my husband, my 18 month old daughter and i live with my grandmother in law. she is almost 80. she has been showing signs of denmentia, and its clearly getting worse. she is aggressive and never stops complaining, yelling, screaming, and just being cruel. She thinks people are always yelling at her when they aren't, and she misplaces everything then accuses everyone of theft. she blames everything on everyone and she picks fights, harrasses and never stops arguing but acts like its everyone else arguing and she did nothing wrong. she also lacks complete compassion for anyone except her late husband. she is also extremly controlling. Anyways, im writing this because i am afraid she has abused my baby. My daughter is extremly afraid of her. she cries and screams and runs away when she gets close to her. there have been times where my baby will be trying to nap and i will be doing housework. janet will come in and very pissed off, yell at me about how the baby is crying and wont nap. even through teething and everything, my baby is a great sleeper. never fusses about naptime or bedtime, sleeps all night, shes great. my daughter only cries and screams if she is in alot of pain, or scared. i never saw a mark on her until four days ago. and grandmother in law was angry and told me baby wasbt sleeping. it took 20 mins to calm her down. thats not normal at all. im a stay at home mom and always around my baby. i know when something isnt right with her. anyways after i finally got her calm, janet tried to come around her and poor baby got extremely upset all over again tried to climb over my shoulder to get away from her, and a day later i noticed this really big deep dark mystery bruise on her arm. i instantly felt my heart drop.to my stomach and i knew thats not a bruise from a fall. What the heck am i supposed to do? my husband wilk not leave his grandma. we have been year for several years trying to help her. ( me 8, him 12). i cant risk my childs safety but without my husband, i have nowhere to go. no friends houses, parents or anything. i want to talk to her doctor. the only thing is, she complains to her doctor about us, she makes us seem like the most horrible people when all we do is help her not get hurt, make her food, run her errands , literally everything. and we are very patient and kind to her. but the doctor thinks otherwise because she puts on a charade for other people. im afraid her doctor wont listen and tell her what i said, and that will cause 100 more problems. i really dont know what to do anymore and i dont how much more of this i can take. i really need help and i just dont know what to do.
I can be sympathetic to Gramma. Dementia does horrible things to people. It is most likely not her true self acting but her disease. Poor Gramma.
But you absolutely cannot let your child be treated in a way that she is terrified of Gramma.
Get Out. The best thing is if Husband will come with you, and focus on his immediate family, while arranging care for poor Gramma. But if Husband doesn't see it that way then it is your responsibility to protect your daughter by removing her from this toxic environment.
When you get a chance, go to https://www.agingcare.com/Alzheimers-Dementia and scroll down to the articles, read everything you can about dementia, including the Alzheimer's articles. Then you will see that it is the illness acting out, and it will only get worse.
The grandmother is only 80 which is young by today's standards... do you think you would handle this for another 10 years? It will destroy your health, and your marriage. I can understand your husband want to help his grandmother, but sometimes the best help can be found at a continuing care facility.
Get the numbers and location of women's shelters in town in case you need them. Get hubby to sign up here and read about abusive elders and maybe realize the danger he is putting everyone in; if he refuses to do so you may need to get out...there is such a thing as "failure to protect" when it comes to children being abused. To top that off, she might accuse him as well as you of abusing her. Possibly, if she does, getting social services involved could work out all around, but they do the right thing only about 80% of the time in my experience. If hubby gets huffy with them they are even more likely to believe GM and put you into a world of hurt.
You are at your wits' end because you SHOULD be...you and your child should NOT be subjected to this with no end in sight.
Your husband's grandmother has dementia so bad already and it's not going to get any better. The situation will only get worse. Does he have power of attorney for her finances and health? You do need to talk to her doctor if you have the authority to do so, he will understand. There are medications she can take that will probably help her, but the doctor needs to know what symptoms she has that need to be addressed.
As a last resort, your husband needs to be checking out assisted living facilities for his grandmother to move into. You may need to move from the house, as it will probably need to be sold to pay for her care, so be thinking along those lines. It really sounds as though the situation is not a good place for a toddler, the baby probably irritates her great grandmother. Sorry, but things don't always work out the way we hope they will, and sometimes we have to go to "plan B". Good luck.