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Mom lashes out at me, gets mad at me.

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

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