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Any help or suggestions are just ignored or she gets mad. how do I help my mom? Our father passed 3 years ago and she has been in a downward spiral ever since. I don't live near her so its hard to see everyday life but I hear it in her voice.

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We can't help someone who doesn't want help. We can try to trick them into it, we can beg and plead, we can demonstrate to them how wonderful things will be if they just accept help, we can tattle on them, bully them, emotionally blackmail them, we can try to wait it out, we can do everything that is within our humanly power and if that person doesn't want help there is nothing you can do about it. Plus, you'll make yourself crazy and stressed out trying.
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I had a LO who didn't want help. She refused meds and other things for years. What you might do is have someone near her insists that she see a medical doctor for an exam. You can insists for a number of reasons. Does she have dementia or just depression? Sometimes they come together. I told my LO that her disability insurance required that she see a doctor for an update and she had to go.. She went and the doctor then did the evaluation and found her to be in dire need of help on many levels. With the doctor's support, I was then able to get things going, including her meds.

Is there anyone near her that can do that for you? I wish you the best. It's a very difficult struggle.
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Have you had all of your family/her friends to have a "meeting" with her? What about when she goes to the Dr, they can see how she is and then get her further help? Someone who doesn't want help because they are extremely independent or have depression like your mom its hard to convince or force them to get help. Is there any home health care for her? Any other health concerns?

You and your mom are in my thoughts..hugs
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You will find many threads on this site from people who haved Loved Ones who wouldn't accept help. It really seems as though you have to wait for something really disastrous to happen (a fall, a stroke, etc) that ends them up in the hospital and/or rehab; then it falls to the discharge staff to tell them that they are no longer able to live alone. Has you mom always been like this? I see a huge difference between my deceased MIL (she would get angry, threaten, if anyone told her she needed help) and my mom, who would simply say, no, no and looked worried. With my mom, a much less combative person by nature, it was matter to telling her that her living alone and having near daily "crises" and panicky phone calls wasn't working out for US. She got that and acceded to going to an IL facility where she got a much healthier diet, was less socially isolated and was able to manage her own medical appointments because there was a doctor for the AL right across the street.
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Get the book ELDER RAGE byJacqueline Marcell you will think it was written for you. Whenever I am challenged with trying to get my 90 year old mom to consider something i always present it as an adventure and of course it was her idea.
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Helpmom, how are you?

I'm asking for two reasons. One: I can't remember exactly how long it was before I stopped being really sad and shaken about my father's death, but I know it was several years; how are you handling your own loss? Two: do you think, I wonder, would your mother respond better if you talked to her about how you are? I have this pet theory (I haven't tried it out or asked the experts, mind) that mothers tend to care much better about their children than they do about themselves. Maybe it could lead to something?
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