based on how well the person can converse or behave. There are people 100% in their right minds on Medicaid simply due to financial need. Medicaid doesn't do any assessment of cognitive ability or ADLs or anything like that. Those are not application considerations.

Those may be considerations for other purposes. Determining treatment needs, like PT, OT, in-home help, care plans. But Medicaid doesn't do that assessment. Maybe somebody told you it was for Medicaid just to avoid the complicated explanation.

YOU need to STOP paying. You are only hurting yourself. It sounds like your mom needs to be in a dementia care facility, not a retirement home. It sounds like this is too much for you.

There is assistance to get her placed in care. The facility business office and the social worker are there to help. Next time she goes into the hospital, don't bring her home. You don't have to. There is no law in the land that requires you to do in-home care, especially when it's emotionally and physically too much. The hospital will find a place that can take her, and I strongly suggest you let them.
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When she lived in the retirement home the rent took her social security and the Veterains pay. And I still had to pay $200.00 to complete her rent payment. Each month . Plus they were getting ready to up her rent another $500.00 added on to the amount she paid then each month. Then I paid for her pharmacy bills, medical bills and her health insurance payment each month. Plus her living expenses. Plus she is always in and out of hospitals due to all her illnesses and I pay for all her hospital bills. As for Medicaid I have filled the paper work out and had an interview with someone from Medicaid and my mom was interviewed by this lady too. Come to find out when my mom was asked all these questions she puts on an act of kindness and can do everything they ask her to do. And passes with flying colors. And makes me look like I am not telling the truth about her. So according to Medicaid she does not qualify yet. only good thing about her living with me is I don't have the money problems like I did. Yes my mom was diagnosed with dementia at least 10 years ago but refused to take the medication she was given. I have a tv in my room and watch tv there. I am always gone soo done have to deal with her ! I barely talk to her as all she will do is argue. And I will not lower my self to her standards! Thanks for your concern.
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Ready2scream - why on earth are you paying with your money?

Your mother's funds pay for her care, and when she is out of funds and assets, Medicaid kicks in. I assume she also gets social security pay and Medicare health/drug coverage. Medicaid will pay for long term care for the indigent.

You have options. You have to take control though and make it happen.
Minimally, control your own TV. Maybe her contact with the news & talk-TV ought to be eliminated.

It sounds like your mom has dementia and needs to be in an environment structured for dementia patients. Get your house back again and enjoy life. You only get this one.
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