I just witnessed my fathers aggressive outburst. It really scares me, actually this behaviour. He started to yell, from the top of his voice, his head/face became red, his muscles tightened on his red neck, the entire village where we live was echoed by this aggressive outburst, it was so loud- I literally have no words to explain the intensity of it. Any why? The TV is old, it wasn't working but it came back to life. He told me that he even managed to change two channels. The reason why he cannot change channels as the remote is broken. My brother bought a new remote ages ago but they didn't put a battery in it. Just to help, automatically I put two batteries in it - I even bought a pack of 10. My father said that there are extra batteries, so I had to use the ones he handed to me. The remote worked THEN the aggressive outburst started with the extremely aggressive yelling that made him like a zombie, with red head, tightened neck muscles and bulging eyes and he yelled something along why I put in the battery in the remote, the old remote is good for him (the one that doesn't work), why I put my nose into everything.. to be honest it was so incoherent and it just so doesn't make sense to me that I can't even recall why it all started and what he was saying. Literally one moment after another, just after I tried the new remote and I could change the channels. It was completely unprovoked or without a reason. He was just yelling and yelling aggressively about the battery that he doesn't want the new remote and the old is good for him, so I had to take out the two AA batteries from the working remote and put it back to the paper I took it out from. He said something (still yelling) along that it's an expensive battery and the energy will be wasted from it and he threw the new, working remote over the cupboard and with an aggressive hit put down the broken, not working old remote on the table saying it's good for him. It's so surreal, I just can't make sense of it. This level of aggression really scares me, I feel that my physical safety is in risk. I am scared that he would hit me. Even just witnessing that level of aggression is just disturbing. Yesterday I came home and his face was black with dirt, just asked him as you normally do 'what did you in the afternoon, dad, you have some dirt on your face'. He is a keen gardener, so I imagined that he worked outside. Instead of a normal reply to this innocent question, another rage started (also with loud yelling, red head, top of the voice), that how would he know if his face is black, he can't see his own face, he doesn't care etc. It was scary yesterday too, as to an innocent question I got an absolutely inappropriate, aggressive yelling answer with 1000 intensity, but at least in my head I could make sense of this outburst and somehow I reasoned it that he felt blamed for being dirty which prompted his anger, but today with the battery? Putting two batteries in a working remote, and having a yell about the batteries and throwing away the working remote with a hit and yelling that the broken remote is good for him.. it's absolutely surreal. Literally toddlers would have a temper tantrum for something so little, surreal, absurd and non important but my father is a strong 79 years old man! There is something really wrong and I just don't want to live like that - it's really emotionally draining and super scary to be yelled at, it feels dangerous to be around a raging bull especially that anything, like putting batteries into a remote can set him off.

Throughout his life he had emotional control issues - not just anger, but mainly, but as I lived abroad for 18 years (what a surprise, eh?) I am just trying to remember if he was that bad before or it's now worse? Am out of the practice of living with that kind of aggressivity fuelled family life or is it really worse. I think it's definitely worse. Anger attacks are very frequent and can happen without any realistic reason.

I'm seeing early signs of Alheimers in my mother..I'm the only one of her 5 children she yells ,rants and raves at..it is so hard delight with her and none of my siblings see this as she is sweet as sugar around them..I'm thankful I don't live with her as it would be impossible..I can't hardly deal with it as it is..sorry to vent .

Reading these comments makes me feel less alone. I am dealing with an 82 year old monster in law that is destroying my husband's life and mine and our marriage. I am so sick and tired of her Narcissistic Personality Disorder, the fits of rage, temper tantrums, denial etc.

One year ago, social workers went to her house and forced her to go to the hospital. It was discovered she had end stage renal failure and was put on dialysis. This is after she blamed me for causing her skin to itch because she hates me being married to her son. Of course the itching was because she was uremic. She has been on dialysis three times a week, but it doesn't help her behavior. The dialysis social worker says she has dementia and mental problems, as the uremia goes away after 3 months of dialysis. She insists loudly and proudly she doesn't have dementia, including on Facebook and Twitter. Social media is the perfect tool for her to mess with family members minds and lives. She even made a YouTube video about me being a word that rhymes with witch.

She calls and texts my husband at work every day to meddle in things that are none of her business. She is going to cause him to lose his job. If he ignores the calls or texts, she just keeps on until she drives him nuts enough to answer. Then she curses him out and when he stands up to her, she begins crying and tries to force HIM to apologize. She is maddening.

We have plead for help to have her put in a mental ward or nursing home but no one will do it.

No one in the family will admit to having a POA. No one will take the phones and internet from her.

I am beyond frustrated and secretly wish someone would report her and press charges for harassment, if the medical community is not going to sedate or medicate or admit her.

Her adult children are frozen with fear and denial and think it's mean or not their business to tell a doctor, including my husband. My husband said she has always been mean and evil and controlling. She acts like she's the one married to my husband instead of me. She is just so sick in so many ways.

I keep praying about things and sadly, know that her passing is the only way any of us will finally have peace and have this huge burden lifted off of our shoulders. I am looking forward to feeling relief instead of grief.

I understand better now and see your predicament. You are clearly going to continue with this care untill the lady passes.
If you feel the pain is the mjor reason she is being so difficult can anything be done about it. Would she consider going to a pain specialist?
Is there any possibility of having someone come in so you could have a day off occasionally?
Other than that boundaries have to be set because she is abusing the relationship you and she have created. You feel you owe her a big debt and indeed you do but there is only so long you have to go on paying before you go bankrupt.
Is it possible she is now jealous of your new family? You have been her rock for all these years and now you have a new family has turned into the jealous mother who won't let the apron strings go.
How this situation happened in the first place really has little to do with your current difficulties. You obviously need someone to discuss this with. do you have family you can turn to? Otherwise is it possible to get professional councilling? There is only so much help people on this forum can provide, especially as most are dealing with the same and different acute problems. Keep up the good work but protect your own new family. You really have more than repaid this lady.

It's a long story but basically I was young in hard times and had nowhere to go and have great work ethic, she was/is an out of control hoarder with major health problems who owned and was losing the house due to not paying the taxes. I came in and we helped each other, I saved her home, "practically" cured her hoarding, started rebuilding her house and cleaning the property. In return she gave a troubled young man purpose and saved my life. Her family wanted nothing to do with her or the property and after 10 years of working for her and cleaning/rebuilding the house offered me the home, I was already paying the property taxes and fixing the place up and in return she got live in rights. I rejected the offer and didn't take her up on it until 4 yrs. later after I got the family's blessing and had it all done through lawyers. So there is a sense of obligation and it had become my mission in life to help her have some quality of life cause her health was spiralling down (nobody including doctors thought she would live long when I first met her....18 years later...). She wasn't this bad when I first started but lately her attitude has gotten worse which I credit to the level of pain she is constantly in. I can't walk away cause she will be alone if I do plus I'm in my house. I just recently developed a family of my own, it was a long road to find someone who not only understood my situation but to also accept it. It's been 18 years now and like I said she is family to me and I can't let her live the remaining of her life alone. I just don't know how to deal with the blow ups and the entitled expectations now and I literally don't get any days off any more because her health has degraded so much. Anyway I was just reading this article and felt this was a good place to get this off my chest.

Coutryking, how did you get into this situation in the first place. What kind of a hold over you does she have? Does she own your house and are you dependent on her for an income?
First of all this is not a healthy environment to be raising a child in nor for yourself and your wife.
If none of the above conditions apply it is time for this lady to find other accommodations. Consult with her relatives and make arrangements.
Other than that is to set boundaries and the article at the beginning of this thread lays out many ideas.
I can feel your pain if you are financially dependent on this person because I was raised in a situation where housing was tied to a parent's employment.
Only you can change this situation hard as it may be. Good Luck

I am a caregiver for a very disabled Lady that lives with me and my family and isn't my relative. One minute I'm the greatest person in the world that saves her life everyday for the last 18 years, the next I'm the most awful person who does nothing. I serve her from the time she wakes up around 9 am til she decides she wants to go to bed between 11-12 at night. In the times where I'm not doing every little chore she wants me to do I'm working on my old rundown country home so at night I'm exhausted and just want to have some quality time with my wife but my client wants to stay up and doesn't understand why I can't have quality time with my wife while she is still up. She throws fits at me making me feel like I'm an awful person while I'm trying to get her not to yell and wake up the kid...this is at midnight. I walk away cause I feel my patience is running thin and don't want to feed into that energy. I get to the point of not knowing what to do. I've been working for this lady for 18 years to the point that she is part of my family and i want the best for her but then when she is constantly ragging on me I just want her to go away. I have put many things in my life on hold for her and she never thinks I do enough for her. My wife gets upset because she interrupts our intimate times for ridiculous request, she has to have many glasses of drinks next to anywhere she sits regardless of whether she drinks them or not or she throws a fit in fact if I don't do her request or say no it's a blow out. I truly feel for her for she is house/bed bound and her world is very limited to TV and social media. I do accommodate her and play host so she can have guest over but this entitled service she expects from me is out of hand and I just don't know what to do about it. If I have a free day or even a moment when I get back I feel as if she is punishing me for it with an attitude and more ridiculous request to where I just don't want to go anywhere because it strains me so much. Her family offers no relief at all not that she would let anyone else help her because I'm the only person in the world that knows how to accommodate her needs. It's the craziest thing I've ever experienced to the point that I will never, never be a caregiver to anyone ever again after I'm no longer hers.

Princess if you stick with this site you will find many people here with the same problems and lots of ideas on how to deal with different scenarios.
For temper tamtrums think how you would deal with a 2 year old. Let it play out as long as your loved one is in a safe situation. Do not give in to this kind of behavior, it only encourages it. When it is over give a hug and offer a cup of coffee or another treat. There are all kinds of reasons for bad behavior and we can only guess at the reason especially if this is a new behavior

My grandmother over worries and she will sometimes use very hurtful words to people she doesn't even care. I cannot cope with her when she shouts or says rude words her personality and attitude has become worse as she is getting older I don't know how to handle my grandmother when she is like this and I get angry with her because I don't know how else to react. I'm so happy I found this website I felt I was alone trying to understand elderly people's behaviour.

This was so helpful Cindy. Thank you,
Karen

"My sister, who takes no crap from her but seems to never be the target of my mother's fits"...Ohreally gave us the answer. I'm not a gerontologist...only speaking from personal experience here...that if a person manages to be nice with most people saving temper tantrums for their caregiver then that person knows what they are doing. People who truly are brain damaged do not pick and choose with whom they'll have a hissyfit - they can't just put on and take off their nice mask. Whoever wrote that people will take liberties with their family members that they'd never take with professionals is absolutely right!

About setting boundaries...if Thursdays are your "I'm only doing things for myself" day then stick to it. Why are you letting the medical community commandeer your day? Is Thursdays the only day they work? Probably not. Unless your loved one is in an emergency routine medical visits can wait until you get a more convenient appointment.

I had to laugh when I read the "give them a hug" advice. The disgusting things many caregivers have to deal with is shocking. Caregivers deserve dignity. Caregivers should not have to worry that their toothbrush has been tampered with. Sometimes walking away - and better yet staying away for much needed respite - is the only thing that enables us to ever return.

Wanted to add, among the myriad things my mother has done, and I could fill a book! she once said, when we were on the 10th floor of a condo on vacation, "I am just going to jump off right here". She has never been suicidal nor does she have any history of self abuse. Abusing others? Oh, yeah. My sister, who takes no crap from her but seems to never be the target of my mother's fits, said "ok, then, do it" and went inside. I laughed out loud and my mother was furious but there was no air left in her balloon.

My mother is the queen bee of temper tantrums. Most of my family lives in close proximity to her and my dad has been married to her for 64 years. I think they have mostly become immune to her crazy and awful behavior and although now that she's 81 it almost seems like it's somehow a RELIEF (when I hear them talk) to be able to blame "she has dementia" I see consistently ramped up behavior of the same time every time I've been around her. So what is it? I guess I don't really care what it is. I just choose to not expose myself to it, because usually I am the target of her meanest behavior anyway. One of the reasons I moved far way at a young age! I think as 'children' (I am 60) of narcissistic and otherwise mentally ill people, we have a basic responsibility to make sure they are safe. If they are a danger to themselves, we need to make sure they live in a protected environment. I also believe if they focus their frustrations, anger, whatever on YOU then you also have a responsibility, also basic, to take care of yourself. Most of us have other commitments, like our own families and jobs to do for. Someone constantly gnawing at our leg makes meeting those commitments overwhelming at a point in life where we should realize 'this is not a dress rehearsal'. I feel for all of us dealing with this crap, but we do NOT have to put ourselves in their sites for punishment. If they act badly, stay away.

I am not totally convinced that money or big pharma is necessarily the only motivation. I have several friends who are doctors and also, have a son with Type 1 diabetes as well as coping with living with Rheumatoid Arthritis myself. My experience has been that unless you want mediocre care in the world we live in with doctors so limited in the time they have to spend with a patient, you are not going to get the attention to any medical issue you used to have access to. My doctor friends admit this is the case and they do not like it at all. It took over ten years for me to be diagnosed with RA which is an autoimmune, destructive chronic illness that time is of the essence in treating. Except I have lost years, at least ten, in preventing it from progressively disabling me. There is and will not be any handholding and doctors seem now more like previous managers and bosses I have had - don't come to me with a problem, come to me with a solution! I believe in order to get the highest quality care for ourselves or our family members our only option is to do our research and somewhat fairly insist on what direction we want that care to go in. I have done that for a long time, because, being the mother of three children growing up who all had autoimmune diseases, I felt I HAD to do the best for my kids. This is a bit off track, but I wanted to respond to the absolutely understandable comment about dementia not being cookie cutter. We are and have to be our own advocates.

I personally don't care who is a gerontologist or anything of that nature, because unless you walk ONE MILE in our shoes, it's hard to give that "one size fits all" advice and really know that it ISN'T "one size fits all". Dementia patients; and specifically Alzheimer's patients, ARE NOT COOKIE CUTTER. I have been trying without success to get my mother on the right meds now for MONTHS. I have found (and I apologize if I sound snarky or bitter) - that for most of the "professionals" it comes down to $$$$$ - money to take my mom to endless appointments, money to pay Big Pharma who the doctors are in bed with, etc. Gone are the times doctors really cared, called to check in, etc. Heck I can't even talk to a doctor by phone anymore; their "assistants" call. So please spare me the "hold their hand" nonsense because nobody is holding mine, and while I do love mom, I cannot stand these awful magnified aspects of her personality.

Oh well. My mother has been having tantrums since I can remember. It somehow became my job - at an early age - to make sure that she was attended to. A former boyfriend told me to just walk away and I have decided that it's the best advice I could take - leave the room.

I have had a hard time with my mother trying to figure out when she 'changed'. She has always been a selfish baby. I think she is 'more' the way she always was. She throws temper tantrums all the time

I think my mom had a tantrum today. I was trying to talk to her about the neighbor, we don't like him, and she just didn't want to hear it. She started biting her hand and punching her leg and open palm on the opposite hand. I'm still playing it back in my head. I often have trouble talking to her about multiple subjects even if I'm trying to help her with something she has needed help with in the past. It's like she doesn't want to have any discussion on anything. Sometimes I'm afraid to open my mouth.

How old is your mother? Does she have dementia or is she just self absorbed? I have dropped out with my own mother as well as my oldest daughter. They are peas in a pod; both will do this kind of thing and don't care at all who gets plowed down in the process. Counseling may help you figure out how to draw appropriate boundaries with your mother. It's hard not to react when that's what you have been raised with. A 'relationship' with anyone is a two way street and if it is to be healthy it has to be respectful. Mothers and daughters are experts at pushing each other's buttons and know right where they are. If you want to work on things and if you think she's open to it, I would suggest that you go for counseling together. If she won't go with you, go alone. And not all counselors are good ones. If you are just beating old horses to death and feel there is no point in continuing.

My mom just dropped an F-bomb and disowned me in public. In part I feel like it's my fault. But I'm always made to feel like doing what she wants me to do all the time is making me continue in a line of selfish reasoning that just keeps passing on from generation to generation. Ugh! I want to break the cycle.

Timely advice. Mom's dementia is getting worse...tantrums are increasing as well as paranoia. Doc is no help at all. I have learned the "art" of walking away with much struggle. I encourage other caregivers.....this art is an essential tool....practice often for your health and sanity!

"wouldn't it help a little to just caress and perhaps hold your loved parent for a moment,"

Help who? My mother who is having a fit because she doesn't want to wear adult diapers? Or me, who is gagging and about to vomit from her nasty smell? No one would be better off with that hug; it's just more sentimental nonsense offered from people with no real understanding of the problem.

My mom has always had a nasty temper and a narcissistic attitude. I understand that she is completely self-centered now--most sick people are self-centered out of sheer necessity. That's how we survive. But it doesn't make it any easier when it comes time for her to shower and she balks, or she doesn't smell the s**t she's tracking into the carpets, or when she urinates on my favorite shawl because she didn't like wearing diapers and used my shawl as a "cushion". I'm supposed to deal with that behavior with a hug and reassurance? One does not reward bad behavior, one rewards good behavior. My mom taught me that herself.

My Mother has been spoiled and has had temper tantrums all her life. The difference now is she doesn't care where she has one. The aides tell her to quit yelling at them, but she just yells louder that she's not yelling. Then she gets mad at me because I can't do anything about it. Often is because she wants her pain medicine earlier than the doctor has ordered. If the doctor ordered it a certain way, who am I to second guess him? Sometimes I wonder if the narcotics she takes is the problem.

But when she gets really mean, calling me names, etc. I have to leave, I worry I'll do or say something awful. I do feel really guilty though.

and thank you jessebelle. vinegar to the rescue!

jeanrain..would you really hold and caress a narcissistic mental case, who smeared something horrible and potentially health detrimental on your toothbrush and tell them it's all good??? considering the way the medical community has marginalized me, yet expected me to step up and be my mom's everything, i have some truly legitimate anger here. so no. i will not be comforting her this time.

I haven't been there, so I don't know, but wouldn't it help a little to just caress and perhaps hold your loved parent for a moment, and say something like "I know, I know." Walking away, ignoring them, and other such methods might make a parent feel worse. Sure, you need a break, and you have other needs of your own, but can you try to fulfill some of them at least when your parent is resting or sleeping or just a little bit content?

Oh, wow, KarlaElisa. I think it would have to be time to make good on the threat.

KarlaElisa. Vinegar. It kills the smell. Sounds like it is time for a new toothbrush to be hidden in a private place. You have my sympathies, gf.

after my mom flooded the toilet again, using maxi pads and dropping them in it and flushing we had a discussion. i told her no more maxi pads. she needs to wear the adult diapers. she said no. said she'd just go live in a nursing home. i told her i believed it was probably time for that. this apparently frightened her and she shot back "you can't make me".

now i just got up a little bit ago, made coffee and went to brush my teeth. as soon as i put the brush in my mouth, i smelled that smell of those used pads. it's all over the handle of my toothbrush.

it would not be unlike her to have done something truly nasty to my toothbrush. i am still fighting the urge to throw up again and i have to take her to the dr in a few minutes. all i want to do is assume the fetal position and cry.

and what do you do with THAT kind of mentally disturbed behavior? for some reason, the whole HOUSE now has that smell. i have all the windows open and it won't go away.

My mother certainly has temper tantrums but all of her life she has exhibited serious NPD behavior. My dad married her when she was 17 and she was a princess all of her life. When I read the advice to not give the tantrum any attention I certainly agree but I would add that the whole family needs to be on board and that counseling may be a benefit. Otherwise, as with a child, inconsistent cause and effect depending on who she is dealing with ends up not working very well.