Today, I called my Mom twice and after finally reaching her, she told me ale was trying to pay her electric bill as they were going to shut it off today for non payment! She couldn't figure out how to pay the bill even with the prompts that were given over the phone. As soon as I found out, I used their bill pay service to take care of it for her. There's still a chance she may be sitting in the dark tonight if they didn't see the payment in time. She's well off and paying her bills is not a hardship, however she has forgotten to pay 2 of her bills in the last month. I was able to put both fires out, thankfully. She truly doesn't see that she is having memory issues. Denial is where we're at. These 2 bills are just a couple of things that have been going on with her and her memory failing. How do you deal with someone who's in denial? Even her doctor doesn't think she should be living alone. I'm at a loss how I can help her?! She already harbors resentment from me trying to get her tested for dementia last spring. She thinks I'm trying to be the "boss". I've had to pull back and spend less time with her in order to protect my feelings from being battered. (Life long story of self-centeredness.) She's getting worse and I'm at a loss as to what I can do. Fyi, I do have her POA for her health while my brother has her POA for her finances (he lives in another state). She's turning 90 this April.
Is the POA in effect?
If so your brother should be arranging that bills are paid on line. If this is not something he wants to do the bells can be sent to him rather than your mother. then he can pay them from her account.
If the POA is not in effect and you have no indication from a doctor that she has dementia then as difficult as it is you need to step back and wait for something to happen that will force some sort of action.
But given what you have said she should not be living alone. And if she drives she should not be driving.
Then the difficult decisions...does she go to Memory Care or move in with brother.....no way you should care for her given what you have said in your post. Or Caregivers move in with her.
Put all her bills on auto pay, switch them all to paperless statements that go to your email address or change the mailing address to your house so she only gets the “junk” mail. Remove the stress of wondering if her bills are getting paid. If she asks where her bills are, just say, “Oh you must have already paid it if no bill has come”. Eventually she won’t even remember she has those bills. Out of sight, out of mind.
I started slowly with my dad when he was in very early days. I would put one on auto pay and then wait a month or two and then do another. The slow trickle of the bills not coming in was not jarring and as long as he had one or two to pay every month he wasn’t suspicious. Now he only writes checks for a few bills every month and I monitor those on line to make sure they got paid. Start with the important ones first like the power bill and go from there.
My mom digs in further, total denial when she’s scared because part of her knows she is becoming less capable. In fact we know when she’s falling a step down in her dementia when she starts trying to take back more control. Gets mixed up with UTI sometimes but similar behavior. We try to use humor which 80% of the time works so laughing about something rather than telling her it’s wrong or sounding concerned about it. Now it’s a bit easier for us because she had a stroke in 2016 which left her with aphasia and we blame her miss wired brain on the stroke rather than dementia which we know she has. When she gets worked up about not being able to follow directions on the phone just laugh and agree about how tiresome jumping through all those hoops can be to get to where you want to go. But what difference does it make wether she can do it or not, she has you and your brother to do it for her rather than wasting her time on hold a million times…
“Maybe it’s time to think about downsizing Mom.” Wouldn’t it be nice to move into a community where all your neighbors are closer in age and you have your own “people” to do things for you that you don’t want to? I keep hearing about friends who have finally done that and how great it is.” When she resists because she can do stuff on her own where she is just agree, “I know you can but why do you want to if you don’t have to?” Don’t press just keep revisiting the topic from time to time. Maybe you are going to just look at places to get a feel for what you will want to do when your ready and she could go along to offer her opinion (lol) or maybe your brother brings it up every so often as well.
Every time you are able put the weight of necessity on the doctor, this is what they are saying or better yet make sure the doctor is expressing their concern that she is still living alone so when the time does come the “blame” can be put on the professionals if necessary.
Denial I think is inevitable both with aging and especially with dementia and I get it as I age. Can you imagine knowing you are loosing your ability to think clearly as well as loosing the ability to simply walk down the stairs without pain? It’s no abnormal, nor does it render us useless or ashamed of and that’s something we as a society need to alter our views on. In my opinion.
See All Answers