What are ways to set boundaries with emotionally, abusive Mom who doesn't get it?

Try and find a landlord who has only one or two houses or apartments or even renting out part of a house or duplex and sell yourself as a caring person who has taken care of others all her life and now needs respite but will be an excellent tenent if she allows your dog. Arrange for landlord to visit with you and the dog and if it is a friendly laid back pooch she will probably consider it with an extra non refundable security deposit.

Just don't engage with her. When she says something, say "You're right." It is difficult, if not damn near impossible, to argue with someone when you agree with them. If you say "You're right. I do work too much." or "You're right. I don't do anything right. Thank God for you, because you know how to do EVERYTHING perfectly!! It must be really nice to be perfect."

Don't get defensive. In fact, don't even let it bother you. When she starts in on you, look at her & give her a big, ear-to-ear smile.

Did you ever think that maybe you're tired, worn out & stressed out? I notice with my mother, how I deal with her is directly related to my own mood at the time. If I am feeling patient & not moody or already annoyed with something, it usually doesn't bother me. However, if she gets me when I am already in a cranky mood, LOOK OUT.

She probably doesn't have anything else to do, either. When people have their own stuff to do & worry about, they aren't so worried about what everyone else is doing. I see this in my 86 year old mother ALL THE TIME. She sits in the living room & looks out the window & watches every move the neighbors make. Thus, all she does is criticize them. I couldn't care less about what the neighbors do. This is what happens when they have nothing else to do to keep their minds busy---they stick their nose into places it doesn't belong. My mother will start in on me when she is feeling particularly cranky & looking for a fight. I have learned how to set limits. She hates it because she is no longer in control of me, but that's too bad. The thing is, you can't change a control freak. You can only change your reactions to them.

The one thing I always try to remember is DON'T TURN INTO HER. Being around the criticism & negativity all the time is contagious. Space yourself from it. Don't believe what she says. And don't feel guilty. I can empathize with you 150%. My mother used to be able to make me feel incredibly guilty, but now she doesn't because I've learned how to deal with her. Sometimes I'll even just tell her to shut her mouth because I don't want to hear it. Or I will grab my car keys & walk out the door. You have to remember that this is HER problem, NOT yours.

You can also completely throw a wall in front of her when she criticizes you----ask her why she is so unhappy & she feels that she has to degrade you & put you down all the time. Ask her if it makes her feel good when she puts you down. And then tell her that when she says that stuff, all it does is hurt your feelings & is not productive at all. Throw some of that guilt right back into her lap.

I cannot engage or even try to reason with my mother. She is in a separate living situation in a elderly home and holds everyone to ransom with her emotional blackmail, tantrums and grizzles. It is a grueling time at every visit - would be 1000 times worse if living with her. I believe it is the dementia - a shocking illness

Obnurse, do I gather that your mother is staying in a rehab unit? What's she there for?

I'd like to step back a bit, because although you've talked about looking for another apartment, and that in three years' time when your daughter finishes college you'll be a free agent, for example, I suspect that's… how can I put this nicely… all talk.

You and your husband moved heaven and earth for the privilege of living in your mother's basement TEN YEARS ago.

You've worked and raised three children and waited on your mother in your "spare time." And had no thanks for it. But that didt make you change anything, in all that time. And then this is what made me narrow my eyes: you say that you don't like her, and then you feel guilty. Now then.

Not liking somebody who is contemptuous and abusive and ungrateful towards you is entirely natural. Feeling guilt for having that entirely natural reaction is, for me, pretty much definitive. You won't move out of that house, and you won't move on in that relationship, until you manage to take a long, cool look at your and your mother's history together and identify the key changes needed to restore your relationship with her to good health. Assuming you're in your early fifties? that will not be a small or easy thing to do. It takes courage and determination, not just the passage of time or the appearance of an affordable apartment. But it's worth it.

You love your mother and you want to take care of her - nothing wrong with that. But she is making it a miserable experience for you, and because she has got you thoroughly under her thumb you don't leave, you just keep trying harder and harder to please her, doing it her way. That won't work. Well, has it ever? You can see for yourself that it doesn't work, and that you can't get away.

So. Find a therapist or a counsellor who can help you find a way of caring for her that will work, one with a much healthier balance to it, and one that is not based on our old friend FOG, standing for Fear, Obligation, Guilt. You sound weary, and that latest hurt - the barb about the rehab person being more help - while it was a spiteful thing to hear, it can't have been anything you're not used to. Could it have been a last straw? Could you use it to help you start some changes?

IF your elder has mental/emotional capabilities to understand and stick to limits set by someone, especially their child [whatever age!], then try limit-setting.
It also sometimes works for confused elders, up to a point.
IF, however, the person has always been dysfunctional/ mental/emotional unbalanced, then any limit-setting or "walking away" you might try, is rather a gamble....she might, or not, be capable of complying.
OTH, she might very easily go ballistic, as my Mom did.
Mom fairly well accepted limit-setting from my adult kids, and some others, but parts of her knew too well how to utterly shatter any of her own kids to bits, then walk all over the wounded....as long as she had one of us alone.
That might be the trick of it: never allow your elder to get you cornered, alone.
Especially if there's a history of them behaving badly.
IF you realize your elder has destroyed any good memories you might have had, and replaced those with their horrible current behaviors, it's PAST time to either get out of her house, or, move the elder to a care facility that is better equipped to provide proper care.
Once the elder has gotten as far as obliterating your good memories of them, too much damage has happened for you to continue doing their care properly. You need a break: time away from the situation to heal, and to rescue what good memories there might be, to have something good to hold onto, despite her behaviors.
Mom's been moved out of our house for over 3 years...it's taken ALL of that for me to pull myself together, and start getting on with life. She did such a thorough number on me, though, that fragile seems a constant state. I'd felt like a repeatedly shattered vase; some pieces are now permanently missing...I can reassemble the remaining pieces, but the vase is very fragile now and cannot take any more hits that Mom, or my siblings, might deliver.
===But good news is:
I can now remember good things about Mom; I strive to hold onto those and let go of her bad behaviors. Her bad behaviors were NOT her Genuine Self--she has been a mentally/emotionally unbalanced person all her life. Despite her imbalances, she also managed to do some incredibly nice things over her lifetime, express love and so forth.
I strive to allow THOSE memories to be carried forward, and leave behind the bad ones. She couldn't help being a broken person. Most broken people cannot help themselves; if they get to a great age, beyond 75 or more, they are NOT likely to be able to change.
It took my Mom until over age 80, before she verbally admitted to me, that she'd prevented her kids knowing her Dad, because he was abusive.....she really believed we didn't know about that [Gma had divulged it after we were adults]. That was an astonishing admission by Mom's at that age.
But I couldn't hold my breath that she had any capacity to help herself heal or change her overall broken-ness. Still mentally/emotionally broken at over 86, she's a time-bomb of broken-life-shrapnel just waiting to blow up at whoever is nearby.
That cannot be me, anymore...not even a little.
Please evaluate your situation, in terms of how you are feeling, related to her behaviors, and how are they costing you in time, energy, and broken-ness of your own.
Look at the balance sheet of your relationship, then decide if maybe it's time for your elder to be placed in a care facility or home where you are protected from her behaviors, and she can still get the care she needs.
If you have gotten to the point of feeling very broken from her behaviors, you will be less capable of providing proper care.
You must decide where the tipping-point is.

Never too late to change YOUR situation and YOUR attitude. I am not saying you are wrong for wanting help, so please don't get your hackles up. You can move. You can get counseling. You can join a support group even if only online. And you can check out your state laws to ensure you don't misstep along the process.

You live with her, so make certain you dot all the needed i's as you move out so you are not seen as abandoning her. Give her written notice, if required by law. Contact an agent for seniors in your city if you are leaving her without transportation and care, and be sure to get every base covered.

And please get some counseling for you and your family. My parents were abusive. My sisters became abusive, in various ways mixing their toxicity. You don't have to become her. I recommend the book "dances with anger" to start your healing process. It helped me start mine.

And don't establish boundaries for her. Establish boundaries for YOU. Boundaries of what you will and what you won't tolerate. What you will listen to and what you wont. And she knows how to get a reaction. So put a big rubber band on your wrist, not tight, just loose. Decide what you will engage her on, and what you wont. When she starts in, before you utter one word back, pop the band and ask yourself, is this within my tolerance level, or is it outside my boundary. If it is outside it, ask her once to stop. She will not. But then you teach yourself to tune her out, change the subject, start singing, whatever makes you stop listening to her.

And if she turns violent in this process, then you call the cops. You take pictures. You document it.

And keep looks ng for a house or apartment to rent. Enlist the help of a real estate broker who manages property.

One other thing I just thought of that also helped me. I lived with mom and dad, then moved out and tried to help. Start a journal. Keep it where she cannot get to it, either at work or locked in a container at home. Write whatever you are feeling. It does not matter if it is hate, disillusionment, sadness, just write, at least every day, for 5 mins or so. It does not matter whether you ever actually read it or not.

And whatever you else you do, you keep working. You are going to need and deserve a good retirement, and you won't get that if you stop working. She would only use that loss of independence and job to try to lower your self esteem.

Emotionally abusive people are not mentally balanced. They are afraid and angry usually at themselves for something that happened a long time ago that they never let go of, so they take their frustration out on others. They are angry with themselves and feel out of control. Their only way of feeling in control is to project their anger and frustration onto someone else. The emotional and/or verbal abuse makes them feel temporarily in control. If you let them get away with it and never confront it, you become their target. In some cases if you confront them, they can become even more belligerent about trying to make you their punching bag. These people are not mentally stable and are terrified little boys and girls. They see their fear as a weakness so need to validate to themselves that they are strong by projecting their fear onto someone else. Setting boundaries is about standing up for yourself. I have had to learn this the hard way. My mother lost her mother at age 10 and she has never moved past the trauma of that experience. She had panic attacks when she was younger. It wasn't until a few years ago that I actually realized how overly dependent she was on me. I realize now that unknowingly, I fed into that dependence. Although she encouraged me to educate myself so that I could be independent, the intent was really more for "her" benefit. She would say, "I don't want to be a burden on you and your brother," but the truth is...she was preparing us to take care of her in her old age. She never encouraged us to get married and have families of our own, nor did she want us to move away from her. This applied to me more so than my brother. I have been her "source of happiness" for all of my life! She made me emotionally responsible for her happiness from a child. She manipulated me by keeping me so close to her so that I couldn't see that she destroyed any and every relationship that I tried to form with anyone else. I am divorced and realize that I have serious "fear of intimacy" issues. She has even tried to divide me from my brother (her own son) because he has always stood up to her and strongly rebelled against her emotionally controlling personality. Even though he does not accommodate her, her control has still negatively impacted him to and he has never been married. He will be 50 this year! She married an alcoholic and has no respect for him. She treats him like he is dirt! If we point out to her that she verbally abuses him, she is in complete denial! My Dad is also so broken from his dysfunctional upbringing, he actually thinks that she loves him because they have been together for so long. She doesn't love him...she hates him because he can't meet her expectations. She degrades him because she has no respect for him. The flip-side is that he doesn't love or respect himself either, because he will not take any action to address his drinking issue. Together, they are a complete MESS! They live under this image that they have created of "normalcy" that is a complete lie! A major part of my mother's problem is from her childhood loss of her mother and the fact that she never dealt with her abandonment issues. So with that understanding we are in the process of learning to break this cycle. My brother and I are taking our lives back and setting the boundaries that we should have set with her a long time ago. The challenge is that she did have a stroke and truly does have some health issues as a result, but it was not a major stroke. She has complete physical ability and control. There isn't even any weakness on one side. She has a very minor speech issue which can be corrected if she tried. It was the only major after-affect other than things like depression and short-term memory, which both can be dealt with if she cooperated. The stroke was obviously her opportunity to shut down in hopes of getting me to move back home and wait on them. The fact that I am no longer married and my son is grown and lives on his own, makes them think it shouldn't be a major issue. I stayed with them for 2 months after she had the stroke and they nearly killed me. They both did absolutely nothing but sat around and watched me work! They were in hog-heaven and think that my moving back in with them and waiting on them is the answer to their problems. Well it isn’t the answer and what they want me to do is not going to happen. I love my mother, but I don't like the person that she is. She has never said "I'm sorry or I was wrong!" I can separate that she is a human being before she is my mother. I will be there for her, but I can't live her life and mine! This is painful, but I am thankful for the lesson that I am learning. I get a chance to reclaim my life! As for my mom, it is very painful to see her allow herself to just deteriorate, but I have no control over the fact that she doesn't know how to love herself. She worries more about Dad's drinking (his daily ritual from about 6-8) than she does about getting herself better! I can’t let her make her problems, MINE! Do what you can, but SET BOUNDARIES so that you can still have some quality of life.

How old is your mother and is she incapacitated in any way?

If you want it to stop, you need to face her and tell her that while you appreciate all the help she's been, she's not needed as much as when the kids were small. Then you can tell her that it's not her house to run, it's yours. That's how to stop it. Will you hurt her feelings? Yup. Put yourself in her shoes....Let's say that YOU moved in with your daughter ten years ago to help out with the children so she could go off to work. So what did you do? You did it the way you would have done it had it been your house and your children. Nobody said much. Ten years later, you're told you are no longer needed.

Is she going to take this badly? Yup.

Good luck with that.

read Toxic Parents

My husband has been a resident of a NH for more than 2 years. At present severe ALZ. He fell last Monday, not the first time. He wears bracelets (fall risk) alarms..etc. He was transferred to the hospital and was admitted for tests, scans, EKG, etc. During the week he developed pneumonia, he was going through many aggressive treatments for breathing and scheduled for a bronchoscopy, which following . Story short, he is now in his last stages of life at the Hospice. Both doctors, the hospital and the Hospice agreed that he has other problems ...heart and kidneys...Must add, before the fall he was OK, except his brain functions....Any authorized voice to give me his/her comments about this situation.

nerie I am not sure this is the right thread for your question. I am sorry to hear of your husband's sudden decline but towards the end of life it only takes something like a fall to start the downward spiral. It is not unusual for an elder suddenly spending time in bed to develope pneumonia. Other health issues may not have been apparent while he was seemingly doing well in the nursing home. It sounds as though his pneumonia was being agressively treated in the hospital. Thoughts and prayers to you and your husband at this difficult time.

Hi, concerning your dog…I have 2… both quite small…Toby weighs 13# and Kiya weighs 6#… I have no problem with finding an apartment who will let me keep them because I have a letter from my doctor saying I have a medical need of an emotional support/companion animal… I have several medical issues of my own but my letter is from my psychologist and no landlord has ever asked me what is wrong me that I need a dog… they aren't allowed to by law… just as an aside Toby is my ESA and Kiya is my mother's but Mom is moving (not willingly) to assisted living in a couple of months and the landlord knows I'm keeping Kiya and he's fine with it....(My Mom is NOT a joy to be around and I've explained to her that all the stress she is causing me is harming my medical health, so my decision is set in stone!)… good luck!

Don't change your demented nasty all her life parent, change yourself... as others have said.
Don't be weighed down with emotional guilt, it never solved a headache let alone a life crisis.
I was lucky as my father became demented, he hated me, and actually swayed my siblings to agree with him. Which was funny really since I only visited once every 100wks and for 40min where I listened to them repeat what they said the previous year, then I left.
He knew that as I was a nurse, [Im sure this was the reason] that Id guess their weaknesses... so he kept me away, and stopped me from helping my Ma, Once he died, and he did some crazy things before that happened 2yrs ago, by making my older sister their POA, and she cant even cope with herself and other weird things. I caught her being abusive to Ma, so threatened her if she didn't leave immediately. But it was too late they had organised her to move to a very inadequate rest home village, then she had infections and falls and finally it was VERY obvious she could not cope by herself. Now in a secure hospital for dementia residents. And I am her POA. I only deal with my other sister who is the financial POA and ignore the rest.
WE are entitled to have a life, WE are entitled to cut the cords.. so do so by setting the fences, and take what information has been given you on here that sounds the best...... and good luck

Veronica91 thanks for your answer, I agree. I needed somebody to confirm me right. I know pneumonia is mostly present at the last stage of ALZ. I am alone in this situation...well not alone, God is my Rock. It makes me feel better he will die with dignity at the Hospice without aggressive treatments.

Im loving the discussion about boundaries. Are there times when boundaries are impossible to set ? I hope Im not hijacking the post but I would like to know what to do when the boundaries I set are ignored. I not only deal with my father's refusal to respect my wishes his caregiver is just as bad if not worse. Both of them act like children always trying to undermine me. Then when the boss (my sister who pays her salary) is around, everyone is on their best behavior. This situation is so overwhelming. Ive read some great advice on this particular thread.

toomuch, there are people who do not respect the boundaries of others. They are bullies. We can set boundaries and keep them for ourselves, but there is a constant battle to get the other to recognize them.

There are others who respect boundaries when they are convenient, but try to knock them down when they aren't. The only thing we can do is keep our own boundaries. The sad thing is that when working with a bully, keeping boundaries can be harder than caving in. Many people do cave in, which is what the bully is wanting. It is sad when caregiving gets to this point. It show a one-way respect in the relationship.