I am an only child and my dad passed in 1983. My mom lives 2000 miles away from me. She lives alone in her condo. She has dementia. We had been estranged for 11 year until 2018 when my 19 y/o son and I got on a plane and visited her. She was not kind to me but was thrilled to see him. The day before we left she told me she wanted to make amends and I was happy to do so. I came home and called her twice a week for several months until she started her verbally abusive behavior again. I have medical and financial POA but she refuses to let me help her. She has no support system and at this point I have no contact person. Her doctor left the practice and I’m not even certain she’s getting any medical care. She has caregivers coming six hours per week to do light housekeeping and grocery shopping. I cannot get any info from them as she has instructed them not to speak to me. I pay all of her bills online and monitor her checking account. She has been scammed out of money twice. I don’t know how to handle this situation and it has caused a lot of stress for me and my family. She has not been kind to me since I got married 29 years ago. She doesn’t acknowledge my birthday or my family at Christmas. She has made it clear that I am not to get one penny of her money/estate. It all goes to my son. A cousin who I am not particularly close to called me last week and said I need to take care of her because she is depressed and doesn’t want to live. She calls him regularly but he lives five hours away from her. He doesn’t want to deal with her. I’m at a loss on what to do. Part of me feels angry yet I don’t want to see my mom hurt. I’m hopeful this website can help me deal with this sad and difficult situation
It usually takes a crisis to get stubborn and demented elders into care. For me, mom finally had a bad fall and I moved her directly from hospital to assited living.
You just can’t fix everything. There’s no fixing dementia and illness. You mitigate it the best you can
You can only do as much as elders will allow. I fought with mom and dad over everything, bathing, driving, not eating, filthy house, refusing help.....Then I just quit arguing. Did what I could from the shadows.
None of this is your fault. You have to constantly work to ignore the emotional aspect and deal with the reality. Mom mom was angry with me for placing her in care until her death over a year ago. I’m dealing with it pretty well now.
I just last week moved my dad 600 miles to a nursing home 5 miles from me last week. He’s adjusting pretty well. With his level of dementia we have to constantly divert him, trick him a little to get in the shower and so on. Some days he thinks he’s in a hotel, a ski lodge or maybe a hospital. I just go with his reality.
Take a breath, step back and look at the big picture. You can get through this.
By having POA, if its found she can no longer care for herself, you can have her placed in an AL if she can afford it.
I think you have to sit down and map out a plan here before disaster strikes and you're forced to do something and have a fire sale, so to speak. Things won't get better with dementia.........they only get worse so NOW is the time to figure out how to get her out of her condo and into a safer care environment for BOTH of you to have peace of mind.
Best of luck!
I would suggest that your son deal with her, with you feeding him on the how to's behind the scene. That is basically what I do with my brother, works for us.
My mother also told me she is not leaving me anything because I have enough, whatever that means, she did it with malice and forethought just to hurt me, and it worked. It isn't about the money, it is that I do not matter to her, never have. She has used and abused me all my life.
So very sorry that you are going thru this, I understand.
I’m so sorry that you are going through this.