Anxious paranoia from aging parents?

[Anonymous]

I don’t know if this is a personality issue or an aging issue, but I’ve noticed, in the last 10 years or so, odd behaviors from my parents. They are now early-70s.

Whenever they go on vacation, without fail they have an issue with their hotel room. It’s always something minor gripe that anyone else would probably brush off, but it’s like they need a perfect hotel room and can’t accept that a hotel room will never be perfect. They will move their luggage 5 times until they find an acceptable room.

Everything any of their neighbors does has to do with them personally. Neighbor retrieves his mail after dark? It’s because he doesn’t want them to see his mail, he must be hiding something. Neighbor doesn’t come over to talk when I’m out shoveling snow? It’s because they are mad at us.

Phone rings and nobody is there? It’s my estranged friend. We get this same call every day. It has to be my friend.

Do people just get more anxious and paranoid as they age? Or is this a sign of something else?

[Anonymous]

My mom is like this, and it started in her late 50s. She is now 62. She's never been a particularly trusting person, but it is so much worse now. She thinks the neighbors are all drug dealers. She lives in a very nice part of town. She thinks my neighbors are also criminals, and she really stresses out that I let my kids play at neighbors' houses.

It stresses me out that she can't keep her paranoia from affecting her quality of life.

[Anonymous]

My therapist sees a lot of older clients. In order to help me understand my aging parents better, she tells me how her clients behave. They cannot change their appointments, even if someone who actually has a job needs to move theirs. If she asks why, they say "I can't come at 11:30. That's when I eat my sandwich" or "I can't come at 1:30, that's when I cut my toenails" (she was joking there, but to make a point).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My therapist sees a lot of older clients. In order to help me understand my aging parents better, she tells me how her clients behave. They cannot change their appointments, even if someone who actually has a job needs to move theirs. If she asks why, they say "I can't come at 11:30. That's when I eat my sandwich" or "I can't come at 1:30, that's when I cut my toenails" (she was joking there, but to make a point).

My parents HAVE to be home by 5:30. They just have to be. No reason why, they just need to be home. In the event some major event keeps them out later, the anxiety is thick in the air around them and they leave as soon as possible.

[Anonymous]

Yes, my FIL has become more and more angry, inflexible and critical. Just awful.

[Anonymous]

As people grow older, their physical frailty can make them feel more vulnerable. They also can start feeling less "with it" and slower on the uptake mentally. All of this can make a person feel more paranoid because they genuinely feel more vulnerable and less secure. They start craving reassurance and the comfortable familiarity of routines.

Sometimes older people are reluctant to explain the reasons for what appears to be a weird behavior, because they don't like seeming frail and/or old. For example, they may *have* to be home early and won't explain why, but it's because their eyesight makes driving at night difficult and they don't want to admit it. They also can sometimes be in physical discomfort, and they don't want to admit that for fear of being seen as a whiner or complainer; nonetheless, it will affect them. Sometimes they don't even realize changes in their perception that can affect their mood--cataracts can literally make the world look darker. Hearing problems can make it difficult to follow what's going on in a room full of people.

Then, there's the fact that their friends keep dying, and they know they will die soon too. For some older people, it can feel like just one loss after another.

It's just easier for people who are young and healthy to be more flexible and relax more. They have more energy, feel more capable of dealing with whatever uncertainties arise, and have largely experienced aging as growing more competent and not less. I think sometimes younger people, watching their parents get old, are just in denial about the fact that it's a real physical process that's going to affect a person in myriad ways. I have a lot of sympathy for older people and I feel like our society doesn't accept the changes they go through or offer much help or understanding.

[Anonymous]

This is not normal behavior. Yes, there are anxieties about aging, which we can be empathetic about. When anxiety manifests in this way, there is something much more significant and disordered going on. No one should be crossing boundaries with other people like this.

[Anonymous]

Yes. My dad stopped used credit cards and only uses cash because "they" are tracking him through the credit card, but he doesn't always remember where his cash is and I think he loses it regularly.

[Anonymous]

My mom is like this at 58. She got a cold and thought the waitress must have infected only her cup of water. The power went out during a storm because the “Chinese must have hacked the power grid since we’Re in the dc area.” She completely closes the shades in the middle of the day because she thinks people are watching her. She eyes passers by suspiciously if they are too slow or glance toward the house.

[Anonymous]

I don't think that's normal. My parents aren't like that and they're in their 70s. But, mine don't have issues with aging, and are one of those people who have accepted that death is inevitable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is not normal behavior. Yes, there are anxieties about aging, which we can be empathetic about. When anxiety manifests in this way, there is something much more significant and disordered going on. No one should be crossing boundaries with other people like this.

^^Please give your "disordered diagnosis" a rest. This is NOT abnormal behavior for some older people. A lot of times their expressions of control come from anxiety of not having as much control as they used to or feeling insignificant/overlooked compared to others.

[Anonymous]

Dementia.

[Anonymous]

And also normal. DH and I just commented that we have to pay attention not to become like his dad and my mom. She is right now next to me telling me that she doesn't know how to take photos with her phone. Which she did know last year, and saying how do I see what I want to take a picture off, while holding the phone down at her feet. Patience is your best friend.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And also normal. DH and I just commented that we have to pay attention not to become like his dad and my mom. She is right now next to me telling me that she doesn't know how to take photos with her phone. Which she did know last year, and saying how do I see what I want to take a picture off, while holding the phone down at her feet. Patience is your best friend.

Did you help her? Good luck keeping up with technology once you're elderly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is not normal behavior. Yes, there are anxieties about aging, which we can be empathetic about. When anxiety manifests in this way, there is something much more significant and disordered going on. No one should be crossing boundaries with other people like this.

+1

I have seen this in people who are 50+, issues with them harassing their neighbors, or fixating on irrational issues, and it is certainly alzheimer's related (it runs in their family). The paranoia is real to them, OP.