Toxic Elderly Parents

Dr. Forward’s description of “The Physical Abusers: Incapable of controlling their own deep-seated rage, they often blame their children for their own ungovernable behavior” … brings to mind the moment I realized my mother blamed me for her inability to love me and hated me for it.

Hi , this is my first time talking about this and still I am having a hard time believing it took me 56 years to realize or i should say see the mom for who she really is . I blocked out 56 years of abuse and now I can not see amything in her eyes but hatred , disrespect, manipulative, lies, and does what ever she has to do to make others look bad and herself to play a victim even if means throwing your children away like trash. Growing up was hard my mom was always sick and… Read more »

I have a mother who has the appearance of normalcy but is truly a mean monster. She is jealous of any success myself or sisters have and our children. She is now in a nursing home and threatened my sister with police since she has control of her meager banking now (huge debt included). Says we are leaving her there to rot. She falls constantly and still goes outside to smoke, fell out there. Thinks she is fine to leave nursing home on her own, called her landlady and told her she was coming back. She has a cycle of… Read more »

Thanks for this article–very helpful. I had two parents who were severe withholders. The verbal abuse was there, the physical neglect, malignant narcissism, but the withholding was profound. I felt invisible.

My father died 2 years ago. I have been there for my mum and helped her in every possible way that I can. She is a drinker but not a drunk. Last week she was trying to goad me into an argument. I resisted but then she started to have a go about my daughter. I did retaliate but not shout or swear. She came at me with her fists, hatred in her eyes, swearing at me then threatened to grow boiling water at me. Since then she has made up a lie about a text that she says I… Read more »

Now that you are an adult … Do your parents still treat you like a child? Do you have intense emotional or physical reactions after spending time with your parents? Do your parents control you with threats or guilt trips? Do you feel like no matter what you do, it’s never good enough for your parents? Yes! this is what I deal with on a daily basis. The sad thing is I live with my mother and do not have the funds at this time to move….I will however, make this my primary focus for the first part of this… Read more »

I am 43 and I slowly but surely start to believe that my 67 years old mother is Narcissistic. I only saw her toxicity recently. It took me that long to realised?! She pulled me down in my life and criticised me countlessly of times. Burned my leg and arm with the hot iron while she was ironing my school uniform for a bad behaviour of shortening the hem of my skirt. It didn’t help that my father walked out on us when I was 6years old. I was the only child she had and she controlled all aspects of… Read more »

I would love the opportunity to talk to someone about the situation I am living with right now. It’s unbearable.

Wow, I didn’t realize how many people have these issues in common. I am back here because I saw a reply to my post here months ago. I’d forgotten I’d even posted it. Sadly, nothing has changed about my father. He’s had no contact with me even though my husband, as we speak, is in a nursing home dying of cancer. Could sure use my Dad’s love and care right now, but he doesn’t have it for me anymore. He’s only interested in his women friends. That’s fine. He just might end up dying alone and penniless. He need not… Read more »

I’ll save you the gory parental details. What I can say to anyone in dealing with toxic elderly parents is that spending some time figuring out how you can name and then defend certain non negotiable boundaries for yourself, spouse, kids, etc is the first step in surviving this nonsense with your self respect and integrity intact.

I was born with ADHD which was not diagnosed until I was an adult and, because of it as well as my poor coordination and clumsiness, suffered peer rejection, verbal and emotional abuse, bullying and teasing from kids and society. I now have (untreated) ADHD, AvPD, along with some bipolar and OCD. Unfortunately my parents also played a negative role in my childhood. My mother would constantly yell at me, call me names, accuse me, and often embarrassed me publicly. Mother has always been in denial of what she has done, and fits the bills of “controller” and “verbal abuser.”… Read more »

I have a 64 year old father who indirectly killed my mother. Years of abuse and terror, my mother developed a fatal illness and passed a way last year. Leaving my father. He is an alcoholic, abuses drugs and is sexually deranged. He lives a life that we as his children cannot be apart of. Its dangerous and unhealthy, yet even now at 64 he doesn’t show any signs of changing/calming down. My mother divorced him a couple of month before she passed and left explicit directions that her house was to be sold with the strict priority my father… Read more »

Here I go again, Okay my step father of over 27 years has passed. He passed away in March. My mom acts like it is a big relief. She even acts happy. She told me he drained her emotionally. It is just my sister and I to look after her. She does not drive or want to go anywhere other than the casino. She walks very little before she needs to rest. She is not in the best health. She is 79. My mom does not want my sister and I to have a relationship. My mom is very manipulative.… Read more »

Unless you’ve been through it, you will never know how vicious your own parents can become. My father, who was once rock-solid and responsible, suddenly turned into an 80 year old 17 year old boy. He did nothing but chase women (of all ages), tell lies, had a restraining order taken out on him by a ‘girlfriend’, turned all his assets over to his sister, and then have a lawyer send me a letter to leave him alone when I was trying to help him see that he was going to get seriously hurt by his risk-taking behaviors. I am… Read more »

It’s hard to believe that our elderly parents can be abusive given their condition that they are aging, fragile and weak. But the truth is, this happens and the worst part is this, we just don’t hear about it unlike when they are the victims of abuse. I’ve written a guest post about this, thinking that it’s about time to discuss this issue openly and encourage caregivers who are victims of elderly abuse to speak up. You can read the post here: http://thecaregiversvoice.com/tips-caregivers/caregiving-woes-abuse-of-the-caregiver/. I’ve discussed different ways to deal with this kind of abuse and one is to avoid retaliation.… Read more »

Whoa. I’ve been trying to figure out what my remaining Grandmother, my spouse’s Grandmothers, and my Father are. And they are Toxic. The MIL leans that way (she was attacking me when no one else is around, but I’m hoping I found the words to make her back off) and the FIL tried it out on me, too, but I scared him with angry fire in my eyes because I’d just been through his wife’s and my father’s games, and it is lucky there was a door between us so I don’t think he will be trying that again…what do… Read more »

Parents who treat their children with lies, abuse and denial only fill the hearts of their children with hatred for them. Such parents, at an elder age, do not hear from their children when they are in need them and then blame the society for making them this way. It may sound harsh but these sort of abusive parents actually deserve to suffer in their elder age.