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When I read the discussions on this site it is like looking in a mirror at myself. I don't have any good advice as I don't know how to handle my own situation. It is good to know it is not only me going thru the horrors of being a caretaker although i would not wish it on anyone. I don't think there is a real solution to a caretakers problems except to have a place like this to vent .. putting your feeling in writing does help!

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AbusedPrisoner - You really are in a very difficult spot. It sounds like you are dealing with someone who has mental illness and dementia. I know because I have lived it myself. I recognize a lot of what you describe because it happened to me too. Your mother needs a lot of help that you are not qualified or experienced to provide. Your job is to get her connected to help and let the professionals take over, or your living situation with her will become very unsafe.

My mother has bipolar, cluster B personality disorders, and advanced dementia. Two years ago, she was extremely paranoid, controlling, domineering, verbally abusive, and physically abusive. The entire family abandoned her because she was so awful to be around. They didn't understand it was her mental illness and dementia that was getting worse.

Your mother probably has angry outbursts because her brain is sick. I STRONGLY suggest you call your local area agency on aging (you'll have to google it for your county or state). Request a social worker come do a home assessment. Your mother must be seen by a neurologist and a geriatric psychiatrist some how, some way. She won't want to be seen because it scares her. She will fight you on this.

Do not be surprised if they tell you that your mother must go into 24/7 care. Putting my mother into a secure dementia care unit was the best decision ever made for her. The staff make sure she eats, takes her medicine, is bathed, changed, and went to activities until she couldn't anymore. If this is what your mother needs, you must let it happen. It does not mean you have failed. It means your mother's needs have changed and increased, which is normal for old people.

My mother was seeing men with red eyes outside her window, seeing squirrels on the fireplace mantle, rabbits running through the house, seeing people who have long been dead. Accusing me of all kinds of things. I supposedly stole her pants despite the fact I lived 1800 miles away. I also was rummaging around in her closet, taking things and was on TV. These are auditory and visual hallucinations caused by the dementia and mental illness together. It is NOT NORMAL. She called me every awful name there is, swore at me, screamed, yelled, raged and ranted. She accused me of wanting to take her money and kill her. This was her sickness talking. I had to learn NOT to take it personally. She also accused people in the memory care home of wanting to kill her, so it wasn't just me.

I also want you to find a counselor or therapist for yourself, to make sure that YOU are going to be OK during all this change and that you can learn to feel good about your decisions to put your mom in a place where she will be safe from herself.
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Her realuty is definitely different. At first. I use to try to correct her misconceptions. like thinking the mailbox is someone standing by the road. Always callung me by my aunts name. Thinking i am talkung to ny aunt in my bedroim. Hearing knockIng on the windows.. on and on.. she woyld becime angry about me Telling her the truth.. Finally i have started agreeing with her which makes life easier. It was a hard lesson for me to learn but finalky i got it. Your right idont think i can use logic to figure wht she has the angry outbursts.
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Ah, AbusedPrisoner, I see the source of some of your frustration. You are trying to logically figure this out. Logic does not apply. That is a real hard pill for us "logical" people to swallow. Life, as we see it, is supposed to be logical and there should be cause-and-effect. Well I am sure there is a cause for Mom's behavior but we may never know just what it is. Her reality is not our reality. If you are going to continue to be the primary caregiver for this confused person, I think you are going to have to accept the reality that logic is not the driving factor here.
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I cannot logically figure it out. I dont know if it is a mental condition. She is just being bratty ir maybe becase she is angry about her disability. She has outbursts of angrer then she wants everything to go back to normal. It seems as if she has gotten some idea in her head and then has an outburst and wants it to be over afterward. It is like a rollercoaster. She will tell me she loves me and needs me.. then try ti hurt me with her angery words. Her outbursts are unexpectef.. i can be cookung or washing dishes or just sitting quitely with her and the anger erupts. Simetume she wll go into tears and i feel sorry for her feelung so unable to functiin as she did. I am not the cause of her disability and i am the only one with her i have no siblings oe children of my own. Why would she want to hurt me?
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I would never suggest that you "just walk away" from someone you love. But finding an alternate care plan is very different from walking away. It is not either/or. My mother is now in a nursing home because that is the level of care she needs. It is NOT because any of her children "walked away."

So, loving her as much as you do, you do have choices about how to express that love and do good things for her.

If you DECIDE that the best way to express your love for your mother is to keep her in the home you built for her and provide all her care yourself, then at least acknowledge that is is your choice, and you are not a prisoner. For heavens' sake, take credit for this decision -- don't pretend you didn't make it.

It really helped me to take care of my husband with dementia at home to remind myself that this was my choice, and there were alternatives if things got really bad.

If your mother was eligible for hospice care then she is apparently at the end of her life. Does it help any for you to realize that this caregiving role is likely to be over soon?

Just because you chose this role and intend to continue in it, in love, doesn't mean that you don't hate it to pieces from time to time. This can be a good place to vent.
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Show yourself some love by placing her in a nursing home where people can care for her in 8 hour shifts and thus have a life. It sounds like wanting to go see the lawyer about going to a nursing home is some evidence that she wants to go there. Her dementia will if it has not already reach a point beyond which a person just can't do 24/7 care. If she is no longer taking her meds for her paranoia, that is only making life worse for you and for her.

Sorry, but I can't see a loving mother doing what you shared that your mom has done and said. Healthy love does not do that and does not let others abuse them or make them feel like an abused prisoner.
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I love my mom.. that is why i dont just walk away.
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Mom does not have anything other then 900 a month ss. She has the property my aunt left to her which is in a trust fund for me. She owns the house i built with my 401k monies. In my career as a senior programmer analyst i saved my money and i am financial set for my retitement. I dont need moms money for the future. You totally misread something. I have two annuities.. a health savings account.. my socual security and an ira. I am trying to help mom to stay in her home and not be displaced. No matter what any of you think i love my mom .. i have always known she is not quite right even when i was a child. I always felt she loved me which is all a child needs. She does hurt me with her words. I cant help stop that hurt.
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Does she take medicine the mental hospital prescribed for her paranoia?

Has a doctor evaluated her competency?

Lawyers don't send a person to a nursing home. That's what doctor's write orders for.

Would she qualify for medicaid to pay for her to go to a nursing home?

Given her mental health problems on top of the dementia, she may well need a special nursing home for people with her unique needs.

Would you take such abuse from a spouse? If not, then why do you take it from your mom?

Do you have her durable and medical POA? I hope so.
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I dont know why she wants to see a lawyer. To see if a doctor can legally send her to a care facility. Once she was being taken to a mental hospital by a policeman he said for her to get in his vehicle she said she would not unless he handcuffed her .. he said i dint think that will be necessary.. she did get in.. Many times she calls me by her dead sisters name. She is not right in the head.. i know this. It still hurts for my mother to say the things to me that she says.
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It does not sound like you are ready to deal with your problems which you say yourself are mainly self-imposed because you chose to put up with things for the sake of it sounds like saving your mom's money for in the future and to avoid upsetting her which sorry but part of getting older and being sick is loosing more and more of one's independence.

My MIL doesn't like her sudden loss of physical mobility and its related independence, but that doesn't change her many fractures in her pelvis which is both painful and has put her to bed which she will need from 6-18 months of to heal.

When you are ready to deal with things, let us know.
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Her mental health diagnois is PARANOID and now that she is older accompanied with dementia.
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You are right i was wrong to have the userid abusedprisoner. How can i be since i am totally in control. I could walk away and yes i am quite financially able to do so. Mom would not be able to pay the property taxes since i built the house the taxes went ip 1200 dollars. Mom would end up in some place that would not really respect her independent nature. Maybe lose every thing she has for nursing home expenses plus the monies out of my 401k to build the house. Also no matter how she treats me i realize she has a bullet in her head and she has demintia so she gets confused and does not think right. I do love her and dont want to upset her life by putting her in a nursing home. So i take the abuse and make my own self a prisiner.. after all i am in control right. I could run away from it all. It was my bad using abusedprisoner. Guess i felt that way at the time and needed some sympathy so i came on this sight. But now that i know i am bad for ever feeling like that i can quit bugging you with my problems.
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From your self description, I think you need my "50 Ways to Leave Your Abusive Mother" song that is currently being developed.

Why does she need to see a lawyer to see if the doctors can put her in the nursing home? That's the question for her doctor, not her lawyer.

Has her mental health ever been diagnosed?
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My mother does not allow anyone on the property. She only wants it to be her and me. She ran off the hospice people and volenteer they assigned. I am an only child and i have no support from siblings or children of my own. I have given up my job at 62 to care for her. I am now 66. I had lived in california and have no friends here except my hairdresser that comes to the house to cut my hair. Mom has mentioned she does not want the hairdresser at the house. I dont go anywhere not even the toilet that she does not want to know where i am going and when i will be back. She accuses me of having men up to the house every night.. i dont even know any men. If i tell her the truth her reply is Bullsh*t. She has an acre and third that i pay to be mowed and trimed. I tell her i am going to pay. She says.. Run out there with your underware in one hand and a quarter in the other.. she does not want me out of her sight one minute. She looks in my room to check on me all the time at night. I have caught her sneaking around looking out the windows for me. I have told her that i dont have any men in my life but that i am 66 years old and if i wanted to it would be my own business. I am with her all day so she should know nothing is happening but she thinks i am going out to meet someone at night. She even accused me of having sex in her car. She says she checks my underware to see if there is cum in them. I think this is abuse. I took over 100 thousand plus other monies out of my 401k to build a house on her property with a handicap ramp and two master bedrooms so it would be convenient for us to live together. The doctors have said she cannot live by herself and must live with me or a nursing home. She now wants to go to a lawyer to see if the doctors can put her in a nursing. My life was never easy. From the time i can remember there was drunks beating each other my mom finally ended up shooting her self when i was 19. She hates me for getting married at 17. I do not have any children or brothers or sisters.. btw mom HATES MEN. I think she is afraid some man will take me away from her. I cannot argue anymore i am tired.. i just say ok to whatever she comes up with. i kow you think i could just leave let her go to the nursing home. I do love her.. she is my mom.. she cared for me as a 16 year old mom. icant imagine how hard that must have been..
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As I've read more and more posts from people in desperate situations, it's very frequently clear that they see themselves in environments with factors totally beyond their control. And despite pleas for help, they don't see how or that the situations can be changed.

They feel powerless; they're overwhelmed, and for various reasons they aren't able to create enough mental distance to rationally analyze the situation. I think it would be like being caught in a whirlpool and being whipped around and around by intense currents. One has to battle the grip of the current in order to get out and plan a route to a safe shore.

I think for those who write about desperate situations, that difficult escape is the first step to creating a more tolerable situation.

I'm not blaming anyone; it's not the fault of the caregiver, the elders or the family. And I certainly won't pretend that I haven't been there. It's a horrible place to be.

We see through posters' descriptions what they perceive as their own reality and trapped situation.

My point is that the request for advice and help needs to be either first addressed and/or accompanied by enough self analysis and recognition that there are factors beyond the control of the individual, and that only he or she can change his/her attitude toward how to achieve a more balanced perception and life.

I think the first step really is this journey of recognizing one's negative self-image, accepting that siblings and family aren't necessarily going to change, that the caregiver needs to recognize what can't be changed and instead focus on changing his or her approach and self image.

If you see yourself as abused, and as a prisoner, your first step is a frank analysis of why you feel that way and how you can change that self image by recognition of what's changeable and what's not. Then you can move forward, establish boundaries and work out a solution that's more healthy for you.

Sounds easy when written, doesn't it? Well, it's not, and anyone who's gone through it would probably confirm that it's very difficult. I'm sure I'm not the only who often feels as though I'm on an emotional seesaw, and need to step back and regain my perspective.

But the alternative of remaining in the status quo isn't any better.
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I can't imagine what would prompt you to call yourself Abused Prisoner. In-home caregiving for seniors is arguably one of the most difficult tasks any of us will be asked to do in our lives. But one of the many descriptions of people who CHOOSE to do this angel's work should never be the words you use.
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