My parents are 57 and 63. My mother is erratic, forgetful, and when she gets mad she sometimes screams and throws things. My father is slowly going deaf, getting slower and more stubborn and forgetful as well. They can be infuriating sometimes, but I know that they’re aging and I can’t be mad at them. How do I deal with this, especially early on in preparation for further down the road?
They are your parents and you love them, and want them to be treated well despite any problems they have now, is how I understand your tone. No matter how much you can or can’t help them, remember:
You are just human and have very real limits to what you can take.
Be conscious of how much time you spend tolerating their behavior versus time you spend taking a break from it.
Edit: Reading this back, it feels slightly like I’m just pointing out the obvious and not really answering your question, so I want to elaborate a bit on why I felt it is relevant. Any interaction you have with them while exhausted, is a danger to your relationship with your parents. You take more of a toll on your sanity, and you have an increased risk to act cold, snap at them, or use needling language. Towards people with low introspection, this is just harmful to them - they just will feel bad and act worse - the world is against them and now even their child is mean to them. I’m not saying you have to constantly cushion and coddle them, but any stance you may choose to take where you set boundaries or talk sternly at them, must come from you when you are at your strongest, not accidentally when you’re driven near mad. Though avoiding confrontations all together is of course also completely valid - you know better than any of us what you can or should confront.