Like the title says, my mom is 82 suffers from congestive heart failure and vascular dementia. She is fairly well, considering, but obviously not of sound mind to think of doing this day trip.
The man lives 2 hours away from us, mom lives with me and husband, no help from any family or friends all live in another state.
Things have been very tenuous between us lately and she acts like a toddler half the time and a spoiled teenager the other half. She will refuse to put on clean clothes for days, sitting around with crumbs and stains on clothes, I cook, clean, shop, drive and sort and distribute her medications. She has improved over the last year, and can function to put comments on Facebook and this dating site, but shuts down if she is too stressed or tired.
She told me this is going to happen tomorrow whether we like it or not... I am not her legal guardian but am a VERY concerned daughter... any advice is appreciated.
As I stated earlier, mom and I had words. I let her know that she was not going anywhere with a strange man she met on the internet. She was not to give our address to anyone without my approval and that I was doing this because I love her and was worried for her safety.
I am not a confrontational person and have always tried to be kind and loving to mom, but this was unacceptable.
After the dust settled and I had time to look into what was actually being posted on this site, I found that the man was talking vulgar and did say he wanted to meet my mom and do things to her.... ugh! She was not innocent in this conversation either.... she made questionable comments and she did put an address on there, but it wasn’t correct and was just a street number with no street name.
Unfortunately when she went outside at 10pm at night, I didn’t know what exactly was going on and I had to react in a way to protect her and myself. Thankfully no one showed up and we weren’t in danger but this situation could have ended badly.
Mom is now at my brothers for a while as we both needed a break, I have not had a day away from caring for her in 3 years. My brother and sister in law are doing their best to care for her and she is in a safe place. We have disconnected her access to this dating website in the transition from my home to theirs so hopefully she will forget about it when she comes back or I will have to tell her it was shut down.
The truth is caregiving is hard. Hindsight is 20/20 and we all do the best we can.
Some people on here have criticized my actions saying mom should be able to do whatever she wants. But she has dementia and is not in her right mind and I’m just a daughter doing the best I can.
Thanks so much for the support and for taking the time to reply when I was at my wits end.
Your kindness is a blessing and I hope I can be there for some of you in the future.
Hugs, Kathy
At at some point, you will probably need to have it out with Mom again. I know how difficult this is because I am non- confrontational as well. You are a saint for caring for your mom. Three years with no break. Wow. Don’t let that happen again, for your own mental health. If Assisted Living isn’t in her future, then brother will need to step up more often.
Bless you for what you’re doing. Sending hugs!
Perhaps you could double date with them, go with them and offer to treat them with something they would like to do. Or offer to play a game at your house.
Call the police when gets ready to leave. Here, Police were very helpful when my mom ran away. Can you speak to her doctor?
I see that you solved this issue. My mom ran away in her pjs. Called the police turned me in for elder abuse. then ran away. We put her in an ambulance and took her to a locked down facility for 2 weeks and them to memory care. She is in assisted living now doing pretty good