Dealing with someone in your life that has no common sense

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My mother has very little common sense. She just is incapable of making a good decision.

This is the best example.

We have a narrow hallway in our home. She will walk out of a room towards me and and I will be 5 feet down the hallway walking towards her.

She walks on the left hand side directly into my path and stop when we meet. This is not some type of intimidation thing. I told her that she needs to walk down the right hand side of the hall to avoid collisions. She doesn't get it.

This is something you could teach a 10 year old.

I try and help her with other decisions, but she doesn't listen.

She has a PHD. Just no practical sense.

I deal a lot with conspiracy theorists, superstitious folk, and those who believe something only because they doubt the alternative. Trying to explain fact-based reasoning to these people is like ... leading a horse to water and expecting it to drink - they seem to have no common sense at all.

I once returned from either work or errands, to hear my mother, who had a heart condition, shrieking in terror in her bedroom. I hurried in there, still in my coat and thinking something terrible had happened, to find her sitting on the edge of the bed, still shrieking, while watching a program on TV that was scaring her out of her mind. The TV was only a couple of feet from her, but I had to go up to the set and turn it off myself. It had simply never occurred to her to either change the channel or turn it off.

Another time she wanted to call her brother in the evening. He lived in another state. Before calling him, my mother first asked me if there was anything on TV that night that her brother was likely to be watching, as she didn't want to call him at a bad time. How the heck would I know?! !! I'm not a mind reader. So I told her to call him and ask him. ;-D

We even owned a dog once who would occasionally forget to tell anyone, including herself, that she had to go out to take a leak. This led to occasional accidents indoors. Normally, a dog will attempt to get a human's attention and then head for the outside door. She usually did this, but once in a while her mind would slip a cog, and she would just forget to do that. I know senile old dogs do this, as my father and step mother had one like that, but this other dog was not old when she had these bouts of potty forgetfulness.

Some people, and some pets, are just a few cards short of a full deck.

Remember, we on the spectrum are all:

A Different Drummer

If a man does not keep pace with his companions,
Perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.
Let him step to the music which he hears,
However measured or far away.

--Henry David Thoreau

at least she doesn't try to walk right through you!