My mother's obsessive thinking is causing real problems.
My mother is bad about getting obsessed on certain ideas. I've been able to handle most of them okay. This newest obsession is more difficult.
My mother has weak pelvic muscles, so has a lot of urinary accidents. She denies it and does laundry all day long to try to hide it, but I know the truth. She absolutely refuses to wear any protective undergarments. Period. I try to keep the floors clean, but the accidents are so frequent that it is hard to keep the smell at bay. I clean, it comes back. It is under the toilet. I need to clean and caulk, but she has another accident before I can get it dry and caulked.
For the past couple of weeks she has decided that the smell is coming from my rabbits. She tells me that I need to have them put down. She pulls at my bedroom door a lot, trying to get it more shut off. She tells me to stop opening and closing my door, because it lets all the smell out. She sprays the house so much that the floors are sticky.
She has taken to blocking the shower drain because the rabbit smell is coming up from there. She tells me I stink like the rabbits. I tell her that it is her bathroom. I clean and the smell goes away, of course, but then there are more accidents.
I work hard to keep the rabbit room clean and fresh. If there is any smell, I take care of it fast. Their room is off mine, and I certainly don't want any stink. Today was a really bad day with my mother. She did everything she could to conquer the "rabbit smell." She won't accept that it isn't the rabbits that smell so bad. I try to explain what it is, but she says I'm lying -- that I need to have the rabbits put down. I'm sorry, but I can't see putting the rabbits I love dearly to sleep because my mother can't stop peeing on the floor. This is a situation I can't figure out how to handle and feel that my caregiving days are drawing to an end.
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Ativan and Xanax are short acting, we had to add Celexa at bedtime to keep Mom on the happy track.
Right now I am waiting for the caulk to dry completely before cleaning the bathroom. I know that these things I've done will tackle the smell problem if I mop with vinegar as needed. I used to hate the smell of vinegar. Now I appreciate the smell. Wonderful stuff, vinegar is.
psteigman, my mother has an anxiety disorder. She has taken some form of benzodiazepine for the last 70 years. She has Ativan now. She has always been a worry wart, but with the dementia, she has become obsessed with certain things. This has been the hardest one for me, because it is directed at me and mine, instead of the house in general. We'll have to see if the home improvements will make a difference. If not, I'll be looking for a new home.
I don't know any details about your relationship with your brothers, but perhaps you could write (as we do here) a detailed accounting of her daily typical behavior and your daily challenges with cleaning up the messes and trying to reason with her. I agree it is time your siblings stepped in. If I were in your shoes, I would decide on a date ( 2 wks to one month) to vacate your Mom's home, and put your siblings on notice that they must immediately start making arrangemens for her care either by them or in a facility. It sounds like the time has come. I don't know how you keep your sanity!
The main problem is that her will to battle is 1000x greater than my own. If I saw her wet the floor and confronted her, she would simply deny she did it and start yelling at me. wherewerethey, what you wrote about your MIL wetting the floor is spot on what would happen -- pun intended.
People outside the family would have a hard time believing the iron fist my mother has. She seems to be sweet, quiet, and passive. This morning I woke up with a new state of mind. I do that every day now. So what if she wants to get rid of the rabbits. If she orders it, the rabbits and I will leave. She hasn't been declared incompetent, so I will have to leave. No big problem for me, but I don't know what my brothers will do about my mother.