Gaslighting or dementia? Or something else?

[Sneezy]

I spent a few hours with mom today and, as usual, there was a fair amount of exaggeration and she said some things that just weren't true.  But nothing out of the ordinary for her.  Until it came time to take her home (to her apartment in independent senior living).  We stopped at the grocery store so mom could pick up a few things.  She wanted a case of water, and I told her I would carry that up to her apartment for her.  So I took the case of water up to her apartment and opened her fridge and it was full of bottled water.  Mom said "there's only a dozen bottles, that's why I needed another case." I opened the fridge again and told her she had way more than a dozen bottles, but no problem, if she wanted more, she wanted more.  She got a little defensive and insisted she only had 12 bottles of water.  So, not very mature of me I know, but I sat down on the floor and proceeded to count the bottles of water in front of her.  There were 40 bottles.  I closed the fridge and mom again insisted that there were only 12 bottles.  I opened the fridge and pointed to all the bottled water and informed her that there were 12 bottles of brand A and 28 bottles of brand B, and asked if she knew how to add 12 plus 28.  Ok, I admit, I was not on best behavior tonight.  But mom continued to insist she only had 12 bottles of water in her fridge, even as we were both standing there, staking out our positions, and staring at 40 bottles.

What in the world?  Is this something I should worry about?  Or is it just part of her never-ending pattern of lies and exaggeration?  She told a few other whoppers today, so I'm inclined to think this is just more gaslighting or lying.  But how could she watch me point to each bottle and count out loud to 40 and then insist that there were only 12?

I'm sorry if this seems petty.  I suppose it is.  But it is also very bizarre. 

[notrightinthehead]

Bizarre, I agree.
In the old age home where my MIL lived, I met an extremely devoted daughter who visited her mother every day. She kept her mother stocked up with beer, took her on outings on weekends, she was always there when I visited. One day, I found her in tears, crying inconsolably for a while.  When she had calmed down, she told us, me, the assembled care takers, and other residents of the home, she had just brought back her mother from an outing  where her mother had been very difficult,  and returned her to her room.  Only to have her mother follow her to the dining hall and accuse her of never, ever coming to visit. That's when she broke down in tears.
Her mother had been difficult all her life, she remained difficult with dementia.

I don't blame you for counting the bottles. I believe you had to do that for yourself. You fell back into child mode, conflicted between the wish/need to trust your mother and your own perception of reality. You made sure, you could trust yourself and your own perception. Now you know! And maybe next time you can take what your mother says with a grain of salt. Until you have to count again!

[Leonor]

Hi Sneezy,

Let's say this wasn't your mom, maybe this was a kindly neighbor or an elderly lady at your church or temple.

How would you approach the same situation?

Not to be cruel or cold, just to unhook a bit from the mama drama and step into your adult self.

Maybe you would say, hm, it seems like you have lots of water here already but here you go, Ms. Smith, have a nice day! Or, well, Ms. Smith, I'm afraid I can't take you to the store today, that wasn't on our agenda. Or, why don't you think about having the store deliver it to you?, etc.

Those are all kind and reasonable responses that remove you from any kind of responsibility for solving any possible problem. You're not really in a position to diagnose and I imagine any conversation about doctors or evaluations might be a source of high conflict.

[Cat of the Canals]

My mother will lie to your face even though she knows she can easily be proven wrong. And I have never in my life heard her admit to being wrong or misremembering or making a mistake. She always has some sort of excuse.

Example: When he was very young, my nephew's absolutely favorite foods were blueberries and raspberries. He'd sit and eat an entire pint by himself if you let him... and my parents would let him. My brother and SIL repeatedly asked that they stop allowing this, because my nephew would then refuse to eat anything else later in the day, setting a bad habit of him not wanting to eat dinner.

So one day, my parents were babysitting. My brother gets home and can see from the stains on my nephew's face and hands that they've given him berries. He asked, "How much has he had?"

My mother: "Not that much. Only a few."

My brother opens the fridge and sees the nearly empty container. "The container is almost empty."

My mother: "Well... I didn't know!"

If she truly didn't know, she could have said that from the start. But she did know. And she knew my brother was going to be angry, so she tried to cover it up by lying... despite knowing all he had to do was look at the container! And I can promise you that he certainly didn't get an apology. In fact, she probably just blamed it all on enF, thereby covering up her first lie with another.

Maybe in your mother's case it's a little of both. I could imagine her remembering there only being 12 waters, then getting embarrassed for being wrong, and once that defensiveness is engaged... well, now she's going to sit there and refuse to acknowledge that there are more than 12 waters. They can not be wrong. Even in the face of their wrongness.

[Sneezy]

Thank you for the wisdom.  After a good night's sleep, I can actually sit back and laugh about this.  I mean, what was I thinking, counting the bottles out loud just to make a point?

notrightinthehead - Your story really resonates with me, as I think my mother is going to get more and more difficult the older she gets.  And Leonor, you are right in that any conversations about getting an evaluation done would result in world war 3.

I think it boils down to what Cat said - Mom can't be wrong.  Ever.  Even in the face of her wrongness.  I think she felt a little guilty about making me lug a case of water to her apartment when she actually didn't need it.  So she made up an excuse ("I only have 12 bottles") which I could immediately see was false when I opened the fridge.  And then she got embarrassed and defensive because of course she can never be wrong.

I do need to untangle from the mama drama, but boy she makes it tough some days.  It's just never-ending drama and non-stop lies and manipulation.  It can be exhausting.   The water incident just capped off a day of drama, so I suppose it was the straw that broke the camel's back.  She also told me a long, dramatic story about a cousin who had unfriended her on facebook (not true, they are still facebook friends and I logged into her account to show her this, which probably ticked her off).  Then she claimed that her ISL served pizza last week with bologna on it.  Another long story about pizza crust topped with bologna and cottage cheese.  And of course, that's not true either.  And then finally, the water drama.  It just never ends, and it's all sooooooo petty and silly.  But it can also drive me nuts!!!

I so much appreciate you all listening and offering your words of wisdom.  Now on to tackle a new week 

[Dandelion]

I think it might be "catastrophising" (sorry sp?).  She is "aware" on some level, but concerned about water and her ability to get it ... personally thats how I would see it, nothing to "involve" yourself in IYSWIM.  I found my mother had dozens of nappies even though she wasn't incontinemt, but they were free so she "hoarded" them a bit.

[Sneezy]

Dandelion - Another good point.  Mom is a bit of a hoarder.  Her ISL includes weekly apartment cleaning.  She actually hides any extra rolls of toilet paper she might have, so the cleaning lady will leave her a few more rolls every week (note - she was doing this long before hoarding TP became a thing during covid).  She ended up with so many rolls of toilet paper that she would take them with her when she visited people and give them away  .  May be something similar going on with water.  She just feels like she needs her fridge to be stuffed to the brim with bottled water for some reason.  If there is an empty space in there, she needs to fill it.

[Andeza]

Sneezy I forget how old your M is, but she could also be of that generation that remembers the fallout of the great depression and what not having enough of anything felt like. I've consistently seen mild to moderate hoarding in that age group as a result of the trauma of the time they grew up in/lived through. We moved into a house once where an old lady had lived. When we toured it, it still had all her stuff there. ALL her stuff. Old coats, old clothes, old typewriters, tons upon tons of mismatched plates, silverware, dishes, etc. There were piles. The house smelled like... old stuff. You could tell by the dust that these things hadn't been used, touched, or even thought about for... over a decade?

Why? Because they might need it. Might. Might is all that is required, and might can look awfully odd to us. I think she's telling herself she only has x amount, because x amount isn't enough and allows her to acquire more.

[Sneezy]

Andeza - Mom is 80 and so, while she doesn't remember the depression, her parents certainly did.  They raised her and her siblings with a "waste not, want not" philosophy, and I'm sure there was a lot of guilt associated with getting rid of anything.  Mom's second husband was also very, very frugal, and I think he rubbed off on her, too.  I remember when they went on vacations, Mom's husband would purposely book flights where he thought they had a better chance of getting bumped and getting a voucher out of it.  They would literally sit in an airport all day if it meant a voucher for money off a future flight.  Which I could understand if they needed it.  But they didn't.  And the amount of the voucher was never enough to justify sitting around for an entire day. 

I think Mom's reasoning yesterday went like this - Oh, water is on sale.  I'd better get a case because who knows if I will ever be able to find or afford water again, and lord knows, Sneezy won't care and will let me die of thirst or worse yet, have to drink tap water.  But that case is kind of heavy and now I feel a little guilty about making Sneezy lug it up to my apartment.  I know, I'll make sure she knows how badly I needed it, and then I won't feel guilty.  Oh wait, I exaggerated too much and she knows it.  Time to up the ante!

It is kind of funny in a way.  And I suppose I just need to roll with it, she's not going to change.  But as I said earlier, it was just the last straw in a day full of exaggerations and lies.  And I get tired of it.  I wish she would just tell the truth.  But that ain't gonna happen!

[Dandelion]

Also, perhaps I'm being a little cynical here, but it's an opportunity to get Sneezy to do some work for me!! All that lugging! From my plucky assistant!  Oh dear, now she knows I don't really need that much water. Oh well, I'll just ignore and pretend. 

Unless she really does have some dementia.  I suppose it can be hard to tell with disordered thinking....

[Sneezy]

Unless she really does have some dementia.  I suppose it can be hard to tell with disordered thinking....

Yes, exactly!  That's the problem.  My mom has always lied.  It's pretty much non-stop and I have to take everything she says with a grain of salt.  I suppose it doesn't really matter *why* she's lying, whether it's due to dementia or PD or something else.  I need to to handle it the same way as always - boundaries and medium chill.  But as she gets older, some of the lies could be more dangerous.  For example, if she lies and says she is taking her medication, but she's not.  Although, even in that case, there's not a whole lot I'm going to do about it.  Unless and until she becomes clearly incompetent and I am managing all her care (and boy, I hope that day never comes), I really don't have much control over her actions.

[Fiasco]

Sneezy I am right there with you. I believe my BPDm has now hit on "I don't remember" as a new, fun game! It's maddening, I literally want to scream whenever I interact with her.

Mine is currently in a rehab facility after getting massively dehydrated and not taking her vitamins ended with her in emergency and then admitted for a couple days until she stabilized. She sends these loooooooooooong emails  where she manages to be aware of every little detail of everything. She then proceeds to criticize me for not doing anything (OMFG I'm spending hours a day on this woman) and when I clap back and tell her she is being rude she starts in with "do you know where I am? I don't remember how I got here?".

So this seems like it would be real because memory issues will certainly slow down her release from rehab which she HATES. But it's also so obviously a deflection when I'm calling her out on her BS. Ugh I want to scream now. What was the question? Sneezy if you ever figure out a way to differentiate between dementia "confabulation" and regular old PD lying let me know. Hugs.

[Sneezy]

Sneezy if you ever figure out a way to differentiate between dementia "confabulation" and regular old PD lying let me know.

It is mind-boggling and also infuriating at times.  Mom did it to me again today and I fell for it.  Again!  She called and left a vague message that she HAD to talk to me.  Normally, I ignore vague phone messages, but I knew she had seen the doctor today, so I figured I'd better call her back.  And the thing she HAD to talk to me about?  Well, she had lost a footstool.  I kid you not.  She lost a piece of furniture.  Now it's not a big footstool and her apartment is a bit cluttered.  But how do you lose a footstool in a one-bedroom apartment?  And so she wondered if I had it at my house (I had helped her re-cover it a year and a half ago, and she made up some story about how I had taken it to my house to tighten up the legs).

Well, about two minutes after this phone call ended, Mom texted that she had found her footstool.  So now I'm wondering - was this just a made up story to get me to call her?  Was she bored and trying to get attention?  Or did she really think a piece of furniture had disappeared from her apartment?  I give up trying to figure her out. 

[Cat of the Canals]

The fact that she found it that quickly seems awfully suspicious... like she had it all along, or had already found it by the time you'd called, and knew (especially after getting called out about the water) that she'd better close that loop before she forgets. Otherwise, the next time you come over, you'll point at the damn thing and say, "Mom, I thought you said you lost the footstool..."

[Zebrastriped]

Sneezy, when I was in the thick of it, like you are now, with my uBPDmom, I found it was easier to medium chill everything.  I didn't try to figure out which which was the lie and which was the dementia or not being aware it was a lie.  It was easier on my soul to simply apply the rules of response for dementia to all of it.  Then I didn't wonder endlessly if it was a game played to torment us or what.  The rules of response for dementia are surprisingly similar to medium chill.

Applying logic to these situations only made my head hurt, without solving anything.

As for the patience with it, I found it useful to pay bingo in my head.  'All the birds will starve this winter' - upper right corner.  'Only xyz store has this specific kind of paper towels' bottom right corner.

[1footouttadefog]

I think with situations like the water bottles and hoarding of tp you have to decide its not a battle you need to win.

Changing expectations goes along way in maKing your self unavailable for abuse by gaslighting and lying etc.

Accepting that someone is an unreliable source of facts regardless of the motive can prevent you from bei g hurt by those facts.

We consider that  my spouse is 3 mentally maybe 2.5.  I no longer expect truth of adult decisions and emotions.

With someone in an assisted living facility you can detach even more.  A great price is being paid so this person can be taken care of and the responsibility can be off your shoulders to a large extent. 

I was care giver for an elderly person for many years then we had to put him into eldercare.  At that point I was only and overseerer to be sure he was getting what he deserved and was paying for and otherwise only offered a distraction from his new normal. I felt no need to create the new normal, that was between him and his roommate and the staff. 

Interestingly the building was similar in layout to the high school he taught in for decades.  He moved around from nurse Station to common area, to our door patio to smoke to nurse Station all day about every 50 mins as if making visits between classes.