Weirdly stated question, but I feel as though I cannot get psychological help on a regular basis for what I am feeling seeing my mother decline. I don't know if I can handle this.
I have posted before as many people have here. I feel as though I am different than most in that it is a minute by minute experience for me with my mother. She says things that are not true and what scares me about this is that she is bent on thinking it is true. Example, saying the management company that took over our building 2 years ago is repairing 24/7 and it's since they have taken over and it's illegal.
They have NOT been building 24/7 since they took over. It simply is not true.
The level of anger toward me is scary and the fact that she says this and tries to back it up is scary. I feel like NO ONE gets it's scary.
My mother would forget that she ate . Then she would tell people that I didn't feed her . This would happen once or twice a week. The worst was when she would come into the living room where I sleep on the couch, she had my room, at 3:00 am in the morning yelling at me about not feeding her. She would not stop till I got up and made her something to eat, and then maybe take two bites out of it, and say she is full.
I started to make all kinds of meals and freezing them. Like pancakes, eggs, soup, burritos, rice and chicken, in small portions because I knew she wouldn't eat it all. This idea saved me a lot of time.
This went on for like 6 months, and eventually she went onto something else, like my cloths and shoes were now hers. She really believed they were, she is 5'8 and her shoes size was an 8. I am 5'2 and my shoe size is a 6 or 7. Lord you should have seen her in my strapless summer dress and sandals with her toes all hanging out.
Before I can go to work, I have to get my son dressed, teeth brushed, feed and off to school, then my mom dressed, hair done, teeth brushed, her morning pills, something to eat and off to daycare for individuals with dementia. Trying to make sure everyone was on time including myself was stressful enough everyday.
I always got up at 4:00 am to get my coffee going, my shower taken before I woke up my son or mom. When I got up at 4:00 am, and seen my mother in my cloths telling me she was ready for daycare, I was in shock. In the past two years she never touched my cloths or shoes, but now they are hers. Oh she was pissed when I said they were mine, and we argued for almost an hour.
I am in panic mode and realize I have 24 hours to come up with a plan. I don't have an extra hour in the morning to argue with her about wearing my dresses and shoes. We are all going to be late today. My brain was working is hard as it could.
I showed my mom what she looked like in a full length mirror, and said "look at your toes, those shoes don't even fit, and the dress doesn't fit either.". Her comment back was "yes it does". I said "have you ever went to day care dressed like that before? She said "no", I lied and said " they have a dress code there, and you will be sent back home for being dressed like that". I said "lets change your cloths and I will bring the dress along so we can ask Jill about you wearing that dress to daycare.
I informed Jill what was going on with my mom that morning before I dropped her off. Jill agreed with my plan and would tell my mother that if she wore that dress to day care, she would be violating the dress code and be sent home. . So I took in the dress with my mom when dropping her off to day care. When picking her up, Jill was happy to inform me that my mother understands that if she wore that dress to day care it would be violating their dress code and she would be sent home. My mother was standing right there.
So my mom continued to believe some of my cloths and shoes were hers. She would put them on and wear them around the house for the next two months, and then she moved on to hamburgers and tooth paste, after that it was her false teeth, and on and on until she was bed ridden.
When speaking with her doctors, and explaining her actions the only thing they wanted to do was change her medications. Big mistake !!!!
What I learned through all of this was, drugs can't fix everything. When it comes to dealing with a parent who goes through stages of believing things that are not true due to dementia, instead of arguing with them, think of different ways to work out the situation by involving someone else into your plan.
When I start getting frustrated that I can't get her to focus (not her fault, it is what it is!) I leave.
If you have chosen to be caring for your mom, you're going to have to find a way to deal with this odd behavior. Mom lives with YB. When she bugs HIM, he also just leaves.
Watching mom's mental decline over this past year has been hard. Mostly she just isn't clued in into anything any more. We're not seeking a diagnosis, but I would suspect mild dementia. And she can also do her checkbook and pay her bills ( all 4 of them!) but she has no idea who the president is or what my phone number is. And that's been the same for 42 years.
She's living with the right sibling. None of the rest of us would have put up with what's she put YB through. She doesn't realize how close she's been to being moved to an Assisted Living Facility--but YB won't allow it.
I guess my question to you would be, how much more are you willing to put up with, as you are the one who is struggling with caring for her? If she has some kind of mental decline, you know that she will only continue to get worse. If placing her in a facility is not an option right now, then I would recommend that you hire some outside help(with moms money) to come several days a week, so you can get some much needed breaks. You must take care of yourself.
WE have to enter THEIR reality now, whether we want to or not. If it upsets us so greatly to do so, we need to place them in Memory Care Assisted Living homes where teams of caregivers CAN deal with it. That's where my mother lives, at 94 years old with moderately advanced dementia, and they take great care of her. I still deal with her daily, but I don't have to face her 24/7, like you do, if you are living together in the same home.
You don't have to correct your mother when she's telling HER version of the truth, about the bldg maintenance for instance........who cares, really? Let her think what SHE wants to think, it doesn't phase your life in any way. Agree with her in an effort to keep her calm; that's the goal, otherwise she'll get agitated and that's when the yelling and real ugliness can start. Watch some Teepa Snow videos on YouTube to see how to handle dementia patients best; she has some wonderful techniques & tips to share.
If you need more therapy, sign up for it if you have insurance. We can't all handle advanced care for dementia sufferers and when we cannot, we need to admit it and make alternate arrangements for placement. I knew darn well I could not and would not want to handle my mother's myriad of health & mental issues alone at home, so I put my foot down years ago, and Assisted Living was the only option. When her money runs out to private pay, and if she's still alive, I'll apply for Medicaid to fund her stay in Skilled Nursing. I'm only one human being and it takes a village to care for a dementia patient, in my opinion.
Wishing you the best of luck seeking help and making some tough decisions moving forward.
Many people unfortunately can very much understand what you are saying about people saying things that are not true, even though they believe it to be true.
Does she have dementia? This sounds similar to others experience with dementia patients. If she does have dementia, I suggest letting it go when she makes statements like these that are totally untrue. Keep a few vague, non-argumentative responses ready and move on to something else.
It must be scary if she is getting very angry. If she is getting violent, there may be something else to be dealt with. I don't like meds, BUT in severe situations, like this kind of sounds like, you might need to talk to her doctor to see if there is something that can calm her down a bit so that she does not get so angry.
Good luck.