After visiting my mam how do I stop feeling guilty that I can't visit more?

kath61, your Mom is in the right place for her memory care. As we all know dementia doesn't get better, it only gets worse. And yes, our emotions can run wild second guessing our decisions.

Please don't feel guilty that you can't visit you Mom more often, chances are your Mom no longer has a sense of time.

When my own Mom was in a care facility, she also use to light up when she saw me and would call me by name. Yes, that felt good that she still recognized me, until one day when she hadn't seen me yet, she was lighting up and calling one of the Aides by my name. It was then that I realized she didn't really know who I was :(

kath61, I am struggling with the same thing. My Mom is in AL and I am about a 2 hour drive away - if traffic cooperates, which it often doesn't. So visiting her means 4-5 hours on the road. I try to see her once a week. I was there on Tuesday and yesterday (2 days later) she called and was wondering when I would visit next. She can't wrap her head around how long it takes to come visit - she asked me to describe the route I took and once I did she understood (she keeps forgetting where she is geographically). But of course she will forget again.

My sister and brother live near and she had spent last weekend with them, and with another brother in from out of town to visit her. And aside from the weekend my sister visits frequently. Yet she loses track of these visits, and feels sad and lonely. We have started writing down the visits on a calender she has, so she can look at it and see who has been there. But she forgets to look so I don't know that it does any good.

In the meantime she isn't leaving her AL apartment to make connections with the people there, so she is feeling isolated.

My sister and I are struggling with this. Once thing that has helped my sister is remembering a conversation she had with Mom a few years ago. They were discussing raising children, and my Mom stated that she felt it wasn't the parent's job to make their children happy. It was their job to make sure the children were loved and safe and cared for. This was in response to a common friend who was twisting herself into knots to make her child happy.

So we are trying to apply Mom's philosophy on child-rearing (which resulted in 6 well-adjusted happy adults) to our dealings with Mom. It is our job to make sure she is loved and safe and cared for. We can't make her happy - and in fact since she developed dementia she just plain isn't happy much of the time because her life is not what she wants it to be.

I am trying to learn to live with that, but it is hard. I do know the Mom of 5 years ago wouldn't want me to turn my life upside down to keep her company or try to make her happy.

Sigh, all those words and it still is so hard.

Thanks freqflyer and chdottir for your words of wisdom.its true,im always second guessing my decisions but I know deep down she's in the right place for her needs.she is so loved,very safe and cared for so why do we torture ourselves,maybe nobody can care for them better than us but guilt is hard to let go of.im trying tho.and yes she looks sad sometimes because she wants her old life back but even if she lived with me she would still be searching for her childhood home.I suppose we have to accept that we cant give them everything they want but knowing they are loved so much helps.

Too bad your brother can't also visit twice a week. That would increase family contact for her.

Yes CTTN55 that would be great but he doesn't have the emotional attachment that I have and he's lazy.I cant force him to go and I really dont want him to go if he doesnt want to be there.its caused arguments before and I dont need the stress.I will just keep managing myself.