Giving hard truths to an anxious person

April 18, 2023 12:45 PM

Over the next few months I am shepherding an extremely anxious and avoidant person through a lot of hard, shitty processes. Throughout this I will need to be telling them hard, sad truths, and despite that I'm going to need them to keep engaging in the process. (Not their strongest suit.) What's my best game here?

OK, so this was me, last year. Parent's health is stable, parent is no longer drinking, parent is no longer mixing booze and Xanax. Parent is on an actual anti-anxiety med. All of this, tremendous progress. I've not lost sight of how far everything has come since then.

We have a plan to relocate her nearer one of the kids, and have started putting a number of things in motion, but we need her to be a participant in all of this. it would be great if we could just do everything for her, but that's not where we are at unfortunately.

I'm a person who very much operates in the realities of things. I get less anxious the more I know. She gets more anxious the more she knows--and so she just refuses to know things about her situation. As you might have guessed, she and I don't get along very well or have a super great relationship.

I need to be able to say things like, "we may need to pay above asking price on a house" or "we need to keep the budget here because you only have X dollars to put toward your monthly" or other, like, basic truths? Without her just entirely disengaging and saying "well never mind I just can't talk about this right now."

What kinds of strategies can I use here? We kids have spent our whole lives just lying to her to make life bearable for her but frankly, that shit don't fly when there are mortgages and interstate movers involved. Help?

posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese to Human Relations (18 answers total)

I'm guessing that "well never mind I just can't talk about this right now" means, "I can talk about this never"?

I'm an anxious, avoidant person, and sometimes I get very stressed when difficult topics get sprung on me. What sometimes helps me is if I am allowed to say, "I can't talk about this right now, but let's talk about it tomorrow at dinner." Can you prompt her for a good time to talk about it? Or at least give her some advance warning, like, "Tomorrow afternoon I'm going to make us some tea and we are going to talk about the mortgage rates and eat Girl Scout Cookies, does that sound okay?"
posted by BrashTech at 1:19 PM on April 18, 2023 [6 favorites]

You can’t make them engage, you can only find the best times and settings that promote the likelihood of engagement with less anxiety. The most important strategies are the ones that support your stamina and resilience, because to achieve your objectives you’ll need a lot of stamina and resilience. Surround yourself with community and speak up, let trusted people know you need love and connection.
posted by The Last Sockpuppet at 1:21 PM on April 18, 2023 [1 favorite]

IMO the best thing you can do is to project a feeling of "Things are fine, everything is going according to plan, we got this." As a (recovering) anxious person, being on the receiving end of that type of calm, reassuring energy is the thing that helps me the most.

YMMV, and of course this may be difficult to do in practice depending on the specifics of your relationship with your parent. But the more you can do to avoid fretting or negativity in their presence, the better. Focus on the pros of various decisions rather than the cons.
posted by mekily at 1:29 PM on April 18, 2023 [10 favorites]

- one obvious strategy is to try to limit the information to what she really needs to know when she needs to know it for the decisions at hand.
- would it make sense for everyone involved if one of the siblings had a power of attorney with the clear expectations that you will consult with your parent about everything but they have the option of "just let sibling decide" if necessary.
- can you develop language for talking about how much stress they are experiencing with their conversations? Maybe a 1-5 scale where 1 is easy and 5 is I can't deal any more or just high medium or low. Then you check in - this seems to be getting stressful - are we at a 3 or a 4 here? This gives her a way to have some control without shutting down - if it is a 4, does she want to power through or maybe take a short break and get a drink or water or something before restarting. If it is a 5, respect that and maybe even suggest something to relieve the stress (beyond just not talking about it) but make a plan to come back to it later when things are calmer. This also gives you a way to be on her side while making the anxiety something that you all can talk about in a matter of fact way.
posted by metahawk at 1:29 PM on April 18, 2023 [10 favorites]

Don’t talk to her with a confrontational attitude or go into worst case scenarios. Sell the *shit* out of the new situation. Make it sunny and great. Does she have any choices at all, or are you kids completely driving the bus? Let her make some choices. Also praise her for her progress. Try to think “yay for new beginnings for you, Mom!” vs “the chickens are coming home to roost” (or act that way if you can swing it).
posted by cotton dress sock at 1:42 PM on April 18, 2023 [11 favorites]

My mom spent 43 years with a husband who had a tendency to make decisions for both of them unilaterally. A widow now, she positively hates having anyone else involved in her decision making. Unfortunately, she's also an anxiety-ridden person who either puts off decisions or makes them suddenly to avoid anixety around decision making.

Nevertheless, we have needed her buy-in on several changes that have been necessary for her continued health.

The way that we have given her ownership over her life while still having her deal with hard truths is that we talk over a given situation and work through the thought process with them, leaving a little ellipsis at the end for her to fill in, with their completion of the train of thought developing her buy-in.

We would not, for example start with "Our budget has to be here." We'd start with "Well, we know what our monthly expenses are, so let's work from there to see what your budget is." We'd do the math, let her calculate the remaining number, and she'd have come to "the budget" on her own.

All people are different, and my mom isn't quite like your mom, but that has been the path that helped us get her to where she needed to be.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 1:48 PM on April 18, 2023 [13 favorites]

Response by poster: I'm guessing that "well never mind I just can't talk about this right now" means, "I can talk about this never"?

Pretty much. Basically any roadblock (and we are trying to coordinate an interstate move and house purchase with extremely limited resources, so there are roadblocks CONSTANTLY) is met either with "I can't talk about this because I'll just get anxious" or "I guess I should just give up on this dream forever because nobody cares."

Honestly half the time I get that response from her when I give her completely neutral news, like "we have to get an approval letter before we can put an offer on a house." Like...that's...just how buying a house works? It's neither good nor bad? Or the fact that actually retiring requires some paperwork. Just a fact, just a task required to go from A to B. It completely shuts her down.

I would love to be able to just fairy godmother this whole thing for her, and trust me, she absolutely wants NONE buy-in whatsoever, she really just wants everyone else to do all of this for her, ideally while she is heavily sedated on a beach somewhere. But unfortunately, the financial and practical reality is that she needs to be a participant in this on several levels.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 2:23 PM on April 18, 2023

You need to spin the shit out of this.

"You need to stay within X budget" becomes "OMG! You're in such great financial shape, your budget isn't X-50% like I had feared, it's actually X! Double! Wow!"

Think like a scummy advertising agent with zero ethics. You want to sell your mom on the idea that her money situation is excellent.

From the very beginning, approach this like, "Oh, mom, you're going to be so relieved to hear that we don't need to have a big scary conversation about your finances. It seems like you're in way better shape than we all had feared!" Big smile! Congratulatory expression on your face. Sigh expansively. Give her a hug and tell her wow, this is such a relief... and hey, now all you need from her is some basic info to tie it up. Can she tell you how much this bank account has?

Oh, GOSH, would you look at that, yet another great financial move she has managed to make. Wow. This is not at all as bad as we feared. How about those housing prices, though, did she know that Mrs. B from B-ville paid something like 30% over the asking price? The market is nuts right now, but your mom, well, your *mom* has been canny enough to agree to move to the most sensible area with the most sensible housing prices in this crazy market. Why, she may only have to pay 15% over asking price. That's so reasonable compared to what Mrs. B of B-ville paid. And so doable, given her sound financial situation.

Lie through your teeth about how everyone else is worse off than she is. THEN tell her the absolute truth about her situation, and lie again what a great position she is in comparatively.
posted by MiraK at 2:36 PM on April 18, 2023 [8 favorites]

I need to be able to say things like, "we may need to pay above asking price on a house" or "we need to keep the budget here because you only have X dollars to put toward your monthly" or other, like, basic truths?

Those are both very nice ways of engaging someone and including them in the process. However it sounds like she'd rather not engage so you may want to take the approach of saying "You will end up paying more the asking price of the house" and "You have X dollars to put toward your monthly."

Give her the decisionless certainty she desires.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 2:47 PM on April 18, 2023 [1 favorite]

First, I'm glad she's doing so much better. That must be a relief for you.

That said...does she really want to make this move? I'm sure it's the best thing for her, I'm sure you and your siblings have considered it lovingly and tried to come up with the nicest possible situation for her, I'm sure everyone's trying incredibly hard. But, ultimately, if she doesn't agree to the move, she can make it impossible through just the sort of passive resistance you're describing...but not until after everyone's wasted a bunch of what sound like very limited resources. And she's a competent adult still; she does get to make that call. In my experience, you can't coax or jolly people out of the resistant frame of mind (because their autonomy is already feeling threatened, and they're usually primed to think they're being talked to like stubborn toddlers), though sometimes you can convince them that something is their own idea (as DOT describes).

Some of the stuff we had to do with my mom to ease her into the next stage of her life we were able--after a few fits and starts--to get her to buy into. But there was one very important aspect she just didn't want to address. Ultimately, I said to her, "Look, Mom, it's up to you. But you are putting yourself in a risky situation, and as it stands now that affects me, too. If you won't accept my help dealing with this, then I won't be involved in this area of your life anymore." Important: I wasn't issuing an ultimatum. I was telling her that I couldn't cope with the possible consequences of her choices and so if she persisted in her chosen plan she would have to deal with them herself. Fortunately, she came around.

OK, so that's a big step and maybe you would need to have started telling your mom that she was going to have to deal with the consequences of her choices twenty years ago for it to make sense. But...I don't see how you do this without her cooperating, and she doesn't have to cooperate unless she wants to. So: back up a step. Do you really want to make this move, Mom? Because right now it seems like maybe you don't. We're not going to do this if you don't want to do this. Is there something in particular you don't like about the idea?
posted by praemunire at 2:54 PM on April 18, 2023 [1 favorite]

You must be really tired out. :( It's so good that things are improving.

My tactic for things like the approval letter (my MIL gets frozen in just one area, but it's medical stuff, so tends to be urgent) is to conference our phones together (or use the landline where we have two handsets) and then make the call for her. "Hi, this is J's daughter-in-law and J is here with me. I'm calling because we were told that her lab results would be in today? She's right here, could you let us know?"

I get away with this because seniors are treated like babies by a lot of people which is annoying, but I turn this to my advantage.

I agree with the Pollyanna approach as well as breaking things down. "Hey, houses are selling for 20% over listing, so let's adjust your search filters to $budget-30% and see what cosy townhouse finds there are this week."

"Oh yeah, getting movers for $xx is a huge pain. But the great news is we'll do the sorting on this end and when you move in it will be so easy to unpack...what do you want to start with sorting, the linen closet or the basement closet?"

I also have a situation where my mum is making what I think is a really bad (going to cost my parents a ton of money and hassle, when it comes down to her not wanting to get rid of about a truck load of things) real estate decision. I have reiterated my position. But I do acknowledge that at the end of the day, it is her choice. I won't be able to bail her out (at all). So I just reiterate "you already know what I think."
posted by warriorqueen at 3:21 PM on April 18, 2023 [1 favorite]

But unfortunately, the financial and practical reality is that she needs to be a participant in this on several levels.

You might want to interrogate yourself a bit on this. Why does she have to participate? The examples you've given don't seem to be things she actually needs to understand or agree with. Are you needing her to sign things and that's why you want to explain them? Is she refusing to sign things unless you explain them, but then getting upset when you explain them? Are you trying to make her understand the budget because otherwise she'll spend too much?

It may be helpful to take away answers like, "She should know," or "I would want to know," and just look, at a very concrete level, at what she actually needs to participate in, and at what level.

I wouldn't normally support this sort of ignorance but if you're saying that that's what she wants, then maybe you can take that into account more.
posted by lapis at 4:06 PM on April 18, 2023 [12 favorites]

Can you sit down without her and figure out all the things you one hundred percent need her involvement in? Then make a list of things it would be preferable she participates. I’m a very anxious and often avoidant person and one thing that helps me is being given one annoying choice and one annoying certainty. So like, if your mother is informed of the things she absolutely must decide on and do, and also of the things you would all appreciate her help with, she might feel better able to do the thing she must because she can ditch the thing she doesn’t totally have to do. Or, she might do the optional thing, notice that it wasn’t so scary, and be able to then do the mandatory thing with her remaining momentum.

Space these things out, but give her a head’s up. Be like, here is the timeline. We are going to need you to make choices and maybe talk about stressful things once a week on this day with us. Here’s a list of the things we really need your participation in, you can ask us questions about them whenever, or only think about them during our talks, but they have to get done. We’ll knock them off one by one, okay? Then, during these talks you bring up the optional stuff that’s lower pressure for her involvement. “We’ll need to get back to who can care for your dogs during the move, but for now let’s talk about if you really want a fancy kitchen or if it’ll be too much trouble to maintain.” One thing she’s emotional about, one thing she can have opinions on but doesn’t really care about.

This is a LOT of emotional labor from you, of course. Make sure you’ve got a neutral person to vent to, if at all possible.
posted by Mizu at 4:19 PM on April 18, 2023 [1 favorite]

Lots of reiteration of the good parts, lots of nice options to go with unpleasant options, and blame the economy. I really like house A; the landscaping is so nice, but House B is so close to shops. This market is so frustrating; people are having to pay above asking. Which house did you prefer?

Lots of empathizing with the not-fun stuff, paired with encouragement. Moving is so stressful, you're making great progress on sifting though closets. and I know it's hard to leave the old house; it's a lot for you to deal with. We're all looking forward to having you closer, though.

Easy choices. Do you want to keep the whole bedroom set, or maybe the smaller set from the guest room? With kids, you try not to say Get dressed; you ask Do you want to wear the Power Rangers tee shirt or the tie-dye?

Use gentle humor whenever you can, even a little laughter smooths the way. Encourage music for packing up the old house and other physical tasks; lively music helps people move, and her favorite music may help her mood. Hugs, love, affection. It's hard. Getting old, losing capability, people, places.

I'm in my 60's, no one is going to do this with/for me. Thank you for taking care of your parent.
posted by theora55 at 4:48 PM on April 18, 2023 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: I'm in my 60's, no one is going to do this with/for me. Thank you for taking care of your parent.

Honestly, nobody's going to do that with/for me either, which is probably why all of this pushes my buttons so hard.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 5:12 PM on April 18, 2023 [9 favorites]

Honestly half the time I get that response from her when I give her completely neutral news, like "we have to get an approval letter before we can put an offer on a house." [...] Or the fact that actually retiring requires some paperwork.

Would it help to break this down into smaller steps for her? So instead of needing to get an approval letter, it's needing to look at the application and make a list of paperwork. Or maybe just log you in so your can make the list, and then you'll gather the paperwork together. Basically focusing on the immediate small, concrete tasks that you need to accomplish right then, rather than the bigger picture task that you're chopping away at
posted by matildatakesovertheworld at 8:57 PM on April 18, 2023 [2 favorites]

Basically, how do you get someone to not self.- neglect? Either they have a goal they actually want to achieve and accept help/do it themselves, or they have nothing they really want and do nothing.

Sounds like she can't visualize her future, so start dismantling the present.

Hire someone to pack up the place first. Its not that expensive. Get her living out of the bare minimum, have the rest boxed, and sell the non essential furniture. The movement and change will release her thinking and make change inevitable.

Then get the sale in progress, if she's selling. A realtor will go to her to get her to sign the listing agreement. She doesn't have to do anything.
Once the sale happens, she has to go somewhere fairly quickly. Panic time.

Then get the purchase going. She gets a rental until she can decide what to buy.

Put the extra stuff in storage. More her into the rental. Or the panic will help her move on a purchase.

If she complains about losing money being unhappy, that's the cost of indecision.

Good luck.
posted by jello at 4:18 AM on April 19, 2023

I had some success in a similar situation with an elderly aunt. This was about a change in insurance, but there were a lot of forms involved, I needed to explain things for her to sign them, and she got way too overwhelmed to listen.

What I did: I sat down on a quiet evening and wrote out what I wanted to say in very, very simple terms. Then I took out everything she didn't actually need or want to know. Then edited for clarity and formatted for easy reading. I wrote it like a list of bullet points, but included steps we'd already done so that the first seven points (of ten) were already checked off - I read that human brains become motivated by having completed 70% of a task.

Then, I just left her sitting at the table with a cup of tea and that list. When I came back, she asked me to find the form to complete step 8...then 9...then 10. Afterwards, I poured us both a glass of wine.
posted by toucan at 7:34 AM on April 19, 2023 [11 favorites]