Then she asked me where her money was.  I told her she had her own debit card, the pin is the same as her last card at her old bank, and she'll get $100 out of every single check (she gets two a month) to spend any way she wants.  She looked at me dumbfounded and said "Why so little?"  I was like who do you know that has more than $200 a month to spend any way they want to?  Most people in our income bracket do not get anywhere near that much.  I told her that my husband had gotten a better job, so we no longer have food stamps, so she has to pitch in money for food now.  Also, she's shit at saving and always messes up paying her bills, and she refuses to play on important things like "life insurance" and "car insurance".  Remember when her car got busted up in 2019?  She had no insurance for like SIX months!  This is normal for her, not dementia.  When I got into a car accident when I was eighteen, same thing.  She hadn't had car insurance for a fucking year!  So now she gets an allowance and I keep her money in our shared account and I pay ALL her bills (she has a LOT of racked up bills, including credit cards) and the rest goes into savings.  She was like "Okay." 

Well, geezus.  That was easy. 

She seemed a little out of it today.  Like she couldn't use her words properly.  And ever since her diagnosis of dementia many years ago, she's been having issues with inhibition.  She says things she'd normally think in her head and doesn't even realize she's doing it.  One thing she does regularly is out loud fat shaming strangers.  But today, she literally said something to my face that she's never said before.  So I shaved my head a few days ago.  And every day since she's been home, I've worn a scarf on my head.  But today, after our above conversation, I walked out without it on and she squealed like a little girl, all about how awesome my hair looked.  It was over the top and totally not realistic, like she was making up for how much she didn't like how I looked.  But it was okay, but then she said "Oh my god, you can do anything and still look good!  You can even be fat and look good!"  She then pulled back a little bit, as though she realized what she said, but then moved onto another subject.  I almost started laughing, but I held it back, and waited  until she left to go into her room to ask my husband what he thought of what she said.  He replied "Well, at lest it was a sort of compliment?" and then we both burst into laughter. 

I am not sure if it was malicious.  I am sure maybe, deep down it was, but I am definitely sure it was on accident, as my mother has never once called me fat, even though I've been fat since around the time I turned thirty (before that I was anorexic and hated my body something fierce).  Her dementia breaks down her walls of inhibition and she just blurts things out that in the past she'd never say in a million years.  Well, to your face.  Like now she's obsessed with how our two sons eat (they are men, need I say more?) and she'll comment on how fast they "scarf something down" or say other things that are even more rude.  This is why I hate taking her in public.  She's embarrassing and I always have to run behind her to apologize to strangers for her mouth. 

Today (now a day later from earlier in the post) she's been asking me to buy her things, as though her $200 a month allowance should not have to cover things such as plants she wants to buy and magazine subscriptions.  I am okay buying her these things, but they will come out of her money, as she can't expect me to use household money to pay for trivial items such as those.  Now, if she ran out of money and asked me to get them for her, I would most likely (if i had it) buy them for her out of either my personal money or our household money and would have her pay me back later (or maybe not at all).  But to ask me before she even attempted to use her own money?  Yeah, no.  She'll soon learn how this will all work. 

The most disturbing thing that happened since she came home was today she asked me to for her cigarettes back.  Which I gave to her.  But one the condition that she not put half smoked cigarettes on the shelf by the back door.  They fucking stink!  She'll pick off the end of her lit cigarette with her fingers, which makes her body and fingers REEK like nasty smoke and then place the half smoked cigarette on that shelf.  Which smells horrid every single time I open the back door to let our dogs out.  So that's not the disturbing part.  The disturbing part is after I said it she just literally stared at me with a blank look for around thirty entire seconds and refused to respond to me.  I stared back for a moment and when she didn't say anything I said "Um, what are you doing?"  No response.  "Are you okay?  What's wrong with you?  Why are you staring at me?!"  No response.  Then she shook it off and said "Oh, I didn't understand what you're saying."  I legit thought she was having a stroke (maybe she did?)!  But at the same time, fear washed over me and I thought she was going to snap and start beating me!  She's done the sociopathic stare to me before, but this was so much more unnerving.  I am not sure if she was having a dementia moment or if she was super pissed and trying to control herself.  Whatever it was, it freaked me out. 

Another sign her dementia is progressing is that she has been spacing out a lot.  This is getting progressively worse as time goes by.  And this could have been the same as that.

This is why I blog.  From the beginning this blog has been about me chronicling her behavior for my own memory and other purposes.  Then, after going no contact, it became about helping my readers find peace in their own lives with their narc moms and families.  Now that I have to keep her in my life, it's about both.  So forgive me for the posts rambling about my day-to-day experiences.  I apologize for the long boring entries LOL  But these posts are more for me to document what's going on with her than they are about me writing for an audience.  That's what my memoirs are for (to entertain you with).  I am almost done with my first (I started working on it last spring when we moved in here), and I am hoping it will be available later this year for you to read.  Once my memoir is available for purchase, my second blog will be available, which will go with my memoirs.  That one will contain memoir writing advice and more life stories that I don't put in my books.  It's already pretty full, and I can't wait to get everything released.  So bear with me, fellow ACoNs.  I shall try to entertain you in a better way soon LOL   

For now, I am still chronicling my daily adventures with her, because I need somewhere to store all this crap.  And if you're reading it, I hope it's helping you in some way, shape, or form.  I do know it helps me to get it all out of my head and into the computer.  So thank you for putting up with it.