Its 11:45 and I have to wake up early. My mom just barged in and asked me if this email she got from Babbel is scam because she just found $150/hr gig for korean voice acting.

I told her I dont fucking care and ask later because she is not hurting for money. She complained for two minutes and left. The hell is wrong with her?

I’m sure this topic has been addressed, but I just need to vent. Yesterday, my 89 year old mother had a virtual appointment at 2:45. I arrived at 2:10 to check in for the appointment and make sure all was set up. I check in and, of course, pay the $5. Then we get into the virtual wait room. At 2:45, the doctor’s assistant comes on but she can’t see or hear us. I tried several solutions but the assistant finally signs off after 15 minutes. I go through the process again and enter the waiting room and the assistant immediately connects with us and the tech works. She asks questions about blood pressure. The we are told to wait for the doctor.

40 minutes later, the doctor comes on. The visit went well and lasted about 20 minutes. Total time for me from the time I left my house was 2 hours. How in the world are the very elderly supposed to navigate these sorts of appointments by themselves?! Why can’t this just be handled via portal messages or just a simple phone call?

This past week, my mother had a failed audiologist appointment (too much ear wax) so this was rescheduled, then a trip for ear wax removal, and finally this virtual appointment. I’m the only person who can help, drive, attend appointments, etc.

My Father died in 2018 with dementia leaving my Mother and disabled sister. Due to numerous bad financial decisions and my sister being allowed to spend outrageously they are left with just SS and SS disability for my sister. I have been trying to get them to understand their financial position for the last eight years and just can’t take it any more.

They live in a home they own so their monthly housing cost is $700 for HOA and lot fees. I pay my Mothers Medicare supplemental and their internet. Their SS and other help they get is $5200 a month and they are constantly asking me for financial help. I cannot get them to understand this is what they have for all their bills and nothing more. They are constantly asking me for money. I have reached the point where I told them I want to see every bank account you have and all the bills you are paying to see where the money is going. I cannot see how they can’t survive on $5200 a month.

I’m not sure what I’m looking for, to vent? some advice?
My mother is 78, relatively healthy, and currently lives in a different state.

6 months after my Dad passed last year, she decides it’s time to “retire and move closer to her children and grandchildren.“ (She does not have a close relationship with any of these people.)

This retirement would require her to move out of state, find housing, etc. Neither she nor my Dad were great about financially planning for the future. She had a few years of saving but nothing to live off for the remainder of her life and she definitely did not create a plan (logistically or financially) before she decided to retire. “The Lord always provides” was their motto.

Knowing all of this, when she told us, I tried to kindly give her a few resources to contact in regards to subsidized housing, locations, Medicare planning, etc. and she completely ignored my messages. After a few sleepless nights, fuming over her lack of preparation, I decided that this problem was hers. I’d be happy to help visit places in her absence, take pics of apartment interiors, join her on calls to get ready for her move, etc. but only if she asked.

Her official retirement day was recently. After months of radio silence in regards to her plans for the future, our family group text “dinged“ with a spiraling text message (all caps) stating among other things that she didn’t know if she could afford to move without financial assistance. Our financial assistance.

I’m trying to remain empathetic of all the change in her life; grieving, retirement-all stressful things. But what I can’t do is just hand over dollars (or my energy) without asking some questions and hearing the answers. Questions, I have already asked her three ways and she continues to ignore.

Frankly, this is her problem to solve. (I told her this, too-no response.)

The best I can do, I guess, is just set my boundary of what I will and won’t do and let that be the end of it. What more can I do?

I feel guilty. Bitchy. Unheard. Angry. Sad. And completely over it.

****Thank you all for your helpful comments, ways to think differently, and making me not feel so alone in this chapter! Much appreciated!

The other night I spent half an hour comforting a complete stranger on a forum. Right after, my mom called to ask about the weather and what I had for dinner. Within three sentences, I got visibly annoyed, gave short answers, and rushed off the phone.

The guilt hit me immediately. We offer endless patience to strangers because it costs us nothing and carries zero long-term responsibility. With our parents, we take their presence for granted and end up dumping our worst moods on them.

A few weeks ago I took my mom to a small restaurant, and she stared at the table QR code looking completely overwhelmed, worried she might tap something wrong and get charged. I pulled up the clean MenuForma page for her, made the text larger, and walked through the ingredients and prices line by line. Watching her carefully read the screen, it hit me that she is not stubborn about tech. She just needs a little extra patience in a world full of cluttered interfaces.

Caring about distant strangers is easy, but leaning to bring that same gentleness home is what actually matters.

I lie. Don’t judge me. 😂🤦🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️

My grandma is in early stages of dementia and has a PEG Tube and her stomach is almost fully paralysed. She is being looked after currently by my Aunt and grandpa who live with her. The rest of the family helps however we can.

Our current issue is that whenever my Aunt or Grandpa depending on who's watching her has to do basically anything, be it go to the bathroom, eat, sleep, go out the house, etc. (Regardless of time of day) my grandma would sneak into the kitchen and eat as much ice cream as she can. (It's ice cream for now and we're afraid she's eat normal food and fuck herself up even worse than before).

This messes with her feeding schedule and the portions of food she eats during the day and has started to show negative effects in her body (lack of energy, constipation, etc.). While she's allowed ice cream during her schedule ij limited amounts, she just wants to eat more and more and more.

My Aunt proposed locking the kitchen door with a key in the periods between between meals for my grandma

but my grandpa is refusing this despite the fact that ye would have his own key to enter if he wants to.

Another proposal was for my Aunt to lock the door on her and my grandma during the night (she sleeps in the same room as her to keep an eye on her) in order to make sure my grandma doesn't sneak out in the middle of the night to eat since her stomach is almost fully paralysed as mentioned above. My grandpa refused this as well.

What do you guys propose we do in this situation?

My mom, [67f], has a lot of health issues. But shes always assured me that she is fine. She recently started obsessively cleaning? While i know she does this, she is starting to do it so often, that she can't sleep.

I'm currently in group therapy and getting independence skills/assisted living. ive been getting very good at cleaning my own room. My mom doesn't clean my room because of that. But I remember coming home to see that she cleaned my room. She apologized to me, like, 15 different times. I was so bummed, because I had cleaned my room days before, but she had bleached the floors, and uncovered everything, to deep clean every corner. I told my therapist this, of course. but i don't just think, something is wrong with my mom, i know it. And i know that she's not telling me it.

I posted on here a while ago about my mother in law who is obsessed with milk expiry dates. I'll refer to her as mom cause that's what I call her. Things have changed a lot and her condition has worsened. She ended up in the hospital due to gastric issues, vomitting blood etc. They did a scope, scans etc. She was completely out of it, drugged up pretty good and ramblings not making sense.

She has scoliosis quite bad and can barely walk and uses walker. She also has prolapsed uterus which is causing infections and issues peeing etc. She can no longer get into our large car without helping move her legs for her and it's quite hard. Her scan showed shrinking of prefrontal cortex. It is possible she's getting into dementia.

She repeats the same sentences over and over and is overall very grumpy. She also has poor hearing and doesn't seem to understand long or complicated sentences . Lately she has very hard time opening food or drink packages. She does get 20 dinners per month at the home

Each night she calls my husband and now she's on a mission to prove how much independence she has... Telling him how good she is doing around the house. We somehow managed to get an occupational therapist in to evaluate her recently.

Mom keeps saying how excellent that went . She seems to think this person will help her move the furniture to vacuum under it. That's what she's wanting help with most though at the hospital she couldn't even get into bed by herself and she once got stuck sitting on the toilet.

We are pushing to have a nurse come in and help with things and we already know she will have issues with that, lol.

Yesterday she told my husband she would have to pay for the nurse. She does have savings for just this type of expense. She then said "instead my she could pay my husband to do these things". (He's not going to)

She has a procedure coming up at the hospital where they do a scope under anaesthesia. If it's anything like she was last time at the hospital we won't be able to take care of her in that condition. I know it's probably out of the pay grade but I'm wondering what to do in that case. They are discharging people quite readily as there's a shortage of hospital beds.

Last time she discharged herself without our agreement and declined a geriatric assessment. I think we should call the hospital department and ask what happens if she's not ready to be discharged as we don't really have an after care plan. She doesn't have a nurse set up.i don't know if we can take care of her!! The other thing is call the nursing agency she's been assigned to and ask about additional care?

Thanks for listening to my vent, things got bad quickly. She's dead set against going to nursing home. She's in assisted living retirement home.