PDs, the elderly, and the sadness of it all

[Sneezy]

I first starting posting on these forums because of my MIL.  She checks every box for HPD, every single one.  And she made my life hell for many years.  I've posted about some of this before.  When I first brought my DD home from the hospital, she asked DH to bring our new baby to her house and she would raise her because she'd always wanted a daughter.  She was serious!!!  She would have stolen my baby and broken up my marriage if she could have.  Throughout the years, she has thrown dramatic fits to get attention.  One of her favorite tactics was to call DH in the middle of the summer and complain about something I had done or said the previous Christmas.  He would spend hours on the phone with her trying to soothe her.  It was awful.  She made snide remarks, belittled me, started fights because she was bored, and played favorites with her grandchildren (a couple of them really ended up despising her for the mean things she said to them).

Fast forward to now.  She is 80 and losing her memories.  I haven't seen her in a year and a half and haven't spoken to her since last summer.  She has become a recluse, afraid and embarrassed to go out because she gets lost and can't remember things.  And it's just so damn sad.  I think I'm mourning what could have been.  Because she and I did actually have some fun times together.  They were few and far between, but we would go shopping and she could get me to buy something crazy that I never would have considered, and I would end up loving it.  She could be a lot of fun.  And she could also be toxic. 

At this point in her life, I could be a help to her.  I could visit and call and help her navigate what must be a scary time.  I'm patient and I don't like drama and maybe I could calm her.  But I am afraid to really go near her.  She can still trigger me and she can still be very mean.

Personality disorders suck!  Getting old and losing memories sucks, too!  Together, they are a sad combination.

[Boat Babe]

On the whole, we reap what we sow.

[moglow]

Sneezy, a lot of what you wrote I have [or could have] about my mother. She can be charming and very charismatic on the surface, but there's an underlying edge that helped me keep my distance. She also stews on ancient history, that may or may not have become warped and twisted over the years into something that never existed at the time things were said/done. I've been called to task many times over vague statements she claims I made to others about her. No context, nothing to give any indication why such a thing might have been said.

I remember once getting a notecard [after having had a really decent telephone call just days before] WAY out of left field: basically that it's nice to know she is being referred to as "the bitch"! What in the outer limits...?? So I made the obligatory phone call to try and resolve it, but by then she'd worked herself into a tidy froth and really had nothing to add. Finally backtracked it to the person who supposedly repeated it. I'd not seen or spoken to this person in over 15 years [I'd moved from the town where she and I worked together], so who knows what drunken, angered, wornout situation brought me to say it - IF I'd ever said it at all. I wouldn't say categorically I'd never called her a bitch since it's not something I'm prone to say about anyone. But really, she felt the need to send this pretty little notecard with this particular bombshell?? Within a few weeks she sent another, this one enclosing a gas card, her way of apology?

It's just so strange, the perambulations of disordered minds. There seem to be no safe space, and in the back of my mind I do feel sorry for her/them. If that's truly how her mind works, that must be a very scary threatening place when you're that busy lashing out at those around you. Then somehow all confused and presumably hurt when those very people give up and go away. Or is it all out of boredom and some sad driving need to drama and attention, like the bad little kid who acts up so people pay attention to her?

So I have a question:  In this time of NC, have you built a fortress around your heart and mind that she can't truly breach, where you might be able to be around her for limited periods and not be affected by the venom? Do you think that's ever possible? I guess I wonder because I've seen where mother is pretty much universal with hers - she doesn't truly like or appreciate anyone that I know of. Whoever is "closest" to her at any given time appears to be a target in her eyes, and her so called friends are those who don't stand up to her. You know, the ones who take it and say nothing back. She gets no feedback either positive or otherwise from them [unless perhaps they too enjoy the drama of it all] and are literally only a sounding board. I guess I wonder if others experience the same and come to realize that NONE of it is personal, it's truly just who they choose to be and how they live their lives, even if not at all what we want for ourselves or for them.

On the whole, we reap what we sow.

Indeed, Boat Babe. You'd never get my mother to apply that to herself - she is, of course, always right and never at fault for anything that goes sideways.

[Sneezy]

So I have a question:  In this time of NC, have you built a fortress around your heart and mind that she can't truly breach, where you might be able to be around her for limited periods and not be affected by the venom? Do you think that's ever possible?

moglow - that is a very good question and I need to think on it for a bit.  The NC was initiated by my MIL.  She has become reclusive by choice.  She acts like an aging movie star who is depriving the world of her presence.  But of course, underneath, it's fear that is causing her reclusiveness.  DH is going to visit her soon, as he is fully vaccinated.  I'm not vaccinated yet, so have the perfect excuse not to go see her now.  Depending on how his visit goes, we will visit her together later in the year (and once I'm fully vaccinated as well).

On the whole, we reap what we sow.

Very true, Boat Babe.  Unfortunately, many people don't know what they are sowing until they start to reap. 

[Dandelion]

"PDs, the elderly, and the sadness of it all"

^ Yes, your title sums it up, Sneezy.

I am nearly 60, my mother is 83, I'm NC these last 6 months.  What are the chances we could ever get to some kind of truce or understanding?  Time is running out, or possibly already has.  So there is a sadness somewhere in it all for me anyway.  Something I prefer perhaps not to 'make contact' with.
Maybe I should, I don't know.  In all the confusion of feelings - anger, betrayal, relief (in NC) - sadness and the sense of a door closing forever is perhaps the one feeling I haven't quite got to grips with and I'm not sure I know how ....

[Sneezy]

Dandelion - I am getting close to 60 myself and my MIL (HPD) and M (covert NPD) are both in their 80s.  The sadness I feel surprises me.  I had expected to feel relief as MIL got older (and I do feel some relief).  But I think as we get older, we start to think about how we will age.  And I don't want to be like my MIL or my M.  MIL is alone and afraid and a recluse.  M is miserable and anxious.

MIL has chosen to become a recluse and so in a sense, I'm VLC (or NC) at her instigation, not mine.  It is nice to be removed from the drama.  But I do wish things had been different between us.  As you say, though, time is running out.  There's no turning back and fixing it now.

My own mother is physically frail, she can barely walk.  But she is still mentally sharp and more miserable than ever.  I truly don't know which is worse.  Would she be easier to deal with if she no longer had the capacity to be so manipulative?  Something tells me she will be difficult for me to deal with for the rest of my life.  She has shown no signs of getting any easier to be around with age.  If anything, it's gotten worse.

And to top it all off, this past year hasn't helped.  When I see how much my M and MIL (and FIL, too) have aged in the past year, it's scary.  Sometimes I wonder if I should retire and go sell t-shirts on a beach somewhere before it's too late.   I don't want to get to 80 and look back and think "why didn't I . . ."

[Dandelion]

Hi Sneezy, yes, that sadness sometimes. As I said you hope for some truce or closure, and it has proved elusive, despite one's best efforts.

But the positive side, I think my narcissistic mother is quite happy watching her random TV and gushing with the neighbours and feels no great loss re. contact with her daughter (me).  She has told my 18 year old son that it was me who lost my temper in the argument last time I saw her  , the usual amnesia as regards her behaviour.  So she is probably feeling self-righteous about it all, and waiting with her Silent Treatment for me to contact her. 

Another positive is I don't have to deal with her generally.  Its been a bit of a relief that.  She could be good company at times, but I think that was diminishing with age too.

Interesting you mention "reclusive".  I am increasingly reclusive but in a good way I think.  Even more so recently, I'm just soooo tired dealing with all the selfish, bad tempered, unstable people I seem to have around me, be it friends, family or neighbours!  Its so endemic, I have had to wonder is it me or them or just living in the UK (I'm English)?! This last year quite a few of them I have distanced myself from, nothing dramatic, just quiet door closures.   I'm spending time on my own and rather enjoying the peace tbh.

Yes, nearly 60, its now or never to go sell t-shirts on a beach somewhere    Maybe I'm a bit old to be a hippie in Thailand tho' I don't know I

[Cat of the Canals]

She could be a lot of fun.  And she could also be toxic. 

I feel this about my uPD mom (who can actually be fun). And to a lesser extent my uPD mil (who we had some rare "good times" with). I have often seen the way my mom interacts with people outside of the family (charming, open, not controlling) and thought, "Why can't she be that way with us?" I think it was one of the reasons it took me so long to realize how disordered she was.

In both cases, I would have been willing to be there for them as they grew older, if they were Nons. But because they are PD, I started seeing their aging as a trap. My MIL is only in her 60s, but she has already started making comments about how she "won't be around much longer." (She is in fine health, so this is pure manipulation.) My mother periodically makes comments like, "But you'll take care of me, right?" One of the reasons my husband and I moved a great distance from our FOOs was knowing that the pressure to be dutiful little caretakers would only increase the older they got.

So I understand the sadness. For us and for them. And for the way things could have been...

[Dandelion]

I wonder if they feel that sadness, Cat.  Perhaps sometimes?  But then again, I also see sadness as an alive, embracing thing of love, lost possibilities and potential.  I see that as sitting alongside and balancing the clarity of Reality and embracing acceptance, if that makes sense.  However, for my mother I think of her as having a more one-sided pragmatic approach to life mainly or only; I find it hard to imagine her "receiving" any love or true sadness coming her way. Who can say.

Also, it seems sometimes, we are left to 'grapple' with these different feelings and try to integrate them into some kind of wholeness and reality; whilst they it seems jolt around carelessly at the surface of their reactions to not always a sound reality.

[Seven]

And here my 90yo uNPDm instigated a fist-to-cuffs with another lady at MC that Sis had to break up, and says something to the affect of "you don't want to make me mad"

[1footouttadefog]

Yes, elderly pd, Maybe some dementia on top for good measure, it's all too sad.