How do y’all deal with hurtful things your mother says to you? Mine crossed the line and I cannot deal with her any longer.

Before my mom got Alzheimer's, she was very nice, to everyone. Once she got Alzheimer's, there were times when she could be nice to everyone EXCEPT me. The first time she told me to "Drop dead and go someplace warm" (over nothing, by the way), I was mortified. By the 20th time, I told her I better bring sunscreen and a hat. My husband would often mouth the words, "It's not really your mother," and he was so right. I even wrote a book about taking care of her called, "My Mother Has Alzheimer's and My Dog Has Tapeworms: A Caregiver's Tale." I tried to remind myself that when she was mean to me, it was the disease talking.

A mother's cruelty and abuse hurts us on many levels. It also tends to escalate. I'm having the opposite experience. My 90 year old mother, now in late stage Alzheimer's, was violent, abusive and really quite evil most of my life. After screaming at my father and I for three days, she said that "If there wouldn't be repercussions, she would slit our throats with the kitchen knives." Social Services and local cops had her sectioned in psychiatric hospital where she stayed for four months. Finally, she received appropriate treatment and is on an anti depressant and anti psychotic. She is a different woman! I would talk to her doctor and see if meds could help. Physical pain causes lashing out and so does anxiety.

Step back (whether this mean an hour, a day, or a week - or longer).
Be clear on your boundaries.
Know it is the dementia mind / brain that is talking, not her 'old' self.
If you cannot deal, do not. S-T-O-P and revise / make other arrangements for her.
Limit time you see her. Perhaps go down to once a week (or whatever might feel emotionally do-able) or stop completely. Your Life Matters.
She won't be 'so' activated if she doesn't see you and have a focus to dump on.
She will find someone(s) else.
And, my HEART goes out to you. I can imagine how painful this is.
Develop compassion - it will support YOU. It is a/nother way to love yourself.

I think that if people have close relationships with one another, there will come times when anger, frustration and hopelessness, etc. will crop up and for whatever reason, things get said and done that should never have happened but they do. This can be when it is least expected and naturally words do hurt - even if they don't break our bones, just our souls and hearts. This is just a part of life. Personally, I do not care WHAT THE REASON IS - IT IS WRONG AND IT IS CRUEL AND ABUSIVE. If you are the victim, I believe you have to immediately set and enforce boundaries that this will not be tolerated. Second, I don't believe in distraction, or re-direction. You have been deeply hurt and if you keep that inside YOU, heaven help you. Speak up, whether they understand or not, and say what you have to say. If in time you can forgive and forget fine, but sometimes you can't do that and take it back. Then YOU have to decide what you want to do about it. Do you want to stick around and get more of it or do you deserve kindness and peace. Only you can decide the next move. If nothing stops it and you can't deal with it, it is best to find a way to get away and out of the picture - no matter who the relationship is and why it was done. No one should allow this and those that do it need to be placed where they can be controlled and stopped. Think of yourself first.