My mother has vascular dementia developed over time from having multiple TIAs (mini strokes). She kept the fact she had been having them for years from the family so by the time we were aware of these, she had already suffered marked brain damage. Since my sister and myself began paying attention to her medical issues she has lied to us and to her doctors regarding many aspects of them. When accompanying her to doctor visits she threatens us that if we say anything to the doctor about what she is telling them not being true we will be taken out of her will and she will never speak to us again. The biggest secret is about her cognitive abilities or lack thereof. Nobody is to EVER know anything about her medical/mental issues and sometimes denies to us even that there are any. Any time we bring up things like a will, what she wants for care, etc., we are shut down immediately. We are expected to drop everything and go to her aide 24/7 even though I live 1500 miles away half the year and 3 hours away the other half and my sister lives an hour away half the year and 1600 miles away the other half. We each have families and our own lives we have been seriously neglecting to accommodate her without as much as a thanks. I've even quit working so I could be available to her.
She is very demanding and plays so many mind games between us and our 80 year old step father that my sister has been seriously suicidal to the point of needing strong medication and having anxiety attacks and I have had such bad anxiety attacks that I've been in the hospital twice convinced I was having a massive heart attack. My step dad is slipping quite a bit cognitively and is just at wits end with my mother because she eats only sugary stuff, she does odd things like making cat food sandwiches, she has been hallucinating and stays up all night. She was a very strong minded self made business woman before all of this caught up with her causing her be unrecognizable when it comes to her former self. I believe my step dad resents her greatly because he is very mean to her verbally and in our eyes he's very verbally abusive but if we want to say something or do something my mother warns us not to do anything because it will get worse. In a nutshell, he isn't able to or is not willing to care for her at all so it's on us. Just being in the house for an hour is like psychological torture hearing them argue and the degrading loud insults being yelled constantly then my mother demanding we do everything for her from bring her a drink to do the dishes to going to the store multiple times a day for junk food. You can say to refuse to do this, but the repercussions of that are even worse!
Also, I noticed she had her meds all mixed up a while back but when I try to help her she quickly puts them away and hides them. I also noticed she rarely remembers to take them which is vital to her health since she has heart disease and high blood pressure. My step dad has been trying to get her to take vitamins but she tells us he is trying to poison her. There are so many issues going on that my sister and I are at wits end and just can't mentally cope with all of this much longer. After much research we already know we can't make her go into a "home."
Any comments or suggestions would be appreciated!
Because for myself, with a person like this being my mother, I am afraid I am out of there. Pure and simple. Your mother is apparently not demented. And even if she WERE demented and you and your sister chose to go through all the time and all the money to go to court to have this proven (and yes, there would have to be MD examinations), your mother STILL would not accept any care, nor would she be a person any Assisted Living or Memory Care of Nursing Home would keep with them for any amount of time. My suggestion is that you and your sister accept that you really do not now have a mother, and that you get on with taking care of yourself and healing yourself rather than letting this destructive person destroy you completely. Please see a licensed Social Worker about how to move forward for yourselves.
I can only speak for myself. I am certain I sound very heartless. But this is not a woman, be she sane or insane, in the throes of dementia, or not, who would EVER be in my home. I would be handing in my daughter card. I would be sad and sorry about it, but there's no changing this one, I suspect.
There is a saying in here that adult children in your situation suffer from FOG; Fear, Obligation and Guilt. You and your sister are a classic case. I get the feeling that even if you lived on the Moon, Mom would still be in total control despite her cognitive issues. You can write letters to her doctor and inform them exactly what’s going on with Mom. It’s going behind her back, but it may be the only way to help her.
You and your sister are dangerously close to a total mental breakdown. And, then who will care for Mom? 40% of caregivers die before the people they are caring for.
What if you and your sister met somewhere in the middle between your two homes? Could you discuss the fact that you are both at the end of your collective rope and it’s time to get Mom somewhere? It will take a Herculean effort, but in the end, you may find the light at the end of the tunnel before it’s too late for you both.