I'm glad you are getting to experience that OP!! You deserve it! My mom has become more abusive with age, but every time she ends up in the hospital she is such an abusive tyrant, they use chemical restraints/tranquilizers, so she won't be abusive to staff and doctors. it turns her into the sweetest old lady. I just adore her when she is on heavy meds-calm and sweet voice, gratitude, all of it. I try not to resent the fact I could have had a stable childhood, and I would have felt loved if she had just gotten help for her rage.

Anonymous wrote:Yes, but I contributed to that by cutting her off for 6 months in my 30s, after a paroxysm of abusive language, verbal attacks and insane accusations against my husband and I. She has since been a lot more circumspect. As a child, I didn't understand that being perpetually criticized and controlled was abnormal. Now she understands that I will just hang up and never visit if she says something too nasty.

This is what I do and have done with a sibling and with my mother. It works!

Nope. It was the other way around with mine.

My dad was never awful (far from it) but he has certainly softened as he’s gotten older. His feelings are also closer to the surface and he wants to share stories with me. It’s a different side that’s always been there now he has the time to talk. It’s been a true gift.

Kind of the opposite for me. I mean, I don’t hate her, but our relationship has become increasingly strained as she ages. She has no filter and says whatever she wants regardless of who it might offend.

I'm happy for you, OP.

They start reverting so you like them better/pity them more/see them as fragile as they age and you want to help them out. Like children in reverse.

The circle of life if you are lucky. Some people get stuck with colicky babies and nasty elders.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My grandmother softened with age- or at least that is how I perceived it early in the process. Really, she was released from a lot of trauma and stress no longer having to cope with my mentally ill grandfather. I thought she was cold and uninterested when I was a kid, but I learned she was just absolutely emotionally exhausted all the time. She blossomed when he died and fortunately lived a long life with a lot of restoration.

My mother had the same untreated demons as my grandfather, and she was a terrible, damaging person. Now she's had therapy and medication for 20 years. Our relationship is more like siblings because she didn't really mother me. But she is so different now. Kind, able to listen, reliable. I am glad she is in my life.

This is OP. This is how I feel about my mother, except that she didn't get therapy or medication, she just grew old. She was never my mother. But now she's kind and I find her to be good company. Strange.

My mother has severe bipolar and a boatload of trauma. I have seen some other women who aged from being awful to being sweet. I think they were more like my grandmother? They had terrible circumstances and no one was going to therapy. You just survived somehow. As far as how I feel with my mother, we did not have a relationship for a long time, but slowly over time I have been able to let her in. I forgave her for my own peace long before I resumed a relationship. At this point I really just feel thankful. Sometimes I think about how awful it was, and I wonder how different things might have been if she’d had treatment. There’s a bittersweetness to that. But mostly it’s just nice.

My mother enabled my sadistic narcissistic father, joined in on belittling and humiliating us, calling us names. Acted like his slave. She’s a little different now that he’s gone. I too wonder who exactly she is and was.

Anonymous wrote:My grandmother softened with age- or at least that is how I perceived it early in the process. Really, she was released from a lot of trauma and stress no longer having to cope with my mentally ill grandfather. I thought she was cold and uninterested when I was a kid, but I learned she was just absolutely emotionally exhausted all the time. She blossomed when he died and fortunately lived a long life with a lot of restoration.

My mother had the same untreated demons as my grandfather, and she was a terrible, damaging person. Now she's had therapy and medication for 20 years. Our relationship is more like siblings because she didn't really mother me. But she is so different now. Kind, able to listen, reliable. I am glad she is in my life.

This is OP. This is how I feel about my mother, except that she didn't get therapy or medication, she just grew old. She was never my mother. But now she's kind and I find her to be good company. Strange.

My grandmother softened with age- or at least that is how I perceived it early in the process. Really, she was released from a lot of trauma and stress no longer having to cope with my mentally ill grandfather. I thought she was cold and uninterested when I was a kid, but I learned she was just absolutely emotionally exhausted all the time. She blossomed when he died and fortunately lived a long life with a lot of restoration.

My mother had the same untreated demons as my grandfather, and she was a terrible, damaging person. Now she's had therapy and medication for 20 years. Our relationship is more like siblings because she didn't really mother me. But she is so different now. Kind, able to listen, reliable. I am glad she is in my life.

Why not give examples of what her seem so horrible so we can analyze the change.

Yes, but I contributed to that by cutting her off for 6 months in my 30s, after a paroxysm of abusive language, verbal attacks and insane accusations against my husband and I. She has since been a lot more circumspect. As a child, I didn't understand that being perpetually criticized and controlled was abnormal. Now she understands that I will just hang up and never visit if she says something too nasty.

People are who they are, not who they were.

Sometimes they are the same. Sometimes they are different.

You were a different person then too.

Has anyone else found this to be true? My mother was hateful beyond belief when I was growing up. Now she's like a kitten. My grandmother also softened up in old age. I wonder if this is a thing. I'm sometimes torn about which person she is and what my feelings for her should be. Anyone else?