I'm exasperated with my elderly mom. She used to live with my sister, her husband and two kids in the US. I'm in Mexico with my partner on a small homestead. Unbeknown to me it wasn't working with my sister. I know my mom is a difficult character. They more or less threw her out and I picked up the pieces helping her sort her life out. Neither my sister, her kids nor my other sister or her son speak to my mom any more. She's also fallen out with her only cousin.I offered my mom to come here, but since our place is only one bed she could stay in an apartment locally or live on site in our large and comfy 5th wheeler with all mod cons. She wanted to be on site so she could help in the homestead, with the vegetable garden, be in nature etc etc.I said she'd need to be competent on her phone as it's her only link to the outside world, plus she'd need to look after herself and be independent. Our terrain isn't suitable for someone with poor mobility.She's been her six months and I've got no more emotional energy left. She sits inside all day for days, does nothing, then I tell her to go for a walk and do some exercise and the next day she's out trying to walk miles to the nearest village. It's one extreme to the next. Then I have to talk to her about moderation and pacing and she's in tears and the victim and I'm the bad guy. She wears a fleece, heavy jeans and hat in 75F and I suggest she change clothes and gets some sun and then she's out with no protection, suncream, hat, or drink in 95F midday sun for hours and I have to tell her to go inside and we have tears again because I tell her she's being irresponsible. She's a university educated and professional woman. Because she said she wanted to participate in the garden, I gave her her own small 2mx2m area for pleasure and experimenting, but she did less than zero over three months and it lay empty, so when I brought it up she was out the next day for hours in inclement weather, until after dark and I have to intervene. Then everything was a struggle... the hosepipe is too heavy, the nozzle won't turn, the watering can won't do, the fence is too difficult to open.. what I'm trying to say is that everything was a struggle and she constantly complained, huffed and puffed, so we took the area off her hands and then there was a huge drama because she loved doing the garden and is devastated because it's been confiscated. Nothing is right... The leaves falling off the trees, the pollen on her car, the dirt on the ground. I live in the countryside. She wanted to come here.Her van has a cassette container for black water that needs emptying and I discovered she's going out into the garden to the toilet, and during the night. I confronted her and she lied to my face. We have snakes and predators. It isn't safe. She refuses to shower. She's emotional about missing the family when we were all kids 40 years ago. I suggested counselling. She gets mad. I realise she has used me as an emotional support for decades. As a teenager she'd tell me she wished she'd never met my father. She'd say she was leaving us and then nothing was ever mentioned again and I'd be left wondering. When I was eleven she said she might have cancer and then it was never mentioned again and I wondered for years if she was ok. In my twenties she'd offload about my father.. he's a coward, he's a liar, etc.She wrote me a suicide note last year and told me she had had enough and was going to end it. Then when I panicked and responded to it, she said she didn't mean it and I was being silly.I don't know how to deal with the her and wonder whether the deliberate neglect is attention seeking behaviour to draw me into a conversation. I'm unable to reason with her as everything is turned round where she is the victim and she is being blamed.
Your mom and my mom are probably long-lost sisters. I found the book "Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents" by Lindsay Gibson. It shed much light on my upbringing. Can't change the past, but you betcha' my kids will not have to go through the same #@×! show I and my siblings did!
I agree with the others weighing in - you've given it more than anyone can be expected to give. Time for mom to move back to the USA (preferably), or an assisted living apartment in your country.
Wishing you the best in an unfortunate situation.
All the behaviors you described are Classic Dementia 101:
1. Sitting inside all day doing nothing, until it gets mentioned.
2. Not dressing properly for weather conditions.
3. Using outside to toilet at night. Seriously?
4. Lack of regular and normal adult hygiene.
5, Claiming she wants a project, blowing it off, then over dramatizing.
6. Drains a normal person's emotional energy, like a blood sucking vampire.
7. Cries to avoid responsibility, or create a guilt trip (do avoid doing anything but sit all day).
8. Avoids doing anything for herself any way she can, to get waited on.
9. Overreacts to the slightest criticism.
She can be a Phd. and still have serious cognitive decline, dementia, Alzheimers or has had a mini stroke. Until she gets a CT scan of her brain for a diagnosis, nobody will know for sure. You must be present at any medical appt. or will hear lies.
Add that to a manipulative personality, you've got a real problem on your hands.
There's a REASON the other family members have cut her off. Have you directly asked them why?
To be honest, that sounds like an amazing life for an older woman, in many ways. I wish I was your mother, but you can't change her. The old saying about leading a horse to water, but you can't make them drink.
Your not going to change your mom, I think it's time to send her back to, US so you and your family can live this amazing life you built.
She wants to be 'babied' but also treated like a competent adult at the same time. Life doesn't work that way though.
You and your family live a rural life. Your mother cannot cope in that life.
So really you should send her back to the United States or she can get an apartment in town in Mexico. You are not responsible for her. Don't let yourself be guilt-tripped and manipulated into thinking you are.
Stop playing her cute little manipulative games too. Like she does nothing in her plot of garden for three months and then gets out there in the worst weather, so you have to go and intervene. No you don't and you shouldn't have.
You warned her about going to the bathroom in the garden at night. Yet she lies about it and does it anyway. Well, if a rattlesnake or a coyote bites her in the a$$ that's on her, not you.
From what you say here, your mother sounds like a very manipulative person who's never actually been responsible for anything or anyone including herself her whole life. She has through head games, guilt-trips, histrionics and manipulation gotten others to rescue and take care of her all her life.
If you love your mother, and I think you do, do her the greatest favor anyone can give her. Force her to be responsible for herself. If she doesn't like where she is, she can find herself somewhere else to go. If she wants to stay where she is, you stop running to rescue her.
You can help her some if you want to, but don't rescue her from herself and stop playing her games.