My mother is a narcissist. She is also showing blatant signs of dementia. Others have noticed this, but she will not get testing, nor will she see her primary care doctor who she hates for no reason. She basically told me today that I better not dare ever say to anyone that she can't remember (no matter what it is) or allude to the fact that she has dementia. Someone already told her to her face that they thought she had dementia. I totally consider this a threat from her. She is berating me verbally, word salad conversations. She wants me to be available 24/7 like a hotline where she can call and abuse me and if I don't answer the phone, she gets irate and will leave voicemails. In the past, she has sent the police to my house for an unwarranted welfare check and lied to them making up stories just because I didn't call her back immediately. I have tried no contact; she will not let that happen for very long. Unfortunately, she has cancer again on top of her other problems. She loves to talk about how great of a person she is and how she suffered so much in her life. Neither are true. She is re-inventing family history and says I am the one doing it. Even with dementia, she still knows how to deliberately abuse in the narcissist manner. There is nowhere to report this that I have found. I am an only child and thankfully live in a different state than her. I fear visiting her because of her irate temper. It takes very little for her to turn irate. Worse with me, and she knows how to perform well with certain others. She also has a gun in the house. There seems to be absolutely nothing that can be done when a senior is abusing, only when it's the other way around, as far as reporting it. If it gets to the point where she won't leave me alone at all, even with no contact, does anybody have any clue as to what to do? I don't anymore. She has said in the past she didn't want to live, after my dad died in 2017. I never heard about it after he died. It was just two hours after she buried him, she was on Facebook talking about politics, sorry to say. Now she says she is depressed. Told her to get help with that. She won't listen, doesn't want help, but then when you don't offer, she berates you for not caring. Catch 22. No one should be held captive. I feel like a fool and am reminded of it enough from her, she wants to control what words you use towards her, your tone of voice and how and when you should express certain emotions. I hope no one ever has to deal with this in their life to this extent.
You mentioned that she has cancer. Is she being treated for that?
The fact that she has a gun is troubling. I would be very concerned about that.
When the police came to your house did you mention that she has a gun and is very unstable and depressed?
I am not sure about the best way to handle this situation.
You must be exhausted dealing with this situation.
Stick around, others will chime in with their thoughts on your situation.
Hoping that a viable solution will be found soon and that this won’t be so difficult for you as it is now.
Sending hugs your way!
She doesn’t get to call the shots with this. YOU control the contact. If you want to go no contact, ignore the voicemails. Block her number, Let police in her city know she has dementia and a gun so she’s on their radar.
Many of us are. It’s hard.
OP, if you really want no contact, you just change your number. You also tell the police the situation, so they stop welfare checks on you.
If you want to totally walk away from helping your mom, then call APS. She has dementia. It sounds unsafe for her to live alone. Warn APS about the gun.
If you don’t want to walk away, then you’ll continue dealing with a difficult, abusive mom.
Your mom doesn’t want you to tell anyone about dementia. (1) It’s partially understandable. Health is very private. No one should be talking about someone’s health, unless they don’t mind. Here on the forum we talk, but anonymously. (2) Your mom doesn’t want to get tested, see a doctor, because then she might be forced into a NH. OP, testing doesn’t help, unless you OP are trying to force her into NH. Even if a doctor says “dementia”, nothing can be done against dementia: it’ll get worse with time.
How about helping with the cancer? Since you and her know she has cancer again, this means she saw a doctor about it.
Do you have POA, financial and medical? Consider trying to hire in-home care. She will need help at home.
Your only solution to this problem is to run as far away from your mother as you can and never look back or go back or she will destroy you psychologically. Put your mother in an assisted living or memory care facility and if you so desire you can limit your visit to see her. A narcissist cannot show empathy or compassion, so do not expect this from your mother. You deserve to be treated with respect, but you will never get that respect from your mother because she sees you as an object to be used for her gratification.
You deserve to find peace and happiness in your life, and this is my prayer for you.
My narcissist FIL - who conversely shared (and still shares) any "tea" he gets his hands on - even if he knows it's not true, and will make up lies if he doesn't have anything "good" to share (and by "good" I mean things he thinks make HIM look good, he has no concern for how bad they make anyone else look) under NO circumstances wants ANYTHING shared with ANYONE about him.
And I mean that quiet literally. He didn't want us telling the doctors he couldn't hear or see. He yelled at a doctor for documenting his legal blindness. He "threatened" us not to tell anyone about any of the things that were happening to him (Him not being able to drive, not being able to see, not getting out of bed).
In other words, it was completely ok for him to tell LIES about us, but it was out of the question for us to tell anyone the TRUTH about him, even if it was in his best interest.
At some point - you have to decide what is best for you. While I fully believe in supporting our parents as they age, I don't believe that we have to sell our souls and give up our own lives to do so.
And my belief in supporting aging parents has one very LARGE caveat. If your parent has been abusive - you are better off steering clear. If you can't walk away entirely, do it from a distance. Hire caregivers or find a safe place for them to live. But if you were abused by your parent - it is in your best interest to not be the one dealing with them on a daily basis. For a lot of reasons.
As far as the entire "DON'T TELL ANYONE" situation.
You are going to have to switch YOUR mindset. When someone slips cognitively - you have to reimagine the situation. YOU are an adult. Someone who is not cognitively sound becomes very child-like. And while they still have autonomy of an adult, YOU have to start interacting with them like you would a child.
Do you let a child tell you what to do? Or do you do what is in the best interest of the child? When a child makes poor choices, while you may let them push boundaries to some extent, when it becomes dangerous you don't let them run out into the street or grab the knife or hot pot. You remove the danger.
Personally, in your situation - I'd shore up the no contact and call Adult Protective Services. I would call your local sheriff's dept and find out what the rules are regarding the gun - our's said that as long as he was competent and had the permit he could call them and file charges against US for stealing. But that doesn't mean that we didn't hide it where he couldn't get to it and remove the ammunition from the house so that the gun was no longer a danger.
The thing I've noticed about the children of narcissistic parents - that those of us who were not raised by narcs have a hard time understanding - is the need to placate at all costs. After years of observing my DH and SIL, I have come to understand that they try to keep FIL happy simply because getting him angry takes them back to their abusive childhood and they avoid that at all costs.
BUT once they realized that he really can't hurt them anymore. And that they actually have the power, they both began to step up and take charge and stop being so worried by his displays of "power".
Best advice? The less you can be involved, the better for your own sanity. The more danger you can remove, the better for your own sanity. But only you can decide what that looks like.
You do not have to associate with her and I wouldn't.
I have not spoken to my mother for 13 years and have no regrets. She is in AL, I do help my brother behind the scenes regarding her but I will not speak to her.
Set yourself free, block her phone #, do not see her at all. Move on!
"She leaves voice mails". So what? Delete them without even listening.
Don't answer her calls. Block the number if you can't stand to see her name and number pop on your phone.
She calls the police to do a welfare check? Again, so what? "I'm so sorry, officers, I don't know why my mom called you. As you can see, I'm fine, but thank you so much for checking." She's the one "wasting" their time, not you.
If you feel that you cannot leave her to her own devices, then make an anonymous call to APS and tell them you think she's a vulnerable adult with dementia. But as others have said, tell them you are SURE she has guns in the house.
As long as you keep playing to her orchestration, she will continue to lead this band. But you have to do more than *say* you want to go no contact; you have to mean it.
If you're done with her, be done with her. No one will blame you after the way she's treated you. And those that would vilify you for not taking care of an abusive parent are not people who even deserve your time or consideration.
Remember, you owe NO ONE any explanations of why you want nothing to do with her.
Good luck.
Who said her cancer is back, her? My MIL did this with my BIL. He could not visit for Christmas. She told him she had breast cancer. My SIL called me asking why I did not tell them. I said because she does not have breast cancer. She has been helping a friend with rides back and forth to treatment. My MIL told lies when convenient to her. She was passive-aggressive. An Aunt had glocoma so did my MIL. Not once did she ever say she needed to put drops in. Never knew what was true or false.
While my NM was alive, I went low contact with her for years. She lived in AL and then memory care AL and I was in charge of her life. But I was also in charge of MY LIFE. So I made the rules. I suggest you do the same or else your NM will usurp your life w/o a second thought. It's what they do.
Good luck to you.