I've posted before on several occasions and had fabulous advice and support. Thank you! Not been on for a while as everything has got a bit too intense. I'm at the end of my tether emotionally. To summarise:
I'm sole family carer for mum. She lives a 100 mile round trip away, still in her own home. I gave up my job 18 months to care for her. She's deteriorated to the point she now has a social worker and a carer comes in twice a day to take some of the pressure off me. I was visiting 3/4 days a week and it was just too much. The main issue - apart from all the usual stuff is that we have always had a tricky relationship. Mum is not warm. Nothing I have done in the past is ever good enough. She is, frankly, manipulative, vicious, selfish and ungrateful. This is the way she has always been, the Alzheimer's has just magnified it and made it worse. I have a brother we never see any more. He had enough of her and has left me to get on with it. My husband and 2 daughters are brilliant.
Her behaviour towards me now is making me ill. I have POA for finance etc and took over managing her money 18 months ago after the bank refused to keep issuing her with debit cards that she'd then lose.
To mum I am a thief, a liar, an evil woman. Her words. Over and over again. 17 phone calls yesterday threatening the police etc. . Her paranoia has now reached ridiculous levels. I've researched this. I know all about the paranoia, hostess mode, I know about sundowning, all through this forum. Well meaning people say
"Aw, bless her, she can't help it, it's the illness not her!". I've been telling myself this for 4 years and it doesn't make it better any more. I want to walk away. Her emotional and verbal abuse is constant. My husband and I managed a short break last week. We didn't tell mum. I had 37 voicemails in 3 days. I don't answer the phone now, I let it go to voicemail so I can stay calm and choose how best to reply to her, if at all.
If I could walk away I would. Any love I used to feel for her has gone and any good memories I had have been over taken by the brutal way she now treats me. I am her punch bag. I know she is scared and it must be terrifying and if she knew what she was putting me through she'd be appalled. But I don't know what to do as I just want to run away right now and not come back.
Can anyone help please? I am sobbing as I write this...
I'm sole family carer for mum. She lives a 100 mile round trip away, still in her own home. I gave up my job 18 months to care for her. She's deteriorated to the point she now has a social worker and a carer comes in twice a day to take some of the pressure off me. I was visiting 3/4 days a week and it was just too much. The main issue - apart from all the usual stuff is that we have always had a tricky relationship. Mum is not warm. Nothing I have done in the past is ever good enough. She is, frankly, manipulative, vicious, selfish and ungrateful. This is the way she has always been, the Alzheimer's has just magnified it and made it worse. I have a brother we never see any more. He had enough of her and has left me to get on with it. My husband and 2 daughters are brilliant.
Her behaviour towards me now is making me ill. I have POA for finance etc and took over managing her money 18 months ago after the bank refused to keep issuing her with debit cards that she'd then lose.
To mum I am a thief, a liar, an evil woman. Her words. Over and over again. 17 phone calls yesterday threatening the police etc. . Her paranoia has now reached ridiculous levels. I've researched this. I know all about the paranoia, hostess mode, I know about sundowning, all through this forum. Well meaning people say
"Aw, bless her, she can't help it, it's the illness not her!". I've been telling myself this for 4 years and it doesn't make it better any more. I want to walk away. Her emotional and verbal abuse is constant. My husband and I managed a short break last week. We didn't tell mum. I had 37 voicemails in 3 days. I don't answer the phone now, I let it go to voicemail so I can stay calm and choose how best to reply to her, if at all.
If I could walk away I would. Any love I used to feel for her has gone and any good memories I had have been over taken by the brutal way she now treats me. I am her punch bag. I know she is scared and it must be terrifying and if she knew what she was putting me through she'd be appalled. But I don't know what to do as I just want to run away right now and not come back.
Can anyone help please? I am sobbing as I write this...