My mom is in a memory unit with mild dementia. She’s been there since April. She’s very unhappy. I’m distraught every time I talk to her.

Ok, so my 94 y/o mother lives in Memory Care and 'hates' it there too. But it's where she belongs, but to hear her tell it, the others are the 'stupid morons' and she's the Queen of England.

I could have written the story freqflyer is talking about, too. My mother plays the Poor Poor Pitiful Me game to ME, but is the Social Butterfly of the MC; she has one face for me which is always downtrodden and miserable, and another for the staff and residents of the MC, which is friendly & happy. She pretends to be all cooped up in her room 'like a dawg' all day, but when I call over there to 'fact check', she's lying like a rug and out in the activity room enjoying herself! It's happened many many times where she's played me for a fool, but I catch her lying and STILL she does it!

That said, my mother's MC will not allow any of the residents to lay around in bed all day unless they are on hospice. If not, and if they are not literally sick with a fever or whatever, they have to be up and dressed by 10 am and out in the activity room! Period. They are not allowed to eat meals in their rooms either, which prevents them from doing what your mother is doing precisely: holing up and hiding out alone in her room (if it's true she's doing that).

If I were you, I'd get right on the horn & speak with the Exec Director or the nurse in charge. I'd express my concern over what your mother is supposedly doing, staying in bed all day, etc., and tell her that is not what you are paying thousands of dollars a month for! What is their policy on residents staying sequestered alone in their rooms 24/7? You'd like her out and about right away, every day, etc. If they cannot accommodate your wishes, I'd get her out of there and into another Memory Care ALF that's run properly. No joke. Because you have a woman who's already mentally compromised who's being allowed to hide out in her room all alone every day which is exacerbating her problem (if it's true). And that's not okay. Then set up a monthly phone meeting with the powers that be for a check in; to see how mom is progressing or not progressing and the like. That's what I do with my mother and the ED/nurse. Every month we talk and I get the facts vs. the BS my mother throws at me. She has behavioral problems that she conveniently 'forgets' to mention to me, but I get the 411 from the ED/nurse when we speak. Which helps me make sense of the whole picture instead of the bits & pieces my mother wants to tell me.

After it's all said and done, if your mother has truly 'given up', then get her doctor involved for a consult about anti-depressants. My mother takes enough to make a horse giggle with delight (and still she's miserable). Give it all some time and patience and see where she's at a month or two down the road, after you've spoken with the admin of the MC, etc.

Wishing you the best of luck with everything. Don't be 'heartbroken' quite yet either, btw. Get into 'fix-it' mode and use some tough love while you're at it!!! Sometimes, a bit of that goes a lot further than anything!

I have had to set some higher boundaries with my 91 year old mother who has a beautiful apartment within a senior living community but continues to play Oh Poor Me...she has a maid, I do her grocery shopping and appointments, take her to lunch , and call her every other day...which is usually more complaints. She brags about being independent ( at the cost of mine) ..She is in very good health, unlike my husband and I who are 66 and 70, with significant health issues. When we were married 12 years ago (second marriage) she was angry that I chose to try and have my own life also, rather than being at her beck and call. Because of that, she hates my husband, despite him being a forgiving Christian man who still is always polite and accomodating to her demands. I was a single mom to 2 wonderful sons and worked 2 and 3 jobs to put them through college..Because both my husband and I had 2 life threatening health crises in 2018 ( major heart attack and pancreatic tumors ) we now take 2 vacations a year while we still can ( we are retired) and she throws a fit, even though we have invited her in the past and she has always declined. Would rather have a pity party. She did not help her own mother, who passed away in her 80s when my mother was 60....and yet, she tells me how she had to sacrifice her own life when her mother aged. I was the one who visited my grandma, took her treats , helped clean her apartment, groceries, etc. She is jealous when we I visit our grown children and grandchildren out of town ...Im tired of being told to be more understanding...about her fears and loss of freedom, on and on and on. This generation is so entitled and us baby boomers never are able to completely relax and enjoy the retirement we worked so hard to achieve..now that this elderly population is living well into their 90s and have made no plans for their care or social needs.She complains about being lonely, but feels she is better than her other widowed peers and makes the choice to not socialize. I am so over it all and feel trapped and resentful. My dear father was wheelchair bound for the past 30 years of his life, and she made his life a living hell..so I have been involved in her dysfunction to try to shelter and help my dad also for the past almost 40 years since he started losing motor fumction before he passed . I was thankful that he was finally able to escape and find peace 9 years ago , but miss him so much. He apologized to me on his death bed that I would have to deal with her.

Lov2teach, it is not unusual for a person to say they do not like living in a senior facility. I remember some time ago on this forum, a writer said her mother told her she hated the place, she had no friends, disliked the food, the list went on and on....

One day the writer made a surprised visit to see her mother and found her enjoying herself with other women doing crafts. She was smiling and laughing. The writer stood there out of sight and just watched for awhile. Her Mom was having a grand old time. And then when her mother saw her at the doorway, she had that look of "oh dear, I've been caught".

I would cut back on the face-timing as she could be using the face-timing as an excuse not to join others. Play it by ear.

I'm so sorry for this distressing situation. Since she is higher functioning can you meet with the admin or the Activities Director to see if they have tasks she can help them with? I'm seeing more about facilities that use a Montessori-like approach so that the residents still are allowed to work together doing tasks that are still familiar to them and that they're capable of doing (like busing dishes after dinner, sorting the flatware, wiping tables, tending to plants, fixing things, cleaning things, sorting, etc.

I ask you to remember what you yourself stated, "She couldn’t have lived in her home alone much longer." So what other solution would there have been? If you moved her in with you she'd be staring at YOUR walls and you'd feel obligated to be her entertainment committee. It is possible the head injury did damage that is masked her dementia. FYI wanting to "go home" is extremely common in LOs with dementia and often happens as part of sundowning. The home they want to go to is their childhood home, not the home they just left. Try talking to the staff to see if they can fold her in as a sort of "assistant" of something. I wish you peace in your heart as you work to help her.