Mom has severe Aortic Stenosis, 87 yo, very active until this past Spring. Rapidly declined and is now living with me with Hospice care. She has always tried to take care of others, not me as much as our deceased father and my brother who is living with me and takes care of her.
She has never been like this, wants something all the time, juice, food, moved on and on. She can do more for herself then she lets on, but , when I am home it is a constant needing of something. She is not willing to talk about her dying nor is my brother who is in denial. She requires constant attention to simple things but then I see she can lift her cup to her mouth if she wants to. and then goes into this helpless act. She almost seems like a baby instead of an adult.
With my Dad it was totally different, he tried as hard as he could to remain independent and is seems like the opposite with my Mom. How to I deal with this it is driving me crazy, takes so much energy and time.
One or both of these scenarios should be effective in stopping the games. Good Luck and Blessings to all!
I am a beauty therapist and gave her beautiful permanent eyebrows yet she complained about them constantly and nagged me about re-doing them although I was understandably reluctant to do so, as nothing I did seemed to please her. She complained about my soups, always asked for things I did not purchase for meals I prepared for her and made me feel resentful and overworked with constant request for the one thing I did not provide or think of and as a result of he behavior I began to ignore her in ways I am ashamed of today.
She had a male friend and had invited him to dinner even though I had asked that she ask me first before doing so as she required me to help her not only getting dressed but also with the meal itself. This request she ignored. As I was plugging in my cellphone she also ignored my insistence that she not go into the kitchen and when to go mind a simmering pot and fell. She died in the hospital after a torturous 2 weeks where I tried to get her home with hospice but failed. I tell you this story because I strongly believe that as difficult as your mother is I do not want you to feel as I do which is REGRETFUL. Nothing can prepare you for your mother's death although you expect it and yes you will feel relieved because she's working you so hard but the predominant feeling you'll have is an end to the longest standing relationship of your life. The feeling I have now is that I was offered an opportunity and I turned my back on it. I feel I should have tried to enjoy her when I had her, steered her complaints to something more positive and understood; that when a person is dying they are grasping at what is left of LIFE, sometimes desperately so. I cannot be certain of what your mom feels but it may be she is just trying to soak you up. She's trying to BE WITH YOU EVERY SECOND..and most of all she is FRIGHTENED OF BEING ALONE WHEN SHE DIES...This is the the overwhelming feeling my mom's spirit has imparted to me. I have made peace with my past resentments and my mother's demanding nature. And now I wish God would grant me a "DO OVER". Unfortunately in life..there are NONE. Life, Love, Trials are for a REASON. There were always things to be healed and a reason your mom is still alive. Find it with patience and kindness, knowing that when you look back on your care you won't find fault with your dying mom so much as YOURSELF.
Many Lives, Many Masters (Brian Weiss) is a psychiatrist's story of a patient who began spontaneously remembering past lives while doing (non hypnotic) trauma work, and how that experienced completely changed the way he thought about both mental health, and life and death.
The Wheel of LIfe (Elizabeth Kubler-Ross) is the biography of EKR, the foremost expert on death and dying in this country, if not the world. She is the person who first talked about the Stages of Death, and Stages of Grief. Her biography, though, is funny, fascinating, and completely reassuring, as her decades of working with the dying left her with a complete sense of peace about the process, and what happens to us after. It is not specific to a religious frame, but fits with most belief systems fairly well.
Who Dies (Steven Levine) is an exploration of who/what is the part of us that inhabits the physical body, and what is the evidence for the continuation of life, in some form, after death. Levine worked with Elizabeth Kubler Ross for decades, and there is some overlap in their philosophies and experiences. Levine is incredibly comforting also, for his ability to convincingly lay out an argument that physical death does not mean the end of "us", only a transformation.
Even if your mother is not willing or able to read these books, you might wish to pick them up for yourself. All three are fascinating reading, and all would offer you a frame for working with and sending compassion to mom.
These will be difficult days but they can be days of joy as well. Your mother's days will be limited and you can strengthen the bond you have had.
Take care what you are experiencing is normal.
Elizabeth
Take Care and Hugs!
Even if not, do you best to be patient. Remind yourself daily that she won't be here much longer (however long it is).
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