I've been my mother's caregiver for almost 15 years, now, and she lives in my house. I get a 40 hour-per-week check from an agency to care for her, but of course, I really care for her around the clock 7 days a week. My mom has slowly developed delusions and hallucinations about me having men in my room at night for sex. In reality, the last date I had was in 1997. One night, she just blurted out that she's afraid for my mortal soul (we're Catholic), and she told me to go to confession. She was angry and said that she didn't raise her daughter to be a whore. Naturally, I had no idea what she was talking about. Anyhow, fast-forward to almost 9 months later, and she now thinks that my "boyfriend" and I want to kill her. She says she can't trust anyone, and she says "I don't want to die !!" It torments her. She cries deeply in those moments. Part of it is sundowning, because it escalates after dark. But she asks me during the day what time my boyfriend is coming over tonight, what his name is, does he have a key to the house, and when she should go to bed so she doesn't meet up with him in the living room, should he walk right in. She's sick and tired of me saying "there is no man," and I certainly can't go along with her on this. Last night was a milestone: She after I went to bed (but was still awake), she tried to call the police about 5 or 6 times, but she doesn't remember "911." I forgot to tell you that she's in the moderate stage of dementia. She kept getting "if you'd like to make a call, please hang up and try again -- beep, beep, beep....." I've contacted her physician and asked for medication to help with her symptoms, but I was told that mom's normal pulse is pretty low already (in the low to mid-forties), and giving her something to sedate her would make it lower -- so they won't prescribe her anything. She was so scared last night that I was threatening to kill her (she imagines that I'm saying things like that), I asked my cousin to come over after 10pm to just talk with her, while I stayed out of the room. I went to bed, so mom could freely talk to my cousin about me. The distraction of the visit made mom feel better, but the moment my cousin left, mom was on the phone again, trying to call the police, but to no avail. I'm at my wits end. She's low maintenance in every other way, and some nights she doesn't have trouble at all. Its especially bad when she's over-tired. She was so scared a few nights ago that she stayed up all night in the living room, waiting for my "boyfriend" to walk in. She said she wanted to catch him, so she could prevent me from sinning !! This is starting to be the theme now. I give up. She's afraid when I go out and leave her alone, but yet she spews all this stuff at me when I'm with her. I could go on and on. She can't walk, thankfully, because she'd have left a long time ago and I'd be searching for her every night. Sorry I went on and on........ just venting, I guess.
Talk to priest & get him on line to help - have him come to house on visits for communion & prayer -
When she gets antsy ask her to help 'pick your nun name' - tell her that you can't start for a while as your are going through your postulant phase so she won't think you are leaving soon -
Try giving it a shot ... because it can't be worse than what's going on now! - if she is like my mom. she thinks about the high road of Catholicism but has little to no actual knowledge about how the church functions & what she did know is far out of date - get that priest to help you with this as he is part of the church that is causing the underlying problems in first place - I'm NO LONGER R.C. & quite happy about it
My solution was to sit and talk to him about his feelings and suspicions. When he says he sees men I ask him to describe them and to ask them their names.
He usually says they don't talk to him and after a while he stops.
Another thing I find is that we tend to forget humans are sexual beings and still think about sex at any age. I find that he still thinks about sex especially if he sees some sex like scene on TV or hears any conversation on the radio. So I talk to him about his feelings about sex. I allow him his privacy especially while bathing him and at nights to rediscover himself and I find he calms down. Its my husband so I guess my methods are easier for me I sometimes let him just touch me anywhere he wants or just sit close to him and hug him. He comes around in no time.
For your mother I guess you could invite an older male friend to sit and talk to her. It may sound distasteful but its worth a try. He could ask her about her husband or sex life when she was younger. I do it with my husband also. Let's be real our older loved ones are living what we may face one day and their feelings for basic activities like food, laughter and sex don't get addressed as it should everyday. Another thing I notice that allowing him to watch me dance is also pleasurable for him, and sometimes I dance with him. He likes the physical contact apparently. I also just act silly and kiss him on the neck or act serious and shout to the imagined guest to please leave, now. He likes that too. Sometimes he will say one or more persons has left. Its just my solution and it avoids the stress, we have to protect our selves from being too stressed and stressing out our loved ones also.