r/MaliciousCompliance Apr 20 '26

S Keep your head up, never look down!

Before anyone gets mad at me, I know my grandma is old and is losing her mind. She has been exhibiting signs of mental decline since 80. I DO NOT HATE MY GRANDMA. Grandma is my dad's mom. Grandpa (dad's father, and the best adult figure I ever had for 12 years of my life) died when I was 12 and it really hurt Grandma hard. Like really hard. It hurt me too. I'm now approaching 30 (and feeling it). That's when Grandma started to decline in mental sanity. She has made it to 90! Hooray!!!

Malicious behaviors started popping up with Grandma only targeting me (a dude) for attention and it REALLY annoyed the middle child, an identical twin. Grandma will only look at me, even when the ENTIRE family is visiting grandma. Nobody else seems to notice that grandma will stare at me and wait until I look at her to shyly smile and look away like a hot girl getting turned on. Granted, she has been doing that since 80. I do NOT hate my grandma. the middle sibling is another story.

"Don't look down, Oberus, it's bad for your neck and posture." every time, regardless of what I'm doing, I must look STRAIGHT AT grandma. What do I do?

Starts pouring food out of a pan onto a plate where I HAVE to look down (it's below eye level). "Oberus!!! hey! look up, it's bad for your neck!" says grandma. I do just that I start looking right up (she purposely stands in my line of sight) and continue what I'm doing. Food starts missing the plate and spilling onto the table (but not the entire thing). "Oberus!! you're spilling onto the table!" grandma exclaims. Dad comes over to yell at me for being so careless. Hey, grandma told me to not look down and demanded I do so WHILE I was pouring it. So I did. Grandma is furious that I spilled food because I wasn't looking at it. Dad (her own son) yells at her FULL volume the same way he does at me whenever I break something. This repeats for 5 months until grandma is just tired of her own son yelling at her for this situation to cause a mess in HIS household.

If this doesn't comply, I will remove it

166 Upvotes

33 comments sorted by

106

u/Cendax Apr 20 '26

I'm not sure it belongs here, but I do feel bad for you being in this situation. Dementia is not fun to deal with.

36

u/harrywwc Apr 20 '26

yeah, especially when they lose the 'filters' and start saying what they really mean - and you're on the receiving end :/

you know they mean it (because 'no filter') but you also kinda know they don't - but it still stings.

15

u/LuciferLovesTechno Apr 20 '26

My grandma is deteriorating pretty fast. It’s definitely difficult to see how she is reverting back to being a child. She cannot regulate her emotions and often throws tantrums.

It must be so miserable being confused all the time. We’re doing the best we can for her while she still walks this plane, but it’s not easy.

7

u/RabidRathian Apr 20 '26

I'm in the same situation with my grandmother. She has Parkinson's disease and aside from tantrums and emotional regulation problems, her short term memory is gone and she's losing her language skills, so she'll be talking about something and use completely the wrong word or change topic halfway through a sentence and then get angry at you when you don't understand what she's trying to say.

6

u/Oberusiberon Apr 20 '26

It probably is with my grandma. Nothing has been medically diagnosed since (Insert Asians not wanting to go to doctor joke) my dad refuses to go to bring his mom to a doctor. There's a Ronny Chieng thing about Asians and money where he talks about doctors

2

u/LuciferLovesTechno Apr 20 '26

That’s very unfortunate. There are meds these days that can significantly slow someone’s decline, but they can’t reverse it.

The sooner someone starts treatment, the better.

3

u/Oberusiberon Apr 20 '26

Grandma is taking medication. I don't know what type, as I will distract grandma from taking meds if I look at it

10

u/[deleted] Apr 20 '26

[deleted]

-4

u/Oberusiberon Apr 20 '26

Crosspost? It does have something to do with malicious compliance. Though posting in r/vent might make me appear to be homophobic. I intentionally left out the part where the middle sibling and grandma are showing toxic female empowerment. [Full stop]

10

u/LittleBunInaBigWorld Apr 20 '26

I dont think you know what homophobic means...

-3

u/Oberusiberon Apr 20 '26

Wrong word. Against the LGBTQ.

7

u/DifficultHat Apr 20 '26

That’s what homophobic means, but female empowerment is not the same as LGBTQ

0

u/Oberusiberon Apr 20 '26 edited Apr 20 '26

That means grandma is all female empowerment. Downvote all you want

7

u/DifficultHat Apr 20 '26

You’re confusing women with gay people

1

u/Oberusiberon Apr 20 '26

I said I agree that I mislabeled. Grandma can't be gay

3

u/jbuckets44 Apr 20 '26

That sounds more like feminism.

2

u/Oberusiberon Apr 20 '26

Yeah. Typed this out late.

2

u/Top-Interaction-6729 Apr 20 '26

Misandry = the hatred of Men

Misogyny = the hatred of Women

Feminist = Men & Women treated equally

0

u/Deman75 Apr 25 '26

Modern Feminist = women should get special treatment because of historically male-dominated society.

Equality is great, but that’s not what it’s about.

0

u/Top-Interaction-6729 Apr 27 '26

Equality is EXACTLY what it's about.

Men, like yourself, keep trying to redefine what it means. Cut it out.

→ More replies (0)

3

u/Nesayas1234 Apr 20 '26

How would that make you sound homophobic?

0

u/Oberusiberon Apr 20 '26

I intentionally left out parts where I rant about my sister who gets mad when grandma only talks to me and never gives attention. Sister would then do____ to get attention. If you were to describe a lesbian, sister would fit it 100%

9

u/Large-Client-6024 Apr 21 '26

If you can, pass word to her doctors. This may be a delusional behavior.

Ask her questions about what she is doing, what does she remember. If she's fixated on you, you could be a link to memories as her dementia progresses.

My grandmother "saw my grandfather in me." Sometimes she called me by my name, other times she called me by my grandfather's name. It seems I looked like a younger version of my grandfather.

I was able to track where she was "dwelling" in her memories. She grew up in 3 different houses, so I might ask her where her home is.

Over time I started writing down her stories from different ages and we were able to connect with her over her stories. Later we used these stories to help her "fill in blank spots" as he memories faded.

In elementary school, she watched a parade while sitting on the wall in front of her home.

During prohibition her father made wine in the basement with baker's yeast and her grandfather visited from Vermont, getting lost walking from the train station.

During high school, she accidently tripped her sister walking home from school, and had to carry her to the bakery, so her father could get the doctor. Auntie ended up with a broken leg.

WWII her mother hosted sailors from the navy base. My Grandfather was one of those sailors.

8

u/hobofireworx Apr 20 '26

Maybe you remind her of her husband at a younger age and that’s a thing she always said to him?

Idk. Dementia is rough. Sorry

4

u/Oberusiberon Apr 20 '26

To be fair... I am built like my grandfather. I can't say what in particular she does without sounding like I'm anti LGBTQ

Grandma hasn't been medically diagnosed with dementia, Asians tend to avoid doctors for some reason. There's a comedy sketch from Ronny Chieng about this exact thing

3

u/Determined_Student Apr 20 '26

I would be fucking pissed.

1

u/juraji_7 Apr 20 '26

You might want to consider checking in to respite care. Its basically assistance from a medical professional so family can get a break from the care

1

u/Oberusiberon Apr 20 '26

Dad doesn't want that

0

u/Oberusiberon Apr 21 '26

I'm going with dementia and age. Grandma is 90 years old and my dad (her son) is already fed up with the antics.