Very strange behavior from Mother in Law--selfish?

Some of you may recall seeing my recent post about possibly having to take care of my MIL if she comes to live at my house. You all gave me great advice on that.
It was discussed at length and my husband agreed to find an independent living facility for her in her hometown so she could stay in a familiar place as she was insisting on getting out of her current house. My husband has been calling around and obtaining information on different places. My MIL was fine with all this.

However, for the past 2 weeks, my MIL has suddenly started behaving very strangely. Now all of a sudden she says she has to leave her house immediately because "it's too dark and cluttered". She also says she has no one to sing with. She also appears to be making up things, once saying someone rattled the handle on her front door. Then she said she can't drive anymore because people were tailgating her cause she was driving too slow (she's been driving like that on the same roads for years and never thought anything of it). So now she refuses to drive anywhere. She claims she fell lots of times in the shower and now won't shower because of it. When she was asked about when she fell and where she was injured, she said she did not know. Yesterday she said her organs were shutting down and she was going to die and wanted us to know she doesn't have much time left. Like, what??!! Your organs don't just shut down over night especially when you've lived over 75 years and been blessed to never have had a single major medical problem your entire life! Also, you don't just up and move to expensive independent living facilities because your house is cluttered! Then she called yesterday to complain that she was afraid when it started to storm outside and no one called her to ask if she was okay. Seriously????

Sorry to sound harsh, but I think she is a selfish person who is acting like a baby. I don't think there is anything wrong with her. She has no known medical problems that are severe, she has many friends at church and neighbors who are very kind and have been helping her do everything. She's in no immediate danger. We have granted her wish to move and will be paying for it which puts a big financial strain on us but we're willing to do it for her. Yet every day the phone rings with more badgering and complaining from her. And all the stuff about death coming I feel is all made up! Let's face it, if she was in serious medical danger, her doctors have our number and would call us. The stress of this on my husband is very worrisome to me. I'd like to give her a verbal shakedown and knock her back into place. She just wants to live somewhere else so she can play patty cake with people all day long and doesn't want to cooperate and act like an adult about it while it is all being worked out. This is a major undertaking and we all have lives and major responsibilities too! I've never seen anyone so selfish. I've tried to be sympathetic, but now I'm just getting angrier by the day!! I'm at a loss as to what this behavior is.

When someone exhibits dramatic, unexplained changes in thoughts and behavior such as you are describing, I think that a prompt visit to their doctor is in order.

Sometimes as people age they become unpredictable. Some days my dad is full of energy and is fully with it and some days he is totally off. Sometimes he is convinced he is ill and some days he feels just great. And there are days he makes no sense while not showing signs of dementia otherwise ..

I agree with Bill re seeing a doctor

Thank you Bill3 and divine!! I will suggest that.

Everything she is doing and saying is very indicative of early dementia, especially all the fear and the illogical reasons for things. She needs to see a doctor ASAP.

Thanks Molinit. I was thinking the very same thing. I don't think my husband or his brother want to accept that. They are just assuming she is lonely and would act better if she had other people around her. Sadly, memory care is very expensive in addition to the regular expenses that go along with assisted living. Ugh. What a horrible situation. I would not be surprised if the facility tries to move her into memory care even if my husband and his brother are in denial. But when I looked up the symptoms of dementia after reading your reply, my MIL has practically every single one of them.

Are you sure that she didn’t have a stroke? Schedule an appointment with her doctor. As we get older our mind are not like it was when we were younger. We say things that would have never said when we’re younger.

lovethesun, it's always a good decision to get her checked out for memory/early onset of dementia.

However, speaking from experience here, she may have been a difficult person all her adult life. This behaviour is often excused in later life, due to age and health issues. My mother is a fine example of following the nasty traits displayed by her mother. Have noticed she's now adopted one of her mother's habits; rubbing thumb against forefinger on her right hand. Yes, it's that specific.

She did have a suspected mini-stroke nearly three years ago; turned out it was a reaction to medication. She now has a fixation about never being in the same hospital ward again. Having visited her there and engineered the move to a more acceptable area, I can sympathise.

Friends? She has none. Doesn't bother with them. Even if she can't visit, there's still the phone. Instead she just sits in the chair thinking about family situations, wondering who's talking about her and plotting how nasty she can be to me and my aunt. My patience has run out because I've seen through the manipulative behaviour.

Unfortunately, whether the onset of dementia or just personality, your husband needs to step up and face the reality. Sorry if I' being too blunt!

I think the OP will be able to tell if her MIL has been acting like that throughout her life or if it is sudden and recent. Throughout life = personality. Sudden and recent = probably an illness.

This could be a mental decline. Has she had an appointment with her physician lately? Might be time to take her and let the doctor know this. They may need to do some testing. It can be related to so many issues. It sounds like independent living may not be the best match. She might do okay with assisted living, particularly if they figure out what has set this off and perhaps settle it down a bit.

It's a while since you started this thread, and you may have already sorted out what to do. In case things are still up in the air, I would make one suggestion. Do not get talked into having your MIL move in with you, if you believe this would be overly burdensome on you . . . which I'm quite sure it would be.

It does sound like early signs of dementia. Often that can only be recognized in retrospect, after it has progressed a lot further. Even a doctor may often not be able to diagnose early dementia. (I know that first hand.) Regardless of where she is cognitively, she clearly is decompensating emotionally, which can amount to the same thing. She obviously is becoming unable to deal with being alone. It may be that she can't help that. Perhaps excessive dependency is a part of her natural makeup. In any case, that's likely to snowball into a bigger and bigger problem. At some point, getting her placed in a supervised setting may be for the best . . . though it can be expensive. Sounds like she is open to that.

It's really up to your husband and his siblings to figure this out. Your main role, right now, is to remove an option you're not comfortable with - having her live with you. That's your right.

Given what you have shared about your MIL I don’t recommend having her move in with you. She may end up running your home and expecting you service her constantly. This would ruin your relationship and have a negative affect on your privacy and peace.

She may need some in home care where some one comes to her home and cleans and cooks for her as well as be there while she showers herself.

Urinary tract infections can cause a lot of strange behavior in elderly people. When someone's behavior changes rapidly that can be the cause.

I am noticing this in myself lately. If im not peeing right, everything is wrong.