From the OP’s detail: My mom asked me out of the blue, if I thought she was selfish. I told her “No. Why? Did something happen?” She suddenly got angry and said “that’s not what I asked you!” “You don’t try to find out what’s the motive for their question! Nevermind! Go back to what you were doing!””
There is no reasoning with an irrational person.
Once the kids and I went to visit Mom. We were talking when she suddenly jumped up and said, “Do you guys want something to eat?” As she’s rushing into the kitchen I said, “No, we ate just before we came over.”
She started digging around in the freezer.
She pops her head out of the freezer and holds up a frozen pizza.
“Do you want this?”
“No.” I repeated. “We just ate, but thank you.”
Back into the freezer she goes and comes up with frozen burritos.
“How about some of these?”
I said “NO!” a little louder, and I repeated that we had just eaten.
At that point Mom slammed the freezer shut and yelled, “Well when you do get hungry don’t expect me to feed you!” She was mad for an hour.
Still not sure if she had hearing issues (I don’t think she did) or processing issues (I think she did.) She’d get so intent in herself that she shut everything else out.