The honeymoon is over at the nursing home

Gosh, your comments are so great; I just got goosebumps reading them. Thank you so much. I have been thinking about therapy LOTS and have a good friend who is well connected with therapists in town. So I appreciate the affirmation there.

My mom is a bit of a "snob," too! And for years I thought she was probably manic-depressive, but now am thinking it may be borderline personality. Guess it doesn't really matter, but somehow if I give it sort of a "clinical" picture, I can deal with it more easily. My main focus now is self-care so I am quilting up a storm, making travel plans with my husband, and planning to start a part-time job in January.

Your mission sounds so interesting; I hope you do go and get all kinds of fun info about your family. Thanks again for your reply.

I am going through a similar experience. I just placed my mom in a nursing home last month and she is really upset with both me and my sister. She does not understand that she needs to have the care they give her there, does not understand why she still needs to use her walker even though they have gotten her stronger in physical therapy and complains about her roomate not meeting her standards in terms of education and class. Mom is a high-class lady, values her appearance, even though she is having trouble forgetting things, gets disoriented and is not using good judgment when she is in her "manic" mode. She has manic/drepression I am sure. She was depressed the first two weeks, then became combative and complained a lot, now is going into unrealistic expectations for herself. She keeps begging me to take her back, but I have to remain strong, I have lost five years taking care of her full-time, and yes, I am also 60 and feel the clock ticking. I do not want to be so physically and mentally run down that I cannot do more things that I had planned to do in my life, like go on a genealogy mission for my church and travel to all the places where my ancestors lived. And yes, I dread the visits to see mom now. I cried and cried for several weeks but now I have accepted it that I need to get on with my life. Try to join a support group, get some psychotherapy, that has help me a lot.