So much of my life that I remember either didn't happen, or didn't happen the way I remember it.  Or so mother says.  She tries to convince me I'm always wrong in every conversation, making up lies just so she can "prove me wrong".  Even over stupid things, like whether or not I've ever done this or that, or whether this happened or that happened.  I try to stay out of conversations with her due to this issue, because everything always turns into her disagreeing with me for disagreement's sake.  It's crazy and ridiculous.

Then we have the issues where she says something that's wrong (which is often) and I correct her.  I don't have to.  I know this.  But sometimes I really do, like when she tries to tell me that diet soda is worse for you when you have diabetes (which she has) than regular soda, yet, she can't figure out why her blood sugar is so high when she drinks root beer every day.  I will correct her, and she will make up things that make absolutely no sense to argue her point, and then adding in things that have no basis in what we're talking about.  This is also a constant thing.  I think she says this stuff knowing it's wrong just so I look like I'm the one being argumentative with her.

Then we have when mother just wants to make up things for fun's sake.  Like recently, she's been on a kick saying my children's bedroom stinks.  It smells like literally nothing, since their room is spotless and their sheets and blankets are always clean.  They literally own practically nothing.  They are true minimalists.  But she insists their room smells horrible.

She talks about this constantly, which cracks me up, because my mother has absolutely no sense of smell or taste.

I, on the other hand, have an acute sense of smell.  It's one of my best senses.  I can smell things other people can't, which sucks because when something smells gross, I am always the first to smell it and it makes me more sick than others because I smell it worse than they do.  It's a blessing and a curse.  But I go into my children's room and it literally smells like air.

She came home the other day from the store (my husband takes her shopping) and even bought a disgusting air freshener for their room.  I walked into their room and immediately almost gagged.  "What's that awful smell?" I yelled.  "Yeah, can you please throw that away?  Grandma put that nasty thing in here," they replied.  I grabbed the air fresher and chucked it into the garbage outside.  I can't stand air fresheners (or bleach or anything else with a strong scent, unless it's a food related scent, like coffee or cinnamon buns), and apparently neither can my children.  And for once, their room actually did smell awful.

Now, my mother has had dementia for several years.  It's not that bad yet.  But it's getting there.  But I do not believe for one moment she's thinking she's smelling something she isn't there.  I think she's making it up because she wants people to think of the kids as "gross boys".  The funny part is her room stunk so bad when she had her cat that we had to put down recently.  She couldn't even smell how bad her room was (you could smell that shit from outside sometimes), yet my boys' room smelled so awful she needed to buy an air freshener for it?  It makes absolutely no sense.  And she kept saying it every single day as though we were just going to cave and say "You got us, we were lying, their room smells horrible".  But she said it so much that I kept going in there to make sure I wasn't crazy.  And sure enough, I wasn't (and neither were my kids or husband).

She didn't like me throwing her air freshener away.  But she also hasn't said anything about their room since.  I think it's a fun game she was playing, since the quarantine order has been in effect she has had nobody to hang out with besides us.  She can't get her supply from her BFF's anymore, so she has to get it from somewhere.  So she made up a story about "The Stink That Ever Existed".

So much fun.

I have a game I'm going to start playing called "What will mother lie about next?"  That actually sounds like an exhausting game because she tells so many lies daily I can't keep track of them all.  Sigh.

That's gaslighting for ya.  Mother's favorite party game.