This is partly a request for information, and also a need to vent!
My Mum is 65 and has been undergoing assessments for suspected Wernick Korsakoff dementia for the past 2.5 years. She currently lives in an independent living flat on her own. My Dad died 3.5 years ago. My brother (37) and I (35) both live several hours away from my Mum, and I have a toddler and a baby. My husband works a distance away and so is not home in time to help out with childcare during the week. I am also a self employed travelling musician, and regularly have to travel around the country to perform. We do not have any family who can look after our children either, apart from a very occasional visit from my mother in law, who suffers from epilepsy. Therefore I have to call in favours a lot, and find babysitters.
My current state of extreme anxiety - is that my mother was very abusive to my brother and I whilst we were children and so I do not have the typical mother/daughter relationship. Her dementia has progressed at a very rapid rate and she can no longer feed herself, remember to eat or drink, wash herself, use any kind of technology (she cannot contact us herself) etc. She is extremely thin and frail, and she likes to go wandering at all hours of the day - she does not look where she is going when she crosses the road. She recently had what we thought was a stroke followed by a seizure in a&e and ended up hospitalised for 7 days. She was then discharged and has since been having care visits 4 times per day.
However! My Mum is seldom in the flat when the carers come. She has also been becoming extremely aggressive to residents of the apartments where she lives - shouting/screaming/vandalising her flat and being very rude to staff. Staff phone me up telling me to move my Mum out of the flat. Friends ring me daily and tell me that Mum is on the verge of having a fatal accident, and that I must do something. And yet whenever I contact the relevant people - Mums high level of articulation/confabulation, ability to be very lucid at times, is enough to ensure that the situation never changes.
I find myself being my Mums secretary: managing every aspect of her life, in order to enable her to live in a setting which I find completely unsuitable for her. And the more I seem to do - the more she complains! Every appointment that comes through - I have to find someone who can accompany her. I have to pay every bill. And I have to answer frequent phone calls from all manner of people. I find that I am spending virtually all of my time looking after my Mum. This is having a very profound affect on my mental health - as it is stirring up memories of her violence/rages, feelings of how unfair it is that I am having to look after her as well as my family, and every time I see the phone ring I feel sick and faint. I also struggle to keep my baby safe when I am spending such a long time on the phone or e mailing. Is there anything I can do to pass some of this responsibility over to someone, whilst I take some time to sort out my anxiety/depression?
Many thanks
My Mum is 65 and has been undergoing assessments for suspected Wernick Korsakoff dementia for the past 2.5 years. She currently lives in an independent living flat on her own. My Dad died 3.5 years ago. My brother (37) and I (35) both live several hours away from my Mum, and I have a toddler and a baby. My husband works a distance away and so is not home in time to help out with childcare during the week. I am also a self employed travelling musician, and regularly have to travel around the country to perform. We do not have any family who can look after our children either, apart from a very occasional visit from my mother in law, who suffers from epilepsy. Therefore I have to call in favours a lot, and find babysitters.
My current state of extreme anxiety - is that my mother was very abusive to my brother and I whilst we were children and so I do not have the typical mother/daughter relationship. Her dementia has progressed at a very rapid rate and she can no longer feed herself, remember to eat or drink, wash herself, use any kind of technology (she cannot contact us herself) etc. She is extremely thin and frail, and she likes to go wandering at all hours of the day - she does not look where she is going when she crosses the road. She recently had what we thought was a stroke followed by a seizure in a&e and ended up hospitalised for 7 days. She was then discharged and has since been having care visits 4 times per day.
However! My Mum is seldom in the flat when the carers come. She has also been becoming extremely aggressive to residents of the apartments where she lives - shouting/screaming/vandalising her flat and being very rude to staff. Staff phone me up telling me to move my Mum out of the flat. Friends ring me daily and tell me that Mum is on the verge of having a fatal accident, and that I must do something. And yet whenever I contact the relevant people - Mums high level of articulation/confabulation, ability to be very lucid at times, is enough to ensure that the situation never changes.
I find myself being my Mums secretary: managing every aspect of her life, in order to enable her to live in a setting which I find completely unsuitable for her. And the more I seem to do - the more she complains! Every appointment that comes through - I have to find someone who can accompany her. I have to pay every bill. And I have to answer frequent phone calls from all manner of people. I find that I am spending virtually all of my time looking after my Mum. This is having a very profound affect on my mental health - as it is stirring up memories of her violence/rages, feelings of how unfair it is that I am having to look after her as well as my family, and every time I see the phone ring I feel sick and faint. I also struggle to keep my baby safe when I am spending such a long time on the phone or e mailing. Is there anything I can do to pass some of this responsibility over to someone, whilst I take some time to sort out my anxiety/depression?
Many thanks
