A light may have just dawned...

[OddFamily]

And it is one I have waited for for some time.  I've been waiting for my mom to find her way Out of the FOG, and we may have just started that! 
So last week, grandma's mask might have slipped a bit, she was ordering her to do something impossible (new patient pre-op clearance before a mid April surgery date?  Not a chance).  She's not happy with one of her doctors and she's ranting that she must have a new one.  Ok, your prerogative, but do you want this surgery on schedule or not?  She was ranting well why didn't you get me a morning appointment, I would have done morning.  Mom put her foot down and said you've always asked for afternoon appointments for years as mornings won't work for you because you can't get up and going early, don't move the goalposts that have been set for years.  She then started in on "it wasn't like this in New Jersey", mom pointed out this is how much help you need, with you in NJ it wouldn't work and we couldn't move up there because my dad has so many more job opportunities here.   Classic guilt trip, she's wanted to go back to NJ for years despite the fact that a few years after my granddad passed she said there's nothing for me there and she's made no move to forge a new life for herself here.
She's so wound up about surgery that she wants it done now so she doesn't have to worry about it, asked why could it not be done right away like the first one?  The first one was emergent, this one isn't, yet, unless you want to give yourself a nasty fracture around the prosthesis?  Crazymaking at its finest.
So now she might start in on my dad next, but he will take a lot less stuff off of her.   
She was so aggravated with grandma she said to me later "I won't take the abuse".  She might be starting to see the light...

[Starboard Song]

That's a start all right.

It may be time to counsel your mom a little. She called it abuse, and said she wouldn't take it. I've encouraged people at that stage to tell me more about the abuse, and what they mean by declaring that they'd not take it. How could they avoid it in the future? It doesn't always work, but I'd say I've helped a few dear friends improve romantic or family relationships, and another one or two escape them when that was the only choice.

People spend most of their time playing a game that they don't realize they can stop playing.

[OddFamily]

It is a start indeed, now if we can keep up the momentum she will have her life back. 
I like the idea of trying to explore that more, but the problem is mom worked in psychology for several years, I'm not sure I could pull it off without raising suspicion.  Kind of weird but we were in the same subject honors society, but inducted in different years and from different schools.