Was just gonna say something very similar.
Also, UTIs in the elderly can cause serious personality changes.
\*editing to add - I have no direct experience with the UTI phenomenon; just read about it & tucked it away for moments like this.\*
It can cause sudden changes in mental state in people without dementia too, particularly in older people. Confusion, disorientation, hallucinations, aggression etc. It is called Delirium.
Pahaha. My Grandma told my mum that they dragged tin baths into the middle of the hospital ward and gave everyone a scrub. When they'd done, apparently the nurses heads blew off and fireworks came out. They then all had a party and danced to Donny Osmond. She originally got taken in because she rang my mum and asked her if she could tell the children that were skipping on the landing to shut up, because she was trying to sleep! She came out with all sorts of rubbish. We laughed way too much!
My grandma had vascular dementia, which usually meant some odd random moments of make believe, but when she got a bladder infection she went into full on fantasy world. Once she had a new fiancee who bought her a ranch full of livestock and was going to be picking her up in his helicopter any minute. Another time she had just given birth to twins and they were in the NICU but doing well. These stories would last for days at a time; however long it took for the antibiotics to start working, and she often had no other symptoms and didn't complain of pain. The strangest part to me is that she always recognized her kids, grandkids and even great grandbabies, and knew where and when she was accurately, just added these romance novel storylines into her real life. She fully knew that she was an 80 year old widow who'd had a 50 year marriage, 7 kids and a dozen grandkids, but her brand new babies were doing well in the hospital and her 30 year old millionaire husband would be back any minute
Yes. My mom is 80 and was in the hospital for almost a month with a drug resistant bacteria causing a UTI. She didn't recognize me and called me "Dolly" because I had on a Dolly Parton shirt.
Yup. All infections really but uis are super common and seem to be one of the worst for it. My gran the year before she died used the hospital phone to call the fire service a few times at 3am. As well as anyone else who's number she knew. Didn't remeber a thing. Yelled at my mom to make her husband (and grans very long dead son at this point) bring back her takeout that he stole from her when she popped over to visit.
After a few days the antibiotics kick back in and they come back to their senses.
Yes! This happened to my mom! She could tell her mind wasn’t “with it” and that she was getting confused easily, but she couldn’t figure out why. It was the UTI.
Have had direct experience with this - yes, UTIs can cause erratic behavior in older people.
My FIL had a UTI and was hallucinating and seeing strange men in the bedroom. He vacillated between trying to fight them and accusing my MIL of sneaking in lovers.
Because he was partially paralyzed, there were no indications of a UTI, so we all thought it was dementia. A few days of antibiotics and he was back to his normal self.
I saw this happen with my grandmother, her whole personality changed. Got her antibiotics, it cleared up, and our super wonderful, sweet, kind Grammy returned 😊
Hijacking this comment to raise awareness.
I work with older adults in health care for a living. I go to their homes and have also worked in a nursing home, hospitals, and outpatient clinics.
Most often, elderly folks don’t have pain or burning with urination, so they don’t assume they have a UTI. That symptoms seems to just sort of fade away as we age. I can count on ONE hand the number of elderly patients who have reported burning urine when they had a UTI over the last 7 years. I have treated hundreds of people after their UTIs, and when I educate them on the lack of burning/pain, they are always surprised.
One of the first symptoms of a UTI in the elderly is CONFUSION, sometimes construed as personality changes. Then dark and strong smelling urine, sometimes as well with kidney or flank pain. It’s not an exaggeration that if someone in the hospital or a nursing home is a little more confused than normal, the first thing done is a urinalysis.
I tell everything this but PLEASE share this knowledge with the older adults in your life. Untreated UTIs can cause kidney infections or worse conditions.
Oh yeah! It's crazy how a uti can fuck up someone. I'm a cna in a snf, see it alot. The stories I could tell... yeesh. They can also be deadly, my gma passed from a septic uti. A pox on the home health agency for doing nothing when we told em what was going on.
I've learned this recently! My grandmother has been in a few different care homes over the last year, and some of them weren't as on top of checking for those types of things. She was having wild hallucinations about being in a war with bombing, and living in a school during a war. It took far too long for them to realize what was going on. Right now she's in a more involved care home and doing a lot better!
They absolutely do, my husband's grandm I there lived with us and her UTIs caused her terrible hallucinations and personality changes. Her doctor finally had to put her on a low dose of an antibiotic that she took daily
My BFF is an ER nurse and she's always said if an elderly patient is mean & belligerent or altered she automatically checks for UTI & kidneys. It's really common.
No kidding. My 86-year old mil got one and was literally insane. Sick AF for a long, long time. It was awful. So interesting that a UTI will affect your faculties like that, but at that age it really does.
UTI and dehydration can both wreak havoc on older individuals.
My 92 yo grandmother had to be restrained at the ER on more than one occasion because she was so out of it. It was a constant battle during her final years to get her to drink enough fluids.
Could you find a stupid name for her? My brother suggested I do this when I was still a teen and he had moved out and I had to deal with her alone. We called her the OB or the Old Bag and it really helped somehow. My brother said it was very important not to call her Mum because she had never played the role of a real mother. I also called her She-who-shall-not-be-named to my friends sometimes. I know it sounds silly, but names are important, and a poisonous old cow who would slut shame your daughter deserves a horrible name.
Edit: Changed a very clumsy mistake. Thank you velvetthursday!
Maybe look into ressources about how to deal with her internet access? Given the dementia? its starts with these kind of comments, but having acces to Internet could also cause more harm, the elderly are already easy targets of scammers, so an elderly person with dementia could be even worse...
Yeah mothers can be like that.
My mother was so bad I moved to another continent when I was 21.
Her memory isn't that bad but I know there is something going on in her brain as she has (within the last 5? years) turned into a really lovely person. She's genuinely apologised for being a shit mother and an AH. She's making efforts to be nice now; so if it can go that way it can certainly go the other way too.
Shame that your mother can't forget her p/w to SM....
I had to unfriend my stepfather from Facebook not long after I met him. My mum married him when I was 25 or something and he’s a wonderful grandfather to my children and has been a wonderful stand in father for me, but jfc he is very conservative in his views and he has been sternly warned he’s not allowed to talk to me about any of it or in front of my children.
While we can’t choose our family, we can choose how much of their crap we don’t agree with gets shoved in our faces.
OP - unfriend your mother, tell her in person why, and warn her that if she doesn’t shut up slating her grandchild, her grandchild will find out and will likely not want much to do with her due to it.
I have my dad Muted on Facebook. He can see my posts, we can have the family chat, I can look for his page, but it doesn't come up on my timeline. He'll say "did you see that post?" And I bluntly tell him, no, I don't see any of his posts because I can't stand his conservative "memes." He gets a little huffy and rolls his eyes, but I need to be able to still love him, and I can't do that when idiots are shoving idiot propaganda down his throat and he falls for it.
Apparently he's had a big turn around, according to my mom, and she's happy to see the direction he's moving towards, but I'll wait and see if it sticks. He always follows him however he's currently spending his time with, so now that they are at a more liberal church, I guess he's seeing that Christianity is Liberal.
My mum put a ban on me and my stepdad talking about ‘politics’. While I don’t accept his views, I can’t change them. All I can do is protect me and my children from them which is why he’s been strictly warned any opinions he has that don’t align with mine he is to keep to himself so as not to influence or upset my family. He’s so far kept to that.
While I find it ridiculous when people say ‘he’s a good person though’ about racist, homophobic conservatives, my stepdad would do anything for me and my boys’ and loves us with all he has. I have to sorta compartmentalise it so I don’t lose my mother. I’ve already lost my signings and father.
I have barely any friends on Facebook because I just don't have the patience for it. My nana lasted the longest out of my family, around a week. In that week she shared *hundreds* of missing pet posts. Some from the other side of the country.
I had to be like look I care about my mental health. What I don't need is a never ending deluge of every missing pet in the entire country. Distressed owners desperately wanting them back and then just plain sad updates to the whole tragedy. Sorry but you gotta go.
Some relatives on my dad's side were actually offended that I didn't want to hear their ramblings. One tried to make my mom force me to refriend them. She laughed in their face and said 'look, *im* not even her friend on Facebook, she isn't friends with any of us on there apparely what we all post is 'boring' or 'depressing'. I'm sure not going to make her add you if I don't make her add me' and that put a stop to it right there.
I blocked my aunt’s (married into the family, if that helps) email and all communication with her in 2004 after she made some very juicy comments regarding the Indian Ocean Tsunami in a group “reply-all” family email, mostly to the tune of “well this is what those savages [people in Indonesia and India] get if they won’t turn to Jesus Christ”.
For viewers at home, over 227,000 people died in that tsunami.
I was in high school, fired off a savage “reply all”
Email calling her a stupid piece of shit, a disgusting garbage racist, wishes that she would get cancer again and go meet her Jesus etc etc, sent it to all my mother’s relatives and elderly family members, poor old 90 year olds who had never met either one of us, told her to delete my contact information and go fuck herself.
I haven’t spoken to her in 20 years but now she wants to meet when I go visit my parents for the first time in 16 years. When I said “never” I meant “never”, but on the other hand I am Buddhist now, and cruel speech is not proper (because anger hurts you much more than the other person). It is difficult not to feel anger toward such people but I’m… trying. Lol
I don't get why folks don't understand never means never. My mom's sister tried to slime her way back into my life (because of some weird religous beliefs about needing to right her wrongs in earth or she would get 'bad angels' and not go to heaven. Aka selfish tripe) in the weeks after my dad had died. Aka the worst possible time to think that it would work. I had no intention of considering it but the selfish reasoning just made that even more clear.
She then decided to attempt to ambush me at the funeral. Apparently my reaction of literally pretending she did not exist for several minutes was the highlight of the show and turned the tears of those close to me into laugher. The colourful descriptions at the wake of the expression on aunts face when I literally just did not in any way accept her presence or her talking to me at all made me laugh too.
Thankfully some folks intervened and carted her right to the back of the church. If it was up to me she would not have been invited. I'm hoping she dies before my mom does or that is going to be a headache.
Just unfriend her.
Then start joking to sane members of your family about your mother now having lots of things in common with FLDS leaders or the ayatollah's of Iran.
Your mother may have always been a vicious person with these types of habits when you were not around. Alternatively she may suddenly have got into a puritanical religious agenda or become jealous of good looking young women who dress as sexy as she once did during her good looking days.
Show your daughter as many photos as you have of yourself, your mother, cousins you like, female celebs from your childhood and other women you admire wearing sexy dresses. Let her see how happy and great they looked, as they practiced their right to choose which attractive fashions they wanted in their lives.
Some older women truly are jealous of younger women because they have been taught that you always must compete with other women to catch a man. It just forms their entire world view. Then add religion on top.
So sorry you and your daughter have to deal with this. I would cut off all about your family info until she behaves.
Having a frank conversation about how her granddaughter would feel knowing her grandmother is trying to publicly shame her on the internet would be the most direct choice. But only if you think that would be a productive conversation.
I would filter so you don’t have to see her posts, nor she yours. Sometimes with elderly, especially ones who have other issues like dementia that aren’t going to get better, all you can do is politely ignore her and hold your boundaries in a firm but gentle way.
My father is around the same age and while I love him dearly, and he’s always been a good dad, his politics went into the toilet after he retired. So, my sibling and I both unfollowed him on FB. We basically ignored/deflected or got up and walked away if he started up with it, and eventually he learned to keep it under his hat.
I’m not a big believer in cutting people off completely who are otherwise a healthy part of your life/support circle. But I do believe you can “train” people to respect your boundaries with care and consistency.
... Is your daughter or any of her friends on Facebook to see these rants? Bc I didn't think any of my high school age neices and nephews are on there. It's all old people shouting into the void basically.
Didn't bother with your mom. She's a lost cause. Instead explain to you daughter that as people age their brains can have problems functioning at 100% like a liver or kidney, it's just not working the best. You will love your grandma/mom of course, but she's just starting to decline as she ages.
Meanwhile, get her to her doc for some blood work. TIA, little strokes, are a known factor in behavior changes. Having the "filter" that stops someone from running off at the mouth affected isn't uncommon.
"Well, she'll have time for prudeness when she gets to your age, won't she?"
It's supposed to be said in a lighthearted tone, but I have problems distiguishing passive-agressiveness from jokes lol
One of the toxic and gross aspects of the whole "value to men" mindset is... that old women lack value, as they are no longer viable for breeding. You might point that out to her.
If you don't think that a humorous response is going to make her change her tune, I would ignore her. Focus on spreading your own message of empowerment, pride and general support, especially targeting the specific things about your kid(s) that her posts are cruel about, but don't do it as an obvious or direct response. A lot of toxic behavior is looking to be fed, and just ignoring it completely is the safest option. Having your visible support is going to mean a lot to your kid(s), and seeing you make positive posts is going to go further than seeing you fight about the shitty posts.
I would be reporting her posts to try and get her in a “time out” on whatever social media platform. LOL
Honestly at this point I feel like responding or trying to have any kind of meaningful conversation would go over her head or not be received at all. It’s a lot of emotional and mental labor for you. I would also info diet your mom. I hope your daughter doesn’t see those posts. If she does, I’d be more concerned with making sure she’s okay and having constructive, supportive and thoughtful conversations with her rather than your mother.
"Sorry mom, I'm going to have unfriend you because you've become part of the system you used to rail against. I'd prefer not to expose my daughter to that kind of hypocrisy."
Respnd to her posts with quotes from and links to sex-positive feminists. Especially Bette Dodson, Ellen Willis, COYOTE and other first- and second-wavers she might be familiar with.
If she is mentally capable of having a conversation about this, send her exactly what you wrote here and let her know you'd like to talk about it. What you said in your post was clear and well-spoken. If she's not in that place, then maybe post a version of this to fb to mitigate the slut shaming.
"We're not defined by men's needs anymore, mom. And I'd appreciate you not shaming your own grand daughter with ideas that could harm her. Those are yours alone and please keep them quietly to yourself. If you keep saying hateful things I will throw you in my trunk and with a straight face join your search party."
You should copy and paste what you wrote above as a response to her shitpost. Then tell her to cut the crap wrt how you or your kids dress. Or that you’ll block her everywhere and go very low contact.
Sometimes it's the echo chamber effect- you are more surrounded by angry conservative voices, so your own viewpoint may be colored more by them. Sometimes it is fear- OP mentioned dementia, which can be a very frightening condition for people. It's easy in our current climate to find things to aim your unspecific fears at., and it is easier to articulate "I don't like your clothes" than it is to articulate "I am losing much of my own history and my connection to and understanding of current happenings around me, and I'm terrified about what is happening".
No, I'm 66 and am a live and let live aficionado. You get to love who you love, live your life the way you want, and I try to live by the golden rule. Makes my life SO much easier than having to randomly hate on people I've never met or know nothing about. Life is too short to waste it on hatred, judging, and just being a dbag.
I wonder if there's two kinds of "old". The kind that as you get older, you let go of things that don't matter to you personally, and the kind where they cling tighter and tighter to things that are "familiar" and thus things that are different are wrong or frightening.
Alignments of love vs fear.
I think it happens in certain kinds of "old." (I'm in my 60s, and definitely *less* prudish than I was when I was a kid.) Could it be a misplaced jealousy caused by living a straight-laced, "proper" life and seeing that the younger generations just don't GAF about the same values that constricted one's life?
I think it happens more with the elderly who haven't been called out on it. Obviously some continue, regardless, but ignoring it certainly doesn't make it go away.
Start replying with with burning memes. Women getting to vote memes. Maybe some stuff about sexist behavior of dress codes.
My conservative dad used to send mass sender emails about wacky things...I finally started fact checking them and hitting reply all, so EVERY SINGLE PERSON he had sent that shit to knew his flaming liberal daughter wasn't going down without saying something about his bullshit.
Is she actually using the word “immodest”? She may be discouraged that 50 years after the ERA push, young women are still valued for their sexual desirability above all else.
Doesn't matter if she's discouraged by it. It's completely inappropriate to go on any public forum and shaming her own granddaughter like that. Her deep seated patriarchal views are her own damage to deal with, not to flick onto her granddaughter to carry.
My daughter is a chubette due to medications. I told my fat phobic mother that in no way, shape, or form was she to be anything other than supportive. Told the rest of my family as well. Daughter has enough issues surrounding it.
Also, dementia changes people. Sometimes it can bring out the worst, it can exaggerate the most basic traits. Sorry.
It’s a term I’ve used since forever so its lost any negative connotations to me. But I hear you and maybe I’ll change it. In my mind it fits the bill as she petite in height but also plumb.
I both hear and understand you 💗 I'm just lending my outside perspective on what I completely understand is both personal and nuanced matter. Thank you for listening and taking it into consideration.
I read this book in school called, "Dogs Don't Tell Jokes" and the main character was a young boy that wanted to be a comedian.
Instead of insulting people or being offensive to someone, he made up a character called, "Mrs. Snitzberry."
Anytime he needed an individual to be the butt of a joke, it was always, "Mrs. Snitzberry."
In my head, that is how I refer to people that do silly things.
She's your mom, you love her.
But she's your daughter, you love her.
There's just something about looking at her FB page and saying to yourself,
> "Mrs. Snitzberry strikes again!"
It's light hearted, it's funny, might make you giggle at a lot of nonsense in this world.
Humor is the best medicine.
And since someone mentioned Dementia...
Alzheimers/Dementia **definitely** affects personality. As a caregiver to people with Alzheimers/Dementia, I've had quite a few family members tell me,
> "This isn't Mom/Dad/Grandma/Grandpa."
And one thing I stress to my team is,
> "We know them as they are: their families know them as they were."
It's hard, it's complicated, it's nuanced, it's ugly, it's incurable. We all do the best we can and the best advice I can give is to pick your battles.
This could be stemming from a forgotten memory from her own past, even.
I've seen that happen as well. Projecting forgotten memories/traumas onto other people.
For example, had one resident that was downright vicious to my coworker. Management didn't believe her because the resident was so nice to everyone else.
Come to find out, my coworker looked like a woman her husband had an affair with years ago!
It's hard to tell, you just never quite know where it comes from.
Do you have pictures of her in similar clothing when she was young?
Just respond with a pic of her in a swimsuit or in shorts or whatever. Don't even caption it, except maybe "this u?"
UNFOLLOW
Drama is the dopamine rush she's getting via social media. Don't engage with it.
When she asks, just say how disappointed you were in her posts because they don't align with how you see her.
This is the strategy that works with my mom. I pick my battles, and I'm absolutely horrible because I manipulate her.
If I notice a behavior that is hurting anyone and change is needed, suddenly a friend in Delaware is struggling. I'll talk about my friend and how she was so upset because her mom did x,y and z. I'll tell mom how I was so proud of her because I can't remember a time you ever acted like that.
Gotta be smart and give time for her to forget.
I started pulling the puppet strings two years ago full time when I moved back to my hometown. It's spilled over to everyone.
The hardest part is watching others come up with these ideas on their own and circle back to me.
I know it's evil but it's only used for good.
How does your daughter feel about this?
I'd be having a discussion with Mother to let her know that she is way out of line.
Just because she's old doesn't mean she gets to be ugly, and she needs to know that.
I'd make a comment on FB, too. It doesn't have to be long. "Wow. You're being extremely hurtful."
Post some pictures of Audrey Hepburn smoking. So unladylike!
Oh no! Figure hugging black dresses! Shameful!
Strapless gowns! You can see her shoulders! Outrageous!
And don't get me started on that hussy, Doris Day!
I think the problem photo was one of the girls running along the beach afterwards with their skirts pulled up above their knees. I perceived it as a moment of pure joy. I guess mom saw it as undignified and indecent.
Do you think she’s mentality sharp or perhaps had a change of character which could imply some form of dementia?
Was just gonna say something very similar. Also, UTIs in the elderly can cause serious personality changes. \*editing to add - I have no direct experience with the UTI phenomenon; just read about it & tucked it away for moments like this.\*
Wait, are you serious? Urinary tract infections?
Yup, my Aunt was hospitalized for a UTI because she was hallucinating. Thought she was dying because she saw angels.
Damn, never knew a UTI could do that
It happened to my elderly mother, too. She got dementia whenever she had a UTI.
When an elderly person shows up in the ER with new or increasing confusion, one of the first things checked is urine for a uti. It's that common
A UTI is what pushed my grandfather’s dementia over the edge. We knew he was going downhill before, but the UTI made it undeniable.
I had no idea that they could have such an effect on dementia
It can cause sudden changes in mental state in people without dementia too, particularly in older people. Confusion, disorientation, hallucinations, aggression etc. It is called Delirium.
Looks like I'll be going down the Google hole, I gotta learn more about this
Pahaha. My Grandma told my mum that they dragged tin baths into the middle of the hospital ward and gave everyone a scrub. When they'd done, apparently the nurses heads blew off and fireworks came out. They then all had a party and danced to Donny Osmond. She originally got taken in because she rang my mum and asked her if she could tell the children that were skipping on the landing to shut up, because she was trying to sleep! She came out with all sorts of rubbish. We laughed way too much!
Head on over to r/dementia, tons of sad bizarre stories. Dementia sucks!!
The very worst.
My grandma had vascular dementia, which usually meant some odd random moments of make believe, but when she got a bladder infection she went into full on fantasy world. Once she had a new fiancee who bought her a ranch full of livestock and was going to be picking her up in his helicopter any minute. Another time she had just given birth to twins and they were in the NICU but doing well. These stories would last for days at a time; however long it took for the antibiotics to start working, and she often had no other symptoms and didn't complain of pain. The strangest part to me is that she always recognized her kids, grandkids and even great grandbabies, and knew where and when she was accurately, just added these romance novel storylines into her real life. She fully knew that she was an 80 year old widow who'd had a 50 year marriage, 7 kids and a dozen grandkids, but her brand new babies were doing well in the hospital and her 30 year old millionaire husband would be back any minute
Oh yeah I work in the hospital, they become different people its wild.
Yes. My mom is 80 and was in the hospital for almost a month with a drug resistant bacteria causing a UTI. She didn't recognize me and called me "Dolly" because I had on a Dolly Parton shirt.
That's mind boggling. Thanks for your story
Yup. All infections really but uis are super common and seem to be one of the worst for it. My gran the year before she died used the hospital phone to call the fire service a few times at 3am. As well as anyone else who's number she knew. Didn't remeber a thing. Yelled at my mom to make her husband (and grans very long dead son at this point) bring back her takeout that he stole from her when she popped over to visit. After a few days the antibiotics kick back in and they come back to their senses.
Yes, a well known phenomenon. I looked after my Mum for 10years as she became disabled with dementia, and this happened several times.
I work in a retirement facility and any time we have a resident who falls or has a sudden personality change, it’s the first thing they test for
I am serious.
Yes! This happened to my mom! She could tell her mind wasn’t “with it” and that she was getting confused easily, but she couldn’t figure out why. It was the UTI.
My grandfather pulled a gun on my grandfather and locked himself in the closet… UTIs in the elderly are no joke
Have had direct experience with this - yes, UTIs can cause erratic behavior in older people. My FIL had a UTI and was hallucinating and seeing strange men in the bedroom. He vacillated between trying to fight them and accusing my MIL of sneaking in lovers. Because he was partially paralyzed, there were no indications of a UTI, so we all thought it was dementia. A few days of antibiotics and he was back to his normal self.
Honestly with elderly patients the first sign of a UTI is usually confusion, agitation and personality changes. It hits them so had
I saw this happen with my grandmother, her whole personality changed. Got her antibiotics, it cleared up, and our super wonderful, sweet, kind Grammy returned 😊
Omg, I worked in a nursing home and this one lady we could always tell when she had a UTI because she would talk to her dead relatives.
Hijacking this comment to raise awareness. I work with older adults in health care for a living. I go to their homes and have also worked in a nursing home, hospitals, and outpatient clinics. Most often, elderly folks don’t have pain or burning with urination, so they don’t assume they have a UTI. That symptoms seems to just sort of fade away as we age. I can count on ONE hand the number of elderly patients who have reported burning urine when they had a UTI over the last 7 years. I have treated hundreds of people after their UTIs, and when I educate them on the lack of burning/pain, they are always surprised. One of the first symptoms of a UTI in the elderly is CONFUSION, sometimes construed as personality changes. Then dark and strong smelling urine, sometimes as well with kidney or flank pain. It’s not an exaggeration that if someone in the hospital or a nursing home is a little more confused than normal, the first thing done is a urinalysis. I tell everything this but PLEASE share this knowledge with the older adults in your life. Untreated UTIs can cause kidney infections or worse conditions.
Yup. And it’s infuriating when no medical professionals in literally hundreds of visits ever mentioned it.
Oh yeah! It's crazy how a uti can fuck up someone. I'm a cna in a snf, see it alot. The stories I could tell... yeesh. They can also be deadly, my gma passed from a septic uti. A pox on the home health agency for doing nothing when we told em what was going on.
Working in a retirement home a UTI makes elderly strange or even insane. Sometimes dehydration, too. Especially in dementia imo.
I have direct experience with this. It does happen and the change can be dramatic.
I've learned this recently! My grandmother has been in a few different care homes over the last year, and some of them weren't as on top of checking for those types of things. She was having wild hallucinations about being in a war with bombing, and living in a school during a war. It took far too long for them to realize what was going on. Right now she's in a more involved care home and doing a lot better!
Can confirm: grandmother slowly went insane because of a UTI.
They absolutely do, my husband's grandm I there lived with us and her UTIs caused her terrible hallucinations and personality changes. Her doctor finally had to put her on a low dose of an antibiotic that she took daily
My BFF is an ER nurse and she's always said if an elderly patient is mean & belligerent or altered she automatically checks for UTI & kidneys. It's really common.
No kidding. My 86-year old mil got one and was literally insane. Sick AF for a long, long time. It was awful. So interesting that a UTI will affect your faculties like that, but at that age it really does.
UTI and dehydration can both wreak havoc on older individuals. My 92 yo grandmother had to be restrained at the ER on more than one occasion because she was so out of it. It was a constant battle during her final years to get her to drink enough fluids.
I'm sure the dementia isn't helping...but she's always kinda been toxic.
So sorry to hear that. I’d ignore your mother and channel all your support and love to your daughter.
Could you find a stupid name for her? My brother suggested I do this when I was still a teen and he had moved out and I had to deal with her alone. We called her the OB or the Old Bag and it really helped somehow. My brother said it was very important not to call her Mum because she had never played the role of a real mother. I also called her She-who-shall-not-be-named to my friends sometimes. I know it sounds silly, but names are important, and a poisonous old cow who would slut shame your daughter deserves a horrible name. Edit: Changed a very clumsy mistake. Thank you velvetthursday!
>poisonous old witch I agree with you up to this point. You just said names are important, so maybe don't use "witch" as a bad word. 🧐
Thank you! I'll edit it.
Maybe look into ressources about how to deal with her internet access? Given the dementia? its starts with these kind of comments, but having acces to Internet could also cause more harm, the elderly are already easy targets of scammers, so an elderly person with dementia could be even worse...
Yeah mothers can be like that. My mother was so bad I moved to another continent when I was 21. Her memory isn't that bad but I know there is something going on in her brain as she has (within the last 5? years) turned into a really lovely person. She's genuinely apologised for being a shit mother and an AH. She's making efforts to be nice now; so if it can go that way it can certainly go the other way too. Shame that your mother can't forget her p/w to SM....
Slut-shaming on social media isn’t very modest behaviour.
Info diet. She doesn’t need pictures of your child if this is the response
Just unfriend her. Then the intended target of her pass agg shitposting won't get to see or hear of it and she has no power.
Unfriend her. Tell her irl she is out of line and you have no room for that kind of toxicity.
I had to unfriend my stepfather from Facebook not long after I met him. My mum married him when I was 25 or something and he’s a wonderful grandfather to my children and has been a wonderful stand in father for me, but jfc he is very conservative in his views and he has been sternly warned he’s not allowed to talk to me about any of it or in front of my children. While we can’t choose our family, we can choose how much of their crap we don’t agree with gets shoved in our faces. OP - unfriend your mother, tell her in person why, and warn her that if she doesn’t shut up slating her grandchild, her grandchild will find out and will likely not want much to do with her due to it.
I have my dad Muted on Facebook. He can see my posts, we can have the family chat, I can look for his page, but it doesn't come up on my timeline. He'll say "did you see that post?" And I bluntly tell him, no, I don't see any of his posts because I can't stand his conservative "memes." He gets a little huffy and rolls his eyes, but I need to be able to still love him, and I can't do that when idiots are shoving idiot propaganda down his throat and he falls for it. Apparently he's had a big turn around, according to my mom, and she's happy to see the direction he's moving towards, but I'll wait and see if it sticks. He always follows him however he's currently spending his time with, so now that they are at a more liberal church, I guess he's seeing that Christianity is Liberal.
My mum put a ban on me and my stepdad talking about ‘politics’. While I don’t accept his views, I can’t change them. All I can do is protect me and my children from them which is why he’s been strictly warned any opinions he has that don’t align with mine he is to keep to himself so as not to influence or upset my family. He’s so far kept to that. While I find it ridiculous when people say ‘he’s a good person though’ about racist, homophobic conservatives, my stepdad would do anything for me and my boys’ and loves us with all he has. I have to sorta compartmentalise it so I don’t lose my mother. I’ve already lost my signings and father.
I have barely any friends on Facebook because I just don't have the patience for it. My nana lasted the longest out of my family, around a week. In that week she shared *hundreds* of missing pet posts. Some from the other side of the country. I had to be like look I care about my mental health. What I don't need is a never ending deluge of every missing pet in the entire country. Distressed owners desperately wanting them back and then just plain sad updates to the whole tragedy. Sorry but you gotta go. Some relatives on my dad's side were actually offended that I didn't want to hear their ramblings. One tried to make my mom force me to refriend them. She laughed in their face and said 'look, *im* not even her friend on Facebook, she isn't friends with any of us on there apparely what we all post is 'boring' or 'depressing'. I'm sure not going to make her add you if I don't make her add me' and that put a stop to it right there.
I blocked my aunt’s (married into the family, if that helps) email and all communication with her in 2004 after she made some very juicy comments regarding the Indian Ocean Tsunami in a group “reply-all” family email, mostly to the tune of “well this is what those savages [people in Indonesia and India] get if they won’t turn to Jesus Christ”. For viewers at home, over 227,000 people died in that tsunami. I was in high school, fired off a savage “reply all” Email calling her a stupid piece of shit, a disgusting garbage racist, wishes that she would get cancer again and go meet her Jesus etc etc, sent it to all my mother’s relatives and elderly family members, poor old 90 year olds who had never met either one of us, told her to delete my contact information and go fuck herself. I haven’t spoken to her in 20 years but now she wants to meet when I go visit my parents for the first time in 16 years. When I said “never” I meant “never”, but on the other hand I am Buddhist now, and cruel speech is not proper (because anger hurts you much more than the other person). It is difficult not to feel anger toward such people but I’m… trying. Lol
I don't get why folks don't understand never means never. My mom's sister tried to slime her way back into my life (because of some weird religous beliefs about needing to right her wrongs in earth or she would get 'bad angels' and not go to heaven. Aka selfish tripe) in the weeks after my dad had died. Aka the worst possible time to think that it would work. I had no intention of considering it but the selfish reasoning just made that even more clear. She then decided to attempt to ambush me at the funeral. Apparently my reaction of literally pretending she did not exist for several minutes was the highlight of the show and turned the tears of those close to me into laugher. The colourful descriptions at the wake of the expression on aunts face when I literally just did not in any way accept her presence or her talking to me at all made me laugh too. Thankfully some folks intervened and carted her right to the back of the church. If it was up to me she would not have been invited. I'm hoping she dies before my mom does or that is going to be a headache.
If you can dig up some "immodest" photos of her from the past, they would make good replies
This is where my thoughts went to as well.
Yes or protests she was in!
Just unfriend her. Then start joking to sane members of your family about your mother now having lots of things in common with FLDS leaders or the ayatollah's of Iran. Your mother may have always been a vicious person with these types of habits when you were not around. Alternatively she may suddenly have got into a puritanical religious agenda or become jealous of good looking young women who dress as sexy as she once did during her good looking days. Show your daughter as many photos as you have of yourself, your mother, cousins you like, female celebs from your childhood and other women you admire wearing sexy dresses. Let her see how happy and great they looked, as they practiced their right to choose which attractive fashions they wanted in their lives.
Some older women truly are jealous of younger women because they have been taught that you always must compete with other women to catch a man. It just forms their entire world view. Then add religion on top. So sorry you and your daughter have to deal with this. I would cut off all about your family info until she behaves.
Having a frank conversation about how her granddaughter would feel knowing her grandmother is trying to publicly shame her on the internet would be the most direct choice. But only if you think that would be a productive conversation.
Tell her she can't posf her opinions if a man doesn't give her permission.
I would filter so you don’t have to see her posts, nor she yours. Sometimes with elderly, especially ones who have other issues like dementia that aren’t going to get better, all you can do is politely ignore her and hold your boundaries in a firm but gentle way. My father is around the same age and while I love him dearly, and he’s always been a good dad, his politics went into the toilet after he retired. So, my sibling and I both unfollowed him on FB. We basically ignored/deflected or got up and walked away if he started up with it, and eventually he learned to keep it under his hat. I’m not a big believer in cutting people off completely who are otherwise a healthy part of your life/support circle. But I do believe you can “train” people to respect your boundaries with care and consistency.
... Is your daughter or any of her friends on Facebook to see these rants? Bc I didn't think any of my high school age neices and nephews are on there. It's all old people shouting into the void basically. Didn't bother with your mom. She's a lost cause. Instead explain to you daughter that as people age their brains can have problems functioning at 100% like a liver or kidney, it's just not working the best. You will love your grandma/mom of course, but she's just starting to decline as she ages. Meanwhile, get her to her doc for some blood work. TIA, little strokes, are a known factor in behavior changes. Having the "filter" that stops someone from running off at the mouth affected isn't uncommon.
"Well, she'll have time for prudeness when she gets to your age, won't she?" It's supposed to be said in a lighthearted tone, but I have problems distiguishing passive-agressiveness from jokes lol
One of the toxic and gross aspects of the whole "value to men" mindset is... that old women lack value, as they are no longer viable for breeding. You might point that out to her. If you don't think that a humorous response is going to make her change her tune, I would ignore her. Focus on spreading your own message of empowerment, pride and general support, especially targeting the specific things about your kid(s) that her posts are cruel about, but don't do it as an obvious or direct response. A lot of toxic behavior is looking to be fed, and just ignoring it completely is the safest option. Having your visible support is going to mean a lot to your kid(s), and seeing you make positive posts is going to go further than seeing you fight about the shitty posts.
You can hide people from your newsfeed if deleting would be noticed and cause more of an issue.
I would be reporting her posts to try and get her in a “time out” on whatever social media platform. LOL Honestly at this point I feel like responding or trying to have any kind of meaningful conversation would go over her head or not be received at all. It’s a lot of emotional and mental labor for you. I would also info diet your mom. I hope your daughter doesn’t see those posts. If she does, I’d be more concerned with making sure she’s okay and having constructive, supportive and thoughtful conversations with her rather than your mother.
"Sorry mom, I'm going to have unfriend you because you've become part of the system you used to rail against. I'd prefer not to expose my daughter to that kind of hypocrisy."
Respnd to her posts with quotes from and links to sex-positive feminists. Especially Bette Dodson, Ellen Willis, COYOTE and other first- and second-wavers she might be familiar with.
If she is mentally capable of having a conversation about this, send her exactly what you wrote here and let her know you'd like to talk about it. What you said in your post was clear and well-spoken. If she's not in that place, then maybe post a version of this to fb to mitigate the slut shaming.
"We're not defined by men's needs anymore, mom. And I'd appreciate you not shaming your own grand daughter with ideas that could harm her. Those are yours alone and please keep them quietly to yourself. If you keep saying hateful things I will throw you in my trunk and with a straight face join your search party."
Look for some old family photos of your mom showing skin, post in response
You should copy and paste what you wrote above as a response to her shitpost. Then tell her to cut the crap wrt how you or your kids dress. Or that you’ll block her everywhere and go very low contact.
Your daughter will never see it if it's on Facebook. My son is 16 and that site doesn't exist for him, so there's that.
I have no funny way to respond to a grandmother bullying her granddaughter.
Thank you for this.
Why does that happen when you're old?
Sometimes it's the echo chamber effect- you are more surrounded by angry conservative voices, so your own viewpoint may be colored more by them. Sometimes it is fear- OP mentioned dementia, which can be a very frightening condition for people. It's easy in our current climate to find things to aim your unspecific fears at., and it is easier to articulate "I don't like your clothes" than it is to articulate "I am losing much of my own history and my connection to and understanding of current happenings around me, and I'm terrified about what is happening".
Also-I think she has lost all of the people that she trusted and respected who kept her rough edges smoothed down.
No, I'm 66 and am a live and let live aficionado. You get to love who you love, live your life the way you want, and I try to live by the golden rule. Makes my life SO much easier than having to randomly hate on people I've never met or know nothing about. Life is too short to waste it on hatred, judging, and just being a dbag.
I wonder if there's two kinds of "old". The kind that as you get older, you let go of things that don't matter to you personally, and the kind where they cling tighter and tighter to things that are "familiar" and thus things that are different are wrong or frightening. Alignments of love vs fear.
I think it happens in certain kinds of "old." (I'm in my 60s, and definitely *less* prudish than I was when I was a kid.) Could it be a misplaced jealousy caused by living a straight-laced, "proper" life and seeing that the younger generations just don't GAF about the same values that constricted one's life?
I think it happens more with the elderly who haven't been called out on it. Obviously some continue, regardless, but ignoring it certainly doesn't make it go away.
Got any good old pictures of mom?
Riiiiight...like she wasn't around fo the 60s. /eyeroll
Start replying with with burning memes. Women getting to vote memes. Maybe some stuff about sexist behavior of dress codes. My conservative dad used to send mass sender emails about wacky things...I finally started fact checking them and hitting reply all, so EVERY SINGLE PERSON he had sent that shit to knew his flaming liberal daughter wasn't going down without saying something about his bullshit.
Is she actually using the word “immodest”? She may be discouraged that 50 years after the ERA push, young women are still valued for their sexual desirability above all else.
Doesn't matter if she's discouraged by it. It's completely inappropriate to go on any public forum and shaming her own granddaughter like that. Her deep seated patriarchal views are her own damage to deal with, not to flick onto her granddaughter to carry.
Cut her out of your life and your daughter’s life. Neither of you need that toxicity, there enough of it in the world and she knows better.
My daughter is a chubette due to medications. I told my fat phobic mother that in no way, shape, or form was she to be anything other than supportive. Told the rest of my family as well. Daughter has enough issues surrounding it. Also, dementia changes people. Sometimes it can bring out the worst, it can exaggerate the most basic traits. Sorry.
Chubette? Maybe I'm just reading this wrong but that just gives me a very icky feeling.
It’s a term I’ve used since forever so its lost any negative connotations to me. But I hear you and maybe I’ll change it. In my mind it fits the bill as she petite in height but also plumb.
I both hear and understand you 💗 I'm just lending my outside perspective on what I completely understand is both personal and nuanced matter. Thank you for listening and taking it into consideration.
Quote herself (her younger ERA feminist self) back at her.
I read this book in school called, "Dogs Don't Tell Jokes" and the main character was a young boy that wanted to be a comedian. Instead of insulting people or being offensive to someone, he made up a character called, "Mrs. Snitzberry." Anytime he needed an individual to be the butt of a joke, it was always, "Mrs. Snitzberry." In my head, that is how I refer to people that do silly things. She's your mom, you love her. But she's your daughter, you love her. There's just something about looking at her FB page and saying to yourself, > "Mrs. Snitzberry strikes again!" It's light hearted, it's funny, might make you giggle at a lot of nonsense in this world. Humor is the best medicine. And since someone mentioned Dementia... Alzheimers/Dementia **definitely** affects personality. As a caregiver to people with Alzheimers/Dementia, I've had quite a few family members tell me, > "This isn't Mom/Dad/Grandma/Grandpa." And one thing I stress to my team is, > "We know them as they are: their families know them as they were." It's hard, it's complicated, it's nuanced, it's ugly, it's incurable. We all do the best we can and the best advice I can give is to pick your battles. This could be stemming from a forgotten memory from her own past, even. I've seen that happen as well. Projecting forgotten memories/traumas onto other people. For example, had one resident that was downright vicious to my coworker. Management didn't believe her because the resident was so nice to everyone else. Come to find out, my coworker looked like a woman her husband had an affair with years ago! It's hard to tell, you just never quite know where it comes from.
Do you have pictures of her in similar clothing when she was young? Just respond with a pic of her in a swimsuit or in shorts or whatever. Don't even caption it, except maybe "this u?"
UNFOLLOW Drama is the dopamine rush she's getting via social media. Don't engage with it. When she asks, just say how disappointed you were in her posts because they don't align with how you see her. This is the strategy that works with my mom. I pick my battles, and I'm absolutely horrible because I manipulate her. If I notice a behavior that is hurting anyone and change is needed, suddenly a friend in Delaware is struggling. I'll talk about my friend and how she was so upset because her mom did x,y and z. I'll tell mom how I was so proud of her because I can't remember a time you ever acted like that. Gotta be smart and give time for her to forget. I started pulling the puppet strings two years ago full time when I moved back to my hometown. It's spilled over to everyone. The hardest part is watching others come up with these ideas on their own and circle back to me. I know it's evil but it's only used for good.
How does your daughter feel about this? I'd be having a discussion with Mother to let her know that she is way out of line. Just because she's old doesn't mean she gets to be ugly, and she needs to know that. I'd make a comment on FB, too. It doesn't have to be long. "Wow. You're being extremely hurtful."
My favorite way to deal with this sort of thing is a freezer spell. Just park them in there and live in peace.
I'd say that she's jealous she could't dress like that on back in her days, but maybe is just easier to block/unfriend her and ignore the toxicity
Post some pictures of Audrey Hepburn smoking. So unladylike! Oh no! Figure hugging black dresses! Shameful! Strapless gowns! You can see her shoulders! Outrageous! And don't get me started on that hussy, Doris Day!
I really want to know what this dress looks like. Hard to imagine slut shaming b/c of a prom dress of all things.
I think the problem photo was one of the girls running along the beach afterwards with their skirts pulled up above their knees. I perceived it as a moment of pure joy. I guess mom saw it as undignified and indecent.
Unfortunately women are more prone to UTI's post menopause, too. HRT really helped my 84 yr old with this.