How do you continue to be a caregiver when your parent has always had some form of mental illness...in my case Narcissitic Personality Disorder. My mother has always suffered from this and now trying to be a more closely caretaker is bringing me down. No one is realizing I cannot take care of her by myself. She is crafty and her aging just makes is all much worse. More and more calls from neighbors to the police or paramedics with her stunts. They say she cannot be alone but I cannot tolerate to be around her. She refuses to go to a nursing home, so now trying to find someone who will at least come and check on her a couple times a day at least to give her her psych meds. There is no one to help me. I have been of work for almost a month on FMLA and it seems to be a waste of my time, since she can do many things by herself...(she just tore apart the patio cleaning it ...an 85 year old pushing and pulling couches and vacumns...) mental illness in an aging parent..HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Her appointment went well, probably because of prayer. But the burden of the meds was left with me, which I had just resigned to giving away to the health department. Since I made that transition, I am staying with it. I don't want it. In fact, I'm giving more away, maybe even the whole package.
But this afternoon, my son and I are going to the b e a c h, finally! We'll go up and set up "camp" at our favorite spot, while my husband works late. So nine year old and mommy are going on vacation (for the first time this summer) soon as I click the submit button. It's a glorious day, and I'm f r e e e e e e e !
I can only admire you for your strength and courage. I was searching in desperation for information on helping mentally ill parents and came across this forum.
My situation is somewhat different as my mother is just now becoming an official senior citizen but has been mentally ill for as long as I can remember. She is a paranoid schizophrenic with a multitude of other issues to go along with that. Now she also has serious physical problems in addition to the mental ones.
The most frustrating part about this is that we live on different continents. She has no one where she is (because she has managed to alienate everyone who tried to be nice). My aunt, who lives at the other end of the country, has decided not to manage her money for her any more because she can not cope with the constant phone calls and stress.
I have one sister who also lives at the other end of the country from my mother who is barely able to cope with the multitude of phone calls because she also has her own mental problems to deal with.
Now I am wondering what I can reasonably do when I get the crazy phone calls to help from so far away. I suspect that she will not cope on her own when there is no one managing her money and telling her what to do and there is no one else to help.
Unfortunatley, my mom does not want to go into any kind of assisted living situation and has no financial resources. After living in a group home for several years and being asked to leave, she moved to a nursing home. As she was not even a senior then and had a roommate who was 92, she was not happy and claimed that the people were stealing from her. My aunt moved her out on her own again a couple of years ago and has now decided to have nothing to do with her. No one has conservatorship and she will resist if I try to get something started. She is very crafty for such a sick person and keeps changing psych. doctors after short periods. I don't think anyone can get a handle on what is happening to her in a short time.
Thank you for your kind words. I am just starting out trying to figure out this particular developing situation and appreciate any suggestions.
Unfortunately, there is no manual for how to help mentally ill seniors and society at large does not seem equipped to handle them.
I can only admire all of your strength in dealing with your mentally ill parents in close proximity!!
Here in a nutshell for everyone who is reading & doesn't have a frame of reference for what NPD is a good explaination:
With narcissim, it is a CONSISTENT personality trait so to speak, where the person organizes their entire life around convincing others that they are much more superior than they might orginally think the narcissist to be. They might go to great measures to do this regardless so they lie, cheat, etc. What makes this disorder so interesting, is most of the time, people who truly have this disorder don't recognize in themselves that they truly feel inadequate to others. They build up many defenses (which include lies and grandiose thinking errors) to keep themselves from experiencing the negative emotions associated with a loss of self-worth or self-esteem. But underneath all of the energy expenditure to convince others that they are superior (and thus themselves) they UNCONSCIOUSLY feel like they are below par in all the areas that matter most in life.
You can sort of view narcissim as the "fake personality" a person adopts to keep them from feeling inadequate. The unconscious feelings of inadequacy are greater than those who do not suffer from this personality disorder, which is why sufferers go to great lengths to maintain this personality.
Most often, they will come from a childhood environment where the people whose respect & love mattered most (ex: parents) was witheld and they felt and/or were greatly criticized as a child unless you succeeded in the areas which seemed important. And almost as often they might come from a family of the opposite extreme where they may have been the favorite - showered with complete praise and never needed to question their superiority until you got to school as a young child and didn't receive greater adoration than the other children from your teachers (for example)and this built in anxiety which motivated you as a child to search for a solution which ended up evolving into this disorder. Narcissists are skilled at manipulating codependant relationships to reinforce their sense of superiority.
#1 recognize it
#2 Understand it
#3 Gather yourself
#4 on't feel guilty
#5 Be "CALM"
#6 If necessary GET OUT
LOL tHATS ALL i DID WHEN i WAS A TEENAGER WAS TRY TO FIND A WAY OUT NOW AT THIS AGE i'VE INVITED HER IN WHATS WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE, wELL THE SIBLINGS DON'T WANT ANYTHING TO DO WITH HER AND i COULDN'T LET MY PARENTS LIVE ALONE AS THERE WAS NO ONE TO HELP THEM.
Well enough said there are so many and you know what I find interesting our childhoods were horrific and we aren't that way???
New reading material
Healing the Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers
WILL I EVER BE GOOD ENOUGH? Written by Karyl McBride PhD
Have a good day and do something nice for you each and every day. Neon
I can't quite figure whether my little narcissist/munchhousen/demon is truly attempting to take me out with her or just could'nt care less what effect her crazy is having on myself or the rest of the family. She is a smack in the face of anything true or Godly and a constant source of offence to me.
On the days when I need to attend to the queen I am litterally paralyzed up until the last possible moment to ready myself & go.
She has run her "con" on others well and I get absolutly no help from her doctors. I am ready to temder my resignation (again) and hand her over to the state in order to save my own life. My husband fights me on this...worried about what people would think, but not so much worried about my wellbeing. She has been sucking the life out of me for 15 yrs..(since my father died).
She refuses any outside help unless she goes on one of her little "vacations" to the hosp and rehab at the NH. The docs are more than willing to milk the medicare cow for all they can & they'll have to answer to GOD for that. When she is ready to come home she'll tell them she is perfectly capable although her slave is required to do most everything for her. The cycle then begins all over again. The docs have acknowledged the parrtern but have all but accused me as the cause.
How is it that folks over 65 are to be considered sweet little old people with no recognition of past history as crazy, evil, wicked, criminal or demonic????? How is it that we allowed the government to close all the institutions and dump these lunatics in our laps?????? WTF???????
....What a mouthful of truth! Mom's hateful to those close to her - nothing new (BPD, NPD, possible MPD) - and it slays me when someone says that they just LOVE her because she's so understanding and compassionate. I've offered to give her to them and they laugh - they think I'm joking....
My mom is in a skilled care facility after an essentially failed rehab stay...too long a story for here - she'd been in assisted living out of state and I used that as the entree' for moving her here after my dad passed on last year. I do my mom's laundry since she is now close enough to make it practical, though this nursing home will actually do it for no extra charge - just to force myself to go there and to have a "reason" to be there every few days, because I feared I otherwise could easily slip into not visiting much at all. I think that might be a key - if they think you are a captive audience they just let it all loose on you rather than even try to think about how it makes you feel and how it makes you not want to spend time with them. Not that perspective taking is going to be a strong point for folks with any kind of dementia, but if they notice that they can't just fully take your presence for granted they may be able to learn some limits that make things tolerable.
Fortunate or unfortunate (depending how you look at it), my parents have the money to keep them in a nice assisted living facility. As you can guess no one took me up on my bet. Go figure!
Long answer, it's her illness with its intrinsic anxiety tinged with paranoia plus maybe dementia where she can no longer even tell herself some of her worries may not make sense, plus worrying about being worried and trying to give herself a sane explanation for why she is worried.
Untreated mental illness can be like a little window into hell. You probably get nowhere trying to reason with her, but reassuring her she is a loved person and distracting her with all the good things about her you can think of, and telling her that many people worry when they are in her situation, but what others say about her just isn't that important, especially if it isn't true, and "everybody" with an ounce of sense can see it isn't true, may get you a LITTLE peace...but medication, if there is anything she can take, might help a lot. She really is suffering, and the rituals and obsessions are the things she has to try to keep that suffering at bay.
dherrington They did the diagnosis when mother was in hospital for something else, and her senior nanny broke down in front of hospital staff and told about the abuse she had been subjected to. Frankly, I think if it had been a family member they may not have gone ahead with the diagnosis. It really is a very difficult situation. If you can document her behaviors and take them to her doc when she is seeing him/her about something else and let the doc know - give the doc your account of your mum's problems, it should help. Ask for a psychiatric evaluation. It sounds like your mum is delusional and needs an antipsychotic. Good luck.