My mom has been a miserable, nasty, and hateful person all her life. As a mother she has dominated every aspect of her children's life.

Yeah I was going with that one and started bringing her over gourmet food, doing her housework as she heckled me and reminded me of how much I looked like the sister she was jealous of. I thought the "Days of Anger and Cruelty" were nearly over and she sucked me in big time until the head games got worse and she started saying "I always was Daddy's Little Girl" and demanded that I spend more time helping her than my father who was nearly dead in hospital. 84 and still a bully. Ur lucky that dimentia got rid of the horribleness in your mother. With my mother she is going down with the ship as a rotten person and quite proud of it in fact. Some people are just plain mean. I have searched my heart and soul and have a degree in sociology and education and there are just "bad people". It is more than likely mental illness but it is even stated in the Human Rights Code that "a person's illness or handicap cannot hurt other people". I had to walk away.

Dad, sis, and I endured exactly this sort of tyranny for over 50 years.
Now mom is so aphasic from Alzheimers she can barely finish a sentence and has become clingy and needy.
Not a scary bully anymore.

My mother made our lives miserable for my entire life for all we three children and for my father who was her ever-loving and devoted servant. He took the emotional abuse for all of his life. Two of we three kids are dead with both of the deaths partially responsible for my mother;s emotional abuse. I left home at 16, stuck with school, married a nice guy who is a great father and my soul mate. He accepts me at my worse and recently when I tried to care for my mother and what it does to me as she berates me as I am doing everything that she is asking and plays her favourite "head games" that she has mastered (she knows every button to press -she has had a life time to figure this out. My dad is now elderly and we have never "argued over a cracker" as I call it and love each other deeply. She kept my dad and I apart for most of my life threatening to sell the house if he contacted or spoke with me. Finally they were forcibly removed from their home. I really did try to look after both but it was breaking me apart. I could only look after two things: My own family and my father and so I made that "Sophie's Choice-sort of choice" so I could retain my sanity. I"m sorry that I just could not be the "bigger person" but it would have been at the cost of losing the mother (me) of my own children and so it's me, my kids and Grandpa who will be going to a lovely nursing home due to his intense health needs. Right now I see him in the hospital most everyday. My mother lost her rights to be his medical decision maker and they gave that to me so finally broken and in bits, I get my dad back and she could care less, she is so selfish. He has lost his use to her and so she threw him under the bus just like she did me more times than I care to mention. She does deserve to die alone, unloved and surrounded only by the paid help who can only stand her because they need the paycheck. I might have to have a discussion with God when I get to the pearly gates but I have decided to save the people I can including myself. That's my best. I'm a retired teacher and I have said that to students and my own children all my life: "try your best and that is good enough" and now I need to take my own advice. I hope anyone out there struggling with this same issue can love themselves and their own immediate family enough to have the strength to make sure that these narcissistic mothers or fathers have shelter, food, clothing and necessities. "Respect thy mother and father". That will cover it and move on with your life. I just had the Christmas from hell and I'm not riding that rodeo ever again, as they say.

Wow--all of you have suffered so!!! Me, too! I like J Thurman saying we can't let the beasts get away with all they get away with. My 95-year-old Grande Dame just seems to get stronger and more toxic and not only insults and threatens me (I've whittled my miserable visits to Xmas only and even that is dreadful), but threatens everyone else at her wildly expensive assisted living community. She openly insults fellow residents in the dining room during meals and I've had the executive director strike terror in my heart when he told me that they are going to ask her to leave. I live in 500 sq feet (I felt I never deserved more) in another city and don't own a car and have a bad back at 65. This rich and arrogant Pit Viper has ruined my life--making to flee the two nice husbands I had-- and only a great therapist I found recently saved me from jumping off a bridge. Oh there is a little secret: there is NO rent control in assisted living facilities. They can raise the rent/prices at any time with no oversight. What are the rest of us going to do? Wander the streets and live in lean-to homeless sites or in Quonset huts? Remember the poor daughter of Zsa Zsa Gabor who died last year virtually homeless and penniless at 60-something, Francesca? Daughters of narcissistic movie-star type mothers suffer with the "mirror-mirror on the wall" problem--having to adore someone you fear is the essence of masochism and self-neglect.

My mother would give your mother a run for her money. Mine plotted sons against sons and still Does. I ran when I was 17 and never I looked back. She vile, vulgar, greedy, bipolar nut case and the meanest person I ever met. She lives with her 70 year old step son. She called him a mar Manoni bastard(his birthmothers name)his whole life. The fool is nasty, lazy and kisses her ass to get her house. He is still living in his child hood bedroom and never left. My mother wanted her 3 sons to be like that. She cost my brother 2 marriages with her nasty ways. She lost her youngest sons recently and he was worst than her. Anyone that had met her ran. Fights and screaming daily. As a child the dinner table was thrown at who ever got in her way. Hot coffee and cups in the face as you sat there talking with her. When she dies and leaves me the dollar I have been promised, I will put it on her grave. My father tried hanging himself and failed in the basement. She also set him on fire because he brought a chair in the basement from his first in-laws.

You may need to see a therapist to help get past the guilt for you have done nothing wrong. It sounds to me that their abuse may have also groomed you to be the one to take care of them using guilt as the button to keep you there.

I truly understand how you feel. I´m 58 and have also been abused by my mother (and father) my entire life; I´m at my witts end now and ready to use medication secretly; she should have been medicated decades ago...both of them want no meds whatsoever and expect to be served regardless of their rotten personalities...I really want to dttach from these 2 abusers, but the guilt is too great! We are 3 sibblings, but I am leaving with both abusers in 11 days; we´re going to join my sister...my brother has had it with them...Leave if you can, the abuse will just get worse...take care.

From your description, that does not sound like much of a family to be around and I can see why your siblings stay away. Who wants that abuse?

How did she not alienate you?

A person who has lived like your mom has all of her life is not going to change late in light. They are who they are and that is very sad.

I am 52 years old with 2 brothers and a sister,all older. My mom is showered with a goiod life from her husband of 26 years. I live on their land in a little one room construction shed in order to assist them in their remaining years and have given my mom gifts, taken care of her property and land for her, and her husband and I wait on her day and night while she sits and takes advantage of him and even of me at times. She is a very self centered, selfish, manipulative and controlling human being that has alienated her children all her life. She was always a cursing, mean alcoholic and though I love my mom, I feel sad for her lowly character. Her mom was sad for her as well. She is now 77 years old,her husband age 70, and her dementia has only increased her cruel character. I am different in the fact that I do NOT find ANY comfort in knowing that many others are going through this same issue. It is a horrible way to live life and I CHOSE to live on their property( of which I pay high rent to them, and do many chores) because in their last years, I wanted to be around family since my sister and brothers all have their own lives and families far away and have no contact with me nor with our mom. I pray to God often to keep me from feeling any wrong feelings toward my mom and for Him to change her but she chooses to be the way she is and maybe this is her result.

Nice to know that I´m not alone stukinthemiddle, sounds like my mother; always argumentative, controlling, has to have the las word, makes everyone feel unconfortable...every single word can create a scene with her! She was on meds 30 years ago, after some rage attacks against my father the screw-arounder, but I think she was overdosed and became a vegetable, but she got off everything by herself, and has forever used her HORRIBLE personality wherever she is...still going strong & hateful (hates kids too)...
To top the cake we now have my father GreedSer too; mean viscious and won´t give us a penny for his expenses, he also HATES me & even accuses me of having contributed to my youngest sister´s death (she had ca spread to liver)...he seems to be demented, but has pety normal behaviour when strangers are around...I want out, but yes, the killer guilt doesn´t just vanish! We do, however, have to stand up for our rights; I´m 58 (abused since childhood), and at this age one fooot is alreading entering old age; if these abusers last 5 more years, we´re done! We have a life to live! Neither of my parents ever had to care for their elders; it must skip a generation! Hugs to all

Katistired - AMEN - Preach!

There are studies from 2009 that show the typical caregiver is female, unpaid, near 50, and has 20+ years of caregiving without pay ahead. The financial sacrifice is in the billions of dollars. Not only is it a social well being matter, a matter of conscience, but a huge economic problem for everyone concerned.

With typical being near 50, that means there are a lot of people well beyond that age doing unpaid caregiving, as well as below that age. People in their prime earning years who are not earning, not saving, and in no way prepared for their own old age.

Think also about the training factor. How many home careproviders have had any training whatsoever? Safety training? Medical training? Personal attendant training? Mandatory precaution training? My estimate is very few have. What risk does that put the caregiver and receiver at for contamination, illness, or injury?

I found on my journey through this that if you don't know what to do, it's very difficult to find out. I learned the most from this site and people on it. Who looks out for the home care providers who don't have the education, access, or ability to go do their own research?

My theory is that there are an awful lot of elders out there who are living in substandard conditions with an unprepared care provider. Think about the potential for abuse in both directions. Who will know if the elder never goes out to see a doctor or has anyone come into the house for care work? This is not a good situation for anyone.

I feel so sad reading these stories. I took care of my grandfather when he had dementia until he died. Even though he really never made time for me growing up. Now I take care of his son, my uncle who has Aspergers and is 70 years old. I just want to say to everyone on this list that you have the right to rescue yourself from a bad caregiving situation. I say this having watched my aunt in a hospital situation and a nursing home, that I felt were substandard. But she had her grandson and his family to help her throughout her life - they were her primary family - and she chose them as her caregivers. I say this knowing how really bad institutional care can be. You are entitled to rescue yourself. This is not about being a good individual. This is about a broken horrible long term care system that treats seniors like crap so that family members have to drive themselves over the edge to make care work. It is a systemic problem and making yourself sick and miserable is not the answer. I firmly believe that it is better to have people in assisted living with additional caregivers, and then use my energy to improve on that, than it is for people to stay at home with family members who are run ragged. Having said that, I also think it is very important to sit down and right to your state/provincial and federal politicians and say that health care should be free and public, and that includes high quality long term care for seniors. This a social issue not only a family issue and it requires a collective social solution. Thank you to everyone for posting so that all of us feel less alone.

My mom was like you describe, all during my growing up. I've shared some on previous posts. It is painful to dredge up these memories and feelings. Ironic that Alzheimers has robbed her of most of her speech and she is completely dependent on me now.

REady2scream - I'm confused. Medicaid is financial need based, not based on how well the person can converse or behave. There are people 100% in their right minds on Medicaid simply due to financial need. Medicaid doesn't do any assessment of cognitive ability or ADLs or anything like that. Those are not application considerations.

Those may be considerations for other purposes. Determining treatment needs, like PT, OT, in-home help, care plans. But Medicaid doesn't do that assessment. Maybe somebody told you it was for Medicaid just to avoid the complicated explanation.

YOU need to STOP paying. You are only hurting yourself. It sounds like your mom needs to be in a dementia care facility, not a retirement home. It sounds like this is too much for you.

There is assistance to get her placed in care. The facility business office and the social worker are there to help. Next time she goes into the hospital, don't bring her home. You don't have to. There is no law in the land that requires you to do in-home care, especially when it's emotionally and physically too much. The hospital will find a place that can take her, and I strongly suggest you let them.

When she lived in the retirement home the rent took her social security and the Veterains pay. And I still had to pay $200.00 to complete her rent payment. Each month . Plus they were getting ready to up her rent another $500.00 added on to the amount she paid then each month. Then I paid for her pharmacy bills, medical bills and her health insurance payment each month. Plus her living expenses. Plus she is always in and out of hospitals due to all her illnesses and I pay for all her hospital bills. As for Medicaid I have filled the paper work out and had an interview with someone from Medicaid and my mom was interviewed by this lady too. Come to find out when my mom was asked all these questions she puts on an act of kindness and can do everything they ask her to do. And passes with flying colors. And makes me look like I am not telling the truth about her. So according to Medicaid she does not qualify yet. only good thing about her living with me is I don't have the money problems like I did. Yes my mom was diagnosed with dementia at least 10 years ago but refused to take the medication she was given. I have a tv in my room and watch tv there. I am always gone soo done have to deal with her ! I barely talk to her as all she will do is argue. And I will not lower my self to her standards! Thanks for your concern.

Ready2scream - why on earth are you paying with your money?

Your mother's funds pay for her care, and when she is out of funds and assets, Medicaid kicks in. I assume she also gets social security pay and Medicare health/drug coverage. Medicaid will pay for long term care for the indigent.

You have options. You have to take control though and make it happen.
Minimally, control your own TV. Maybe her contact with the news & talk-TV ought to be eliminated.

It sounds like your mom has dementia and needs to be in an environment structured for dementia patients. Get your house back again and enjoy life. You only get this one.

I too understand where you are coming from. I had to take my mom out of the retirement home she was living in because they raised the rent to where I
Cannot pay it and pay her medical, pharmacy and doctor bills. Not to mention all her living expenses. Having her living with me is the worse mistake I have ever made.Nothing pleases her everything I do is negative. She sits and sleeps most of the day and watches horrible races news!! She dwells on anything that is bad and seems to enjoy it. I stay away from her as much as possible! It is like dealing with a nine year old!!!

And here's me thinking I was alone! But to be honest knowing that other people are going through the same thing doesn't change the situation. My mum and dad are vote hateful people. I understand that my brothers death 32 years ago had an effect on them but my mum manages to bring it up nearly every given opportunity. She uses he still on going grief as an excuse to be miserable and negative about everything

Deltaborn. I just read your post after posting my own problems with my parents. I feel just the same, I cry a lot these days and have to take a deep breath before answering the phone to either mum or dad, I feel I have to be up beat and cheer them up or listen to there problems and aches and pains. There always negative, it's draining my sole. I feel that I wish I could walk away but like you, what the h*ll can I do, I can't walk away, just stick it out but it's ruining my life, in fact I don't have a life anymore, I'm so down and exhausted with it all I don't see friends anymore or go out, I keep trying to give up smoking but I'm so stressed out I can't. Help

my dad is unwell with heart problems. He's always been a self centred individual and difficult to deal with. My mum see the black side of everything, doesn't like anyone or have any friends, doesn't socialise and never has. My mum is 72 and dad 79. I have my dad in the phone crying saying he can't live with mum anymore because she's short tempered and has a sharp tongue. The I have my mum on the phone saying dads a miserable b......st and making her life a misery. I work and still have family and husband to take care of, I'm ring mum and dad e wry day and txing every morning and evening and calling up as much as can after work. Between them there making me very miserable and quite depressed which is having an effect on my family. I really don't know what to do. There is so much more detail to this story it would be hard to know where to start to explain everything. My mum and dad don't speak to any family and I am there only daughter. I had a brother who died in a road accident 32 years ago and another brother who walked away from them 3 years ago never to be seen again, he had, had enough of them. I have no contact with him and don't even know where he lives or works. I feel I just want to walk away and get on with my life and be happy again but how can I. I'm very sad in my heart

Treading Water: I love that you posted this! Don't get me wrong I hate that you have to deal with your mother, but you cannot know how much better I felt just knowing that I am not the only one. If I hear "I'm 82 year old" ONE more time as an excuse for her hateful, mean behavior....I will...I dunno what. My mother, like yours, has always been hateful, spiteful and mean spirited but since she turned 70 (12 years) she has been unmanageable. I sought therapy for it once but the only advice he could give me was to "get away from her". I am her only living child...how am I supposed to get away from her. She doesn't live in a nursing home so it's not as if I can just let them take care of her and go about my life. She needs someone to take her to her doctor's appointments, do her shopping, run her errands. There is no one but me....so I do it....I wake up every morning to the phone ringing...it's her. She wants to use me as her venthood every day of my life. I listen for an hour every day about her various aches/pains, her bowel movements (or not), every bad memory she has, I hear about how much she has helped (financially) me, my deceased brother and my deceased sister. It goes on for an hour before I get her off the phone. Never once does she ask about me or my life. If I don't pick the phone up, she calls back to back 4 times. The 5th time she calls the police and sends them over to "check on" me. I feel like a trained dog most days and like an unpaid servant others. I feel so guilty but I want her out of my life. Maybe I should have done it decades ago because now I feel like karma will bite me HARD for waiting until she's 82 to shove her out of my life. But I can't take it anymore. I can't sleep or eat most days and everytime the phone rings I say a little prayer that it's not her.....what do I do? What do we do?

I feel your pain Treadingwater. I too have a mother that treated myself and my two younger sisters like dirt as we were growing up. Her idea of "dicipline" was to beat us with wooden yardsticks until they broke and also left welts on our legs numerous times with the wire end of a fly swatter. Apparently a swat on the behind was not painful enough in her eyes. I am now 60 yrs old, my younger sister is 56. Mom is in a nursing home as of Dec 2014. Her mind is ok, she is not good physically due to 2 MILD strokes....talking to her you would think she had the worst strokes ever than anyone else. She is narcisstic (not sure on the spelling).
My sister and I have had enough, I went to the nursing home today and told her that myself and my sister (who lives 800 miles away in another state) will no longer take her abuse, we are done. We will not be seeing her anymore from this day forward. I felt SOOO MUCH BETTER to get that load off of my shoulders and now feel like I can continue my life with my husband and adult children without "mom" hanging over my head and worrying about what she is going to do or say next to hurt me further. My real father died in 2000, mom remarried in 2004 to man we knew. He was ok at first, but he is also causing problems within our family so we have disowned him as well, due to some of the stunts he has pulled since mom went into the nursing home. Distance yourself from the pain and hurt coming from your mother...you will feel much better about yourself.

Just reading everyone's comments has inspired me to write down what I'm going through . My mum is in her seventies and to cut along story short has resented having a daughter from the moment I was born. I grew up with her saying I only wanted boys. Left home as a teenager and moved 300 miles away. However for the past 30 years I have desperately missed my dad and my children have only had moments of time with their extended family. Due to my dad becoming very sick I decided to relocate my family back near to my parents. This has resulted in my mum turning on me in the most vile and spiteful way to the point that she has banned my dad from seeing my children when we move, however I
He is still allowed to speak to them on the phone. I cannot talk to her as she becomes so verbally abusive. It seems the older she has become her bitterness has grown. She is breaking my heart now and feeling like I should stay away. Do I let her once again get her own way or move and hope she will accept that I want to be close to my dad. Thank you for any suggestions

I feel exactly as you do. I finally put my mother in assisted living. I had to. she was killing me. I developed a heart problem, I feel, that was a direct result of taking care of her and dealing with her.
She is ungrateful, she is disagreeable, she is selfish, self-centered and uncompassionate. She has no friends and no interests. She has pretty much been a child most of her life.
Do not feel Guilt, she is being taken care of. The full circle has come around, so now she is where she should be and it is Karma. I had to go over this with myself. People who are unable to show warmth, respect, gratitude, love, compassion, etc toward others do not deserve those feelings back. WHY should they get anything back, because they exist??? And how does it benefit you to give someone love when they kick you in the face each time you do? When people out there continue to say, "oh she is old, she has dementia, she still deserves care, etc.... they are asking you to accept abuse. People who abuse continue to abuse if they are allowed to do it. It will not end. WE tell children not to accept abuse from anyone. Why do we now tell caregivers to accept abuse from their elder parents??
My husband and I stopped it after a year and half. My mother got to the point that she was saving up her poop and deliberately going in her pants ever 3 days, so that she could watch me clean her up and laugh at me while I was doing it. She started collecting knifes from drawers and hiding them and sneaking up on us while sleeping holding the knife. She began fishing garbage out of the garbage can and putting it back in the refrigerator. We experienced so many bizarre behaviors that were both dementia related and mean-spirited that we put an end to it, by sending her to a geriatric center and then on to assisted living. Time to end the madness when it is dangerous to your family even if it is mostly mental. It still does great harm.

You are not alone. I think your plan is good.

My mom has been married 5 times . She's 92 now and in asst living and loves it. She treated my precious daddy like a throwback. Thank God he found peace with an angel at work for 22 years of marital bliss. Mom is very lucid and still as narcissisitic as she was at 26. Today she said "your hair is stringy and u don't "wear make up like u used to". I am 56 and I do not have the hormones for healthy, shiny hair now, nor do I give a care. I busted her chops tonight about her self-absorbed narcissistic behavior. We must not let these mean old assholes off the hook.

Bev, I would imagine that your mom and her illness has robbed you of a lot in life. It's time to move on and have your own life without her manipulation and meanness. Sad to say, but you can't rescue her or him. They are adults and not that old. Let them figure things our for themselves while you figure things out for yourself.

Bev, your mother is not that old, but has drunk herself and two other people in her life to misery. You may not believe it right away, but you deserve better for yourself. You probably have already dedicated too much of your life and your emotions to someone who refuses, or is unable to, help herself. Until she is read to receive help through rehab, there's nothing anyone can really do to help her.

There are some really good things on setting boundaries in this type situation. The main thing is to recognize that you are worth it, and that what you need to do matters. It can be so easy to look at the other person and what they need to do, but in situations like this one it is better to look at ourselves. We deserve to be healthy and happy and not pulled down into the pit with someone who needs to help herself -- something she may or may not be able to do. You may find you love her more if you're not being pulled down by her.

Thank you so much for your comments. I have thought about just telling her that I can't do this anymore and that this roller coaster is too much for me. She says and does all the real nasty stuff at night when drinking, then the following morning she is wondering why I don't want to see or talk to her. She forgets all the meaness she has said and done and yet I am still angry because I never forget what was said and done! Deep down what I want to do is stay away for good. I could easily never see her or talk to her again and I would be at peace. But I give in because my stepdad needs my help doing her meds or making appts for her. He is the type of man that always hopes she will change overnight and everything will be ok. BUT that will never happen and I can't get him to see it. I am tired of taking care of this woman and the ugliness that flows out of her mouth. I have done this all my life. I am the caretaker. My brother was the same way. Until a couple of years ago. I have been munipulated by her all my life and I always gave into her. I hate myself for being so weak and not sticking up for myself, until recently. Now I say hateful things back that have been pinned up inside of me for all these years. I am scared to let lose because of everything I want to say! I've looked into moving away. At least then I would not be near to where I was expected to stop by and always help. Any advice?

bev, there is really nothing you or your father can do except what you do for yourself. Your mother is married to the bottle. As long as she is, it will be her main relationship. If she is willing to go into rehab, you could try that. That is not normally the case, though. Alcoholics do not want to give up the thing that they believe keeps them going.

I am so glad that things are different for you. I don't know if she drank a lot when you were young, but I know it wasn't easy for you if she did. You may have had a lifetime of taking care of a drinking mother. As adults, we can be torn. It is hard to watch someone we care about hit bottom, but many times if we prop them up, they just continue the self destruction. I wish I had some solution, but I watched my brother go down the same path to his death. There was nothing anyone could do, because Jack Daniels is the only relationship he really cared enough about. He caused a lot of hardship along the way. The only thing we can do is step back and not get caught in it.