My grandma's food obsession is driving me insane. Not sure what to do anymore.
Hey everyone, I'm almost feeling at my wit's end and would really appreciate some advice from people who've dealt with similar situations. Sorry in advance for this long post, but there's a lot to unpack here.
So my grandma has developed this intense food insecurity/obsession that's completely taking over our household. Every single day it's the same exhausting cycle. She has no idea what she wants for dinner, but instead of deciding herself, she puts it on me and my cousin to figure out. I literally can't stand the question 'What do you want for dinner?' anymore without wanting to pull my own hair out. She makes it feel pressuring to answer her, since we know that she'll just go over more ideas anyways, like she forgets what we even suggested 5 minutes prior. My cousin and I are both supposed to be independent adults, but our family basically expects us to be her full-time caretakers at this point. The rest of them are sorta narcissistic, lazy, and they don't understand what dealing with her every day is like.
The kicker? When we suggest something we'd actually want to eat, she gets snappy and frustrated that everyone isn't having the same food. But she's also ridiculously picky and specific about what she'll eat. She'll decide she wants something, then sometimes change her mind last minute, which often leads to her either eating nothing at all or just grabbing unhealthy junk food instead.
Also, her freezer hoarding is out of control. She stuffs them with everything she can get her hands on, and we're dealing with over-frosting issues every year because of it. Plus she's constantly buying food prep appliances she can't even use. Canning equipment, different cookers, you name it. It's all just piling up. She can barely operate any of it herself, so that's another thing leaving us practically feeling compelled to help her, as she'll usually have a fit if we give off any idea that we'd rather make something simpler.
When we do cook for her, she insists on these massive 2-3 pot meals from weird recipes she finds online, loaded with butter, cheese, seasonings, basically everything unhealthy for someone her age. Then half the time she doesn't eat it, and we end up secretly throwing out containers of leftovers because she's accumulated so much. We have to pretend we ate it just to get rid of the stuff.
She went through this phase of hitting up food pantries every month, bringing home 6-7 boxes of non-perishables plus a senior box, mostly because she wanted their boxed Velveeta. Then she stopped going entirely when they discontinued the senior boxes. We had to donate over 16 boxes of food she was never going to touch that were just taking up kitchen space.
Financially, she's only getting $130 in food stamps and claims it's not enough. DHS says she makes too much, but apparently she can't afford to buy additional food because of bills - especially since she got a used car and prices on other things keep climbing. She hasn't even bothered calling DHS to appeal or see if there's anything they can do because that would require actual effort, and she always seems to take the lazy way out.
And she went through a phase where she'd demand to use our food stamps, and told us not to tell anyone, but whenever we tell her that it's technically not allowed due to DHS regulations, she usually likes to have a fit or accuse us of 'pocketing them' for ourselves. But I would have absolutely no problem using my personal food stamps to help her if she really was hurting for food, provided we get some kind of permission from DHS.
Just to be clear, neither my cousin nor I are her legal or certified caretakers. We chose to live here to help her out occasionally by our own will, but I didn't sign up for this level of insanity. She's Not totally disabled and unable to care for herself just yet, but she seems to be heading that direction by the year. These impulses are just getting worse and I'm genuinely losing my mind dealing with it.
Has anyone else dealt with elderly family members and food obsession issues like this? How did you go about it without having to feel bad? Any advice would be hugely appreciated.
Thank you so much to anyone who took the time to read this.