Only child here with POA dealing w combative, defiant, stubborn 100 yr old mother. Angry outbursts, verbal abuse, name calling and blame, silent treatment, clinging to control. Example: left assisted living facility on her own against Dr orders, called moving co, and went back to her house. So now she’s in her house and I hired a daily sitter. I live 2 hrs away. Drs say she has capacity to make decisions because she can bamboozle people w her A-game. Yet confusion and loss of memory abound. As most of you know, there are so many pieces and long stories to this situation and lots of moving parts to manage!
What is going on at her home specifically that concerns you? Does she leave pots on the burner? Is she paying her bills? Is she inviting sketchy strangers into her home? Wandering out at night? Still driving?
Does she allow the day aid to actually stay and help her? If so, this should be enough until she has an incident that lands her in the ER, and at that point you will have an opportunity to transition her directly into appropriate facility care.
How did you get her into AL to begin with? She sounds like her primary needs to prescribe meds for her agitation and aggression -- especially if she was never like that prior.
You have hired daily caregivers/sitters/companions (I hope YOU are not paying for them and your mom is)
If the sitter/companions think she is safe while they are there that is all that you can do (other than having someone there over night)
What I can tell you is that no one lives forever, at 100 she has done better than most.
You have done what you can. If something catastrophic happens it will either mean that she has to return to Assisted Living or you will be arranging her funeral., (If you don't have that planned and arranged you might want to do that so she has a say in what goes on)
Clearly for an ALF to allow a senior 100 years of age to hire movers and leave, their opinion is that she can manage on her own. They are mandated reporters and would have had to bring to your attention, the attention of APS or other authorities were she not of sound mind.
You say she is fighting to remain in control. I have a question for you to consider: When we don't have any control, what does life even matter at all; it's very human to want control of our lives when we have capacity.
Eventually you will get the call from Hospital or Coroner or mom herself that she's called 911. She can be re-examined (if living) for capacity after you call in Social workers for that.
She is 100. So, lets assume she passes in her home of this bad decision? So what?
Is it more important that she passes in care, for some reason?
We all die. More and more as I age (of course) and now being 83, I can see the benefit to leaving your home feet first if you have at all the ability to do that without burdening others.
So we are now down to that last question: "BURDENING".
If she is dependent on YOU now, then YOU have to control your tendencies to enable her. Let her know she made this decision against your advise, tell her she knows the numbers for her caregivers and for 911. And let her handle things on her own.
My best out to you and good luck Not everything can be fixed, and that's especially true in aging care.
Let her deal with everything her life needs, she will manage or she won't and NONE of it will be your fault.
You are propping her up by helping her and contributing to the illusion of independence. Once you stop, reality will move in and then decisions can be made on the actual situation, not the propped up farce it is while you deal with everything keeping her propped up.
thinks she can handle all finances, which she can’t, and doesn’t. But I’m constantly having to unravel something she’s done and deal with the anger at the same time. Hard journey for sure!
So sorry you have to deal with this.