I think all of you giving the advice that leans towards “tell her to quit smoking” or “get her some Nicorette” need a big time reality check. Chances are likely that her mom is in her 60s and has probably been smoking for 50 years. She’s not going to quit. Being a know-it-all and depriving her from things she likes at this stage in her life, regardless of what YOU think of them, is just pointless, mean and 100% self-serving.
My mom lives several states away, and if she asks for something that I think may not be the best thing for her, you know what I do? I shut my mouth and get it for her. She’s getting closer to 70 and as I’m getting older, I’m starting to see in life the shit she’s dealt with, and damn, the last thing I’d need at 70 is my snot-nosed 30 year old telling me what’s right for me.
I think the OP’er thinks along these lines. Her only complaint is that her mom waits until the last minute.
Exactly. She talks out of both sides of her mouth. One side says “I don’t want to bother you” and the other says “well I have to bother her since I need it right now!”
I am sure there are times she is but she spends the majority of her time on the internet running her own crime website.
Her place is hardly livable due to her hoarding so I do not visit her. I drop off her things and leave.
This is a problem as well. She can organize her website and other lives but her own is never organized.
And pay taxes but I get what you mean about boundries.
I have tried to tell her to give me reasonable notice. We have gotten into arguments about it. I have told her when I can’t do something and then she calls my ex-husband with the “She won’t help me will you?” stick.
This leads me to feel quilty and makes me look like an asshole.
Then she won’t call me at all for a period of time for anything. She then turns to my daughter to go shopping for her again making it appear I refuse to do so. My daughter is seventeen and lives with me.
I think this is a good idea. When I lived next door to her it was easier as she knew when I was running errands so I could get her list. I moved two and half blocks away almost three years ago and these emergencies have become more frequent since then.
She pays all of her bills online except her life insurance which she gave me yesterday and MUST be mailed today.
I do all her shopping for her. She usually sends me an emails asking if I am going shopping on the weekend and if I can pick her stuff up as well.
I also take her to all her doctors appointments which do not become emergencies since she has to make an appointment.
There was one time she sent me a badly formatted email saying she thinks she needed to go to the doctor that day as she was having problems seeing. She ended up having pink eye in both eyes so bad she could barely see anymore. Why she waited so long is a mystery. I guess she did not want to bother me :rolleyes:
She is a chronic smoker, she is borderline diabetic, her eating habits are bad and she is on disablity and has been for seven or eight years.
She eats fruit and vegatables on a regular basis as I do her shopping but I guess that does not help much when combined with chips and dip.
I don’t walk through her house. I could not find a light bulb if I tried. Even if I did they maybe already burnt out as she has the habit of placing old bulbs back in the package. She is a hoarder so I do not stay or visit any longer than dropping off her stuff and leaving.
She is usually very good with her meds. It is just that she got a new prescription card and waited until the last minute to get it to the pharmacy so they could be filled at the reduced copay.
I know of no Safeway or Albertsons in the area. She does order food sometimes from a truck that goes from house to house. I can’t remember the name but the food is expensive. I don’t know if she still does that. I will look into that link though and see if there is anything in our area.
I would gladly pay $9.95 to have her groceries delivered.
I am going to ask her if she has mail order available though with her new prescription card. If she could get those delivered it would be nice.
I created the pit thread because I was pissed off. She does this all the time I just needed to rant and I am glad I did as I got some good suggestions.
Nah she would pay it. Hell I would pay it if I could get all my shopping done and delivered for ten bucks. It would save me in gas money alone.
Now everytime she wanted chips and dip she would not pay but those are just extras since I am out handling her emergency anyway.
This is exactly it. She will be 64 next month. I don’t tell her to quit smoking, eat better or clean her apartment. I don’t refuse to buy her cigs or bring her fruit in place of a dozen donuts. In fact I don’t tell her how to run her life in anyway.
I keep my mouth shut in front of her and vent to my boyfriend or on a message board. It is not my place to try and control her life other than it is hers to try and control mine.
I guess in someways that is why it pisses me off so much about these “emergencies”. I feel like I am being controlled. Since my daughter now drives she does do some of the errands which has cut down on my burden somewhat but that is not fair to her either. She is willing but she is also starting to feel the resentment.
As a former 3-pack-a-day smoker, I agree with you. It is codependent to think you know what’s best for someone else. Smoking is so not the issue here, and it makes me feel queasy to see that some people think it is.
I’ve never smoked, but I’m pretty damn fat. If I ever got so fat/diabetic/whatever that I had to rely on others to do all my errands, take me to the doctor, and so forth, I certainly wouldn’t expect them to keep buying me ice cream and pepperoni pizza. In my view, not buying cigarettes isn’t “depriving” her of something, it’s refusing to participate in her slow suicide. She deprived herself of the ability to make her own shopping decisions, and I can see how someone (not the OP, and it is entirely up to her comfort level in her particular case) could have an ethical problem enabling a loved one to harm themselves, without them having to be a bossy know-it-all, or “codependent” or whatever.
In the OP’s situation, I’d say having a planned weekly errand/shopping trip makes a lot of sense.
One possible way to deal with that is to explain to your ex-husband and to your son, “I’m setting some boundaries with my mother. They are X, Y, and Z. It is possible that if X happens and she still needs something, she will call you. If you want to set some boundaries with her yourself, OK. If not, OK. But I just wanted to let you know, sort of warn you ahead of time, that this might happen. I don’t expect you to do it for her, because I’ve given her the option of X. I also don’t expect you to refuse, because how you deal with her is your business.” This way you could let them know exactly what is happening. You would be taking control by not allowing her to control you through your ex-husband and son and through your perceptions of how you will be perceived (as an “asshole”).
I agree with this too. If she has to deal with waiting and it drives her nuts, then she will learn to plan ahead, either by rationing her cigarettes or by planning ahead.
Catering to her phony urgency is just rewarding her lousy habits.
My knee-jerk reaction to the OP was: Is your mom an adult? That’s not how grown-ups act!
Yes, I know better, but I still have trouble wrapping my mind around the idea that someone who’s not only an adult but a parent would think and act like that. Grown-ups are supposed to have learned prudence and foresight and self-sufficiency and self-control!
That’s incredibly manipulative to the point where you’ve really got to put your foot down. If your mom calls your daughter (who’s still a minor and lives in your house) to run “emergency” errands for her, that’s a problem. Your daughter shouldn’t be that involved in this situation, and, really, although she’s the granddaughter in the situation, your mom shouldn’t be giving the orders directly to her, as you’re acting as caretaker to both parties.
My mother just turned 63. I live three hours’ drive from her. She smokes, and has tried to quit several times; at this point, her smoking and drinking habits are not going to be something I’m going to moralize about, as they are her decision. However, if she ever started to hoard things like a packrat to the point where I would not be comfortable staying in her house for a few days, I would drive down and forcibly toss out anything that was garbage in the house, old light bulbs included. Thing is, at that point, I’d assume some sort of problem with caring for herself and offer to move her into our own house and encourage her to retire.
At this point, I think you need to actually sit down with your mother and explain to her that, by trying not to “inconvenience” you by waiting until she absolutely cannot wait any longer, she’s becoming a bigger nuisance. You also need to point out that her behavior is starting to really affect her relationship with you and your daughter. Does she really want her granddaughter to resent her because she refuses to do things in a manner that doesn’t cause a huge amount of stress on everyone involved?
Was she in the habit of creating emergencies for no reason when she was in good health? See if you can restrict the errands to once a week at a specified time and make it absolutely clear to her that her manipulative behavior is unacceptable and that she will follow the once-a-week guidelines because you are doing her a favor by doing them at all.
I agree with everything in your post except this part. Check out the thread on hoarders/clutterers and their families from MPSIMS; forcibly throwing out a hoarder’s stuff would probably create a very bad reaction due to the hoarder’s panic/guilt/shame.
Self-serving? Really? Self-serving is demanding that someone jump to help you meet the needs of your addiction which put you in situation you’re in. That’s self-serving. I’m a former smoker myself, so I can relate to the fact that it will be hard to quit, but let’s be honest here - if you’ve lived a lifestyle that’s led you to be entirely dependent on others to meet the “needs” of your addiction, THAT is what is self-serving, especially if you continue to perpetuate it. Its not anyone’s responsibility or obligation to help someone else do that.
I’ll end my hijack here. I feel for the OP, but personally I think it sounds like a little tough love may be warranted, no matter how “mean” it sounds. It’s clearly not going to stop otherwise.
I do plan on coming up with a weekly shopping time. I don’t think the emergencies will stop completly but it may cut them down quite a bit.
To make it clear I do not buy her cigarettes on a regular basis. She orders them online. This time the order was late so she was starting to panic that she would run out before her order arrived. She could have had a whole carton still at that point but she gets stressed out very easliy if she feels she has lost control of something.
Her way to deal was to have me buy her more making sure she was still in control. I am not sure if that makes sense but that is what it comes down to.
She does expect me to help her. If I flat out refused I am sure she would find a way but that would spill over to my children or my ex. That is just passing on the problem.
The problem with both of them is they feel all this is a just drama but they are not being affected as often as I am nor my daughter.
My ex lost his mother years ago so if my mom does ask him to do something he does it with out question. She does not call him but maybe six times a year so in his eyes that is not a real issue and maybe in reality it is not. But if I refused to do things for her it would become more often.
My son is the same. He does not drive so she would not call him since he can’t really go to the store for her other than maybe to the corner store. He lives about two blocks from her so he can walk there and then take it to her house. Again she does not do that very often so it not that big of a deal. He walks that way to work and back anyway so if she does call him to get her something it is ten minutes of his time. Again she does not call him often enough to make it a problem.
Again, I am going to come up with a day to do her errands. She is going to have to make sure she has all her ducks in a row for that day with probably one major trip a month since she only gets a check once a month.
My mother has always been manipulative and controlling. That is one reason I keep my distance from her. Other than running her errands and inviting her over for holidays and birthdays that is about the only contact I have with her.
I agree my daughter should not be involved and I take part of the blame for that. When she first got her license she had the “can I drive everywhere” syndrome that I think we all went through. So when my mom did need milk and bread I asked my daugher if she wanted to go. Of course she was thrilled to do it so she could drive. This advanced to the grocery store. That created two things. She was able to drive even further and she got grocery shopping skills. I mean she went shopping with me a lot but when you go alone you learn and pay attention to more.
So now I have a daughter that was running her errands 50% of the time and that took a lot of the burden off me. Then my mother started just calling my daughter directly to pick her up stuff instead of going through me.
My daughter does not mind picking her up stuff as I don’t but the emergencies are the issue.
Just because we are able bodied people that can drive does not mean we can drop everything when she suddenly needs something now because she procrastinated to the point that it is an emergency.
This is not an option as someone else already pointed out.
I posted a few times in that thread about hoarding. It is not as simple as you make it sound.
My mother ever living with me again is NOT an option. It has happened three times after I was a grown adult and we can not live together. I tried so hard the last time to not have her live with me. It ended up happening anyway as she had no job, her unemployment had run out and she was applying for disablity.
It was not pretty.
I have told her that waiting to ask for something does create a larger issue later. The plain fact is that does not seem to get it. “I don’t want to bother you” is what I hear everytime. So in her mind waiting until she really really needs something is her way of not bothering me. The part she does not get is that at that point I am out of any options other than coming to her aid right then and there. I can’t say I will stop by tomorrow or I can pick up tomorrow since she needs it now.
Of course in the situation in the OP she did not need the chips and dip now but since she needed the other items and I was at the store anyway why not tack on some other things.
To her is no different than asking to pick her up TP at the dollar store because she “needs” it and throwing in some scotch tape she does not need but since I am there anyway.
My poor daughter already resented her before she ever drove. My mother has always favored my son, which of course she denies, but even my son can see it. I think in a way my daughter thought of it as a way to prove to her grandmother that she is just, if not more, important in her life. In some ways it did make my mother see that my daughter is special in her own right. Unfortunatly these little emergencies have been starting to wear on her as much as they wear on me.
As I stated before I used to live next door to her so there were not really any emergencies per-se. She needed a light bulb changed, I lived next door. She needed some milk. I picked it up on the way home. In fact I had to draw a hard line back then as she started thinking of my place as an extension of hers. She walked in all the time without knocking. She would come over with the store ad and sit at the counter making her list without even asking if I was even going shopping etc. She assumed I was at her becking call and she butted her nose in my life a lot.
I had to draw the line at one point and finally told her she has no right to blend my life into hers. It created a rift but it was my way of breaking free of her controlling ways. I have had to keep that line there. I can’t even tell her if I have a problem because she will dive into it with all sorts of advice and so much of it that it snow balls. Then god forbid if I don’t follow it.
That is really a entire other subject and could be a thread on to itself.
I highjacked my own thread :o
I appreciate all the advice I have gotten so far. It has helped me take my anger and put it into prospective with some ideas to make some changes to at least aleve the problem on a whole.
I wanted to ad that I don’t think your opinions are really a highjack. You have a valid point.
It is selfish of her to cause anyone to jump to her needs no matter what they may be.
It would be controlling of me to refuse to buy them for her just because I am trying to force her to quit.
I think what DudleyGarrett was trying to say as at this point there is no way I am going to change her smoking or eating habits. Withholding them, refusing to buy them or replacing them with something that I feel is better for her would be a selfish act at this point.
My mother loved to play that game. If you don’t do X then I won’t do Y. It is a controlling game and I won’t play it with her anymore. She wants cigs fine, you want chips, fine. Just don’t make it a fucking emergency issue.
I think you need to get some perspective here. You live less than three blocks away from your mother, you run errands for her at least once a week, you invite her over for holidays and birthdays - and you call this keeping your distance??? I feel like I have a very close relationship with my mother, but we talk on the phone maybe 3 times a month and visit once or twice a year.
I would recommend pushing her to involve people other than you in her life. If she’s unable to walk or drive, look in to senior services that can run her damn errands. Organize some trips to activities of people in her age range with like interests so that she has some social contacts she talks to more than once a year. You shouldn’t be the center of her universe, nor she yours.
I find this to be a stunning twist on the reality of the situation. You’re not forcing her to do a damn thing. She’s being an unreasonable pain in the ass (consensus opinion I think) and you don’t want to “shop around for cheap cigs” at the last minute. So don’t.
I guess I should be more clear. I never contact her other than to invite her to Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, my son and daughters birthday. If it was up to me that is all I would deal with her. Four times a year. I do not call her to chat nor do I email her to chat. I could go for months and months with out speaking to her and it would not bother me in the least. I guess my distance is more of an emotional thing than a physical distance although I would have liked to move further away. I have no interest in her life at all.
She calls me and only when she needs something which is at least once a week. She does not drive nor can she walk anywhere. She has a ton of online friends which have become friends in real life but they live in other states. They have come to visit her several times but the majority of her friendships are online. She only has two old friends that she speaks to maybe once a year. Her one sister lives out of state and she is estranged from the other one.
She has other interests. She is not sitting around in a lonely house bored to death. She does plenty but it is all over the internet. She created and runs her own crime webpage which I could care less about but I am forced on visits to hear about. The only reason I even know as much as I do is because she thinks that I need or want to know. I don’t but she won’t shut up about it.
I never get a…
“Can you stop and get me milk and bread tomorrow”
I get…
“Can you get me milk and bread and this is what is going in my life for a three fucking long page email oh and can you get me chips too.”
I have become the master at reading what she really needs and skipping all the bullshit I don’t care about.
It sucks when she calls me or is in the actual room though as it is harder to escape.
I didn’t. When I wrote the OP she had not returned my email reply yet. I made her call around to find out where the cheapest cigs were and that was also a place on my way home.
She has already emailed me again today stating her cig order is still not in and asked me to pick her up more. Oh yeah and chips again as she has left over dip. Oh and she has $20 cash to give me when I drop off the cigs so when “whoever is going to the dollar store next trip, hopefully this weekend, she needs blah blah blah and thanks she appreciates it so much”
I think I am going to pick on of “don’t asks” choices. At least in prison I will have some peace.
So, you don’t have any kind of meaningful, emotional interactions with her (not a criticism, just making sure I understand). However, you still have all the shitty chores associated with her.
My advice is to go one way or the other. Find a way to develop or re-develop a rewarding emotional bond with her, which will make running her errands less stressful and more rewarding, or get her out of your life entirely and make her shopping the chore of someone who gets something back out of it (whether that something be love or a paycheck). Why have you not looked into home health care for the elderly?
So she needs you to go buy cigarettes again the next day? Does she really smoke that much, or is she amassing a huge stash of cigarettes “in case” she runs low, like many hoarders? If her internet order came in, would she even be able to find it?
I realize you have no desire to see her suffer, but bad behavior has to entail consequences. Her emergencies do not need to be yours. I also don’t like the idea of not buying her cigarettes to control her life choices, and I certainly don’t like withholding them as “punishment”, but if she waits until the last minute, that’s not really your problem. A few days without cigarettes won’t kill her, nor will cooking during the day because her kitchen light bulbs are out. Provide her with everything she needs once a week, and then only come over for REAL (i.e. life-threatening) emergencies.
AND STOP WORRYING ABOUT “PASSING ON” THE PROBLEM. It is not appropriate to let you mother be a jerk to you just so that she won’t be a jerk to someone else. Anyone else who your mother may contact has the same right and responsibility to set up boundaries as you do. And you have the same right to be free of your mother’s bullshit as they do. Stop taking on their burdens.
My grandmother used to be this way to me until I sat down and discussed it with her. She still tried to do it after that, but after every request, I considered it and thought “If I don’t do this now is she going to be in serious pain or discomfort?”
If the answer to that question was “no”, then it could goddamned, jolly-well wait until the next time I was out and about. She learned the lesson the hard way and we got along a lot better after that.
One poster had the idea that my grandma and I eventually came up with. Pick a day and time. Wednesday at 6pm. That is when we go out for what she needs, and she had better be sure she got everything she needed…