how do you cope

maggier

Registered User
Jan 9, 2006
78
0
66
manchester
:(
I would like to ask how people cope with the anger when something is directed at them that simply isn't true. I have read many of the threads with regard to telling lies to our relatives for an easy life and to save them from the distress of being told daily that a loved one has died etc, and I fully agree with this, as it is a case of being cruel to be kind, but my mum is getting increasingly angry with me even to the point of mild violence, slapping me and hitting me in the arm as she seriously thinks I am stealing all her clothes for some re ason. She hides her clothes in a kitchen cupboard as she thinks that the clothes in her wardrobe are not hers. Some of them are new items that she has been bought at Christmas or birthdays but she does not recognise them as being her own, she thinks I am stealing her own (old) clothes and replacing them with second hand things to try and kid her.
It is strange as she forgets most things she is told but for some reason this does not go away and every day for approximately the last 2 weeks, the second I walk through the door, she starts shouting namecalling, swearing (using words I didn't know she knew!:eek: and i feel as if she seriously hates me. If I agree with her and tell her I will bring them back, I feel like I am admitting I am actually stealing her trhings, but if I deny it completely she goes absolutely mad. She is so angry and she even started getting abusive and nasty to me and about me last time the cpn came to see her, which is unusual as she is usely niceness personified when a stranger is in the house!
Any ideas how to handle this would be extremely welcome.
cheers and love to you all
Maggie xxx
 

Grannie G

Volunteer Moderator
Apr 3, 2006
81,444
0
Kent
Dear Maggie.

If you know where your mother hides her clothes and anything else, just go and find them for her. As you go towards the cupboard in the kitchen, say something like, `I saw you put somethings in here yesterday.`

If she hits you, tell her you are going away/out/home/into another room, and will not allow her to hit you. Be as firm as you can without appearing angry.

I understand it might be difficult for you to speak to your mother in this way, but you need to give her a strong message for it to have any effect.

Of course it might not work, but you can only try.

Love xx
 

maggier

Registered User
Jan 9, 2006
78
0
66
manchester
I do get the clothes out from where she has hidden them and say here they are mum, but she just goes into a further rage and says "they are not mine! you know where mine are" she denies ever having seen them before and thinks they are just old rags i have planted there. she actually shudders in disgust as she says it and says !I am not wearing them I don't know where you have got them from!" she really does not recognise them at all as being her own clothes. It is so frustrating and I am at a loss how to calm her down anr convince her otherwise. My brother has tried to calm her down and she is having none of i t. It is almost like she doesn't want to beleiev me (I know I know, she can't help it, it is the illness not her) but how do you cope!

Thanks anyway
Maggie
 

AJay

Registered User
Aug 21, 2007
123
0
Leics
Hi Maggie

I'm in a similar situation, my Dad accuses me of stealing his money, mainly because he forgets where he puts it and never knows how much he has anyway, and accuses my partner of stealing his tools (apparently he goes to Dads with 2 of his mates to do this!). When I show Dad his tools in the cupboard they've always been kept in he claims he saw me sneaking them back in there. I now grit my teeth and when I can sense he's going to start on at me about it, I try to distract his attention to something else he has particular interest in, like his dog (oh look, is she limping?). After a few weeks he forgets all about it and I get a rest for a while until it starts all over again, everything seems to come round again eventually.

Maybe the distraction thing will work for you.

AJay
 

Grannie G

Volunteer Moderator
Apr 3, 2006
81,444
0
Kent
Dear Maggie.

Perhaps you could get better advice from the CPN or even the consultant.

You cannot continue to allow your mother to abuse you in this way, however much you know it is the illness. It`s too stressful for you, it will break you, and then where will she be.

I have faced challenges with my husband and know how much it hurts, how difficult it is to manage and how much it drags you down. But he has never resorted to anything physical.

Please ask the professionals.
 

Margarita

Registered User
Feb 17, 2006
10,824
0
london
feel as if she seriously hates me.


I use to get that feeling that my mother use to hate me she use to go for me , I use to have to grab her arms to stop her .

you say as soon as you walk in your mother starts having a go at you , the only way to handle that is to stand firm . Just saying "' if you keep going on I am walking out " if she does not stop, mean it and walk out . I had to do that .

Then walk around the block go back see if she does stop , you can't keep tolerating it , we all know they can't help it , paranoia is one of the many symptoms of dementia no amount of trying to convince her is going to change her mind , only think that helps is medication .

She does not do it to CPN , because I bet she can pick up on his vibes , his in authority . bet your mother can pick up your vibes that why you got to assert yourself over your mother without losing your temper .

My mother would say I was wearing her clothes ( yeah Ok ) so I would have to say . can I just wear it for today promise I won't do it again .

If I agree with her and tell her I will bring them back, I feel like I am admitting I am actually stealing her trhings.

at the end of the day who cares! only you . why fight against paranoia, I would rather have an easier life , then a life of my mother attacking me going mad . ( medication can help , Zonk them out but I chose just learning to handle it , with the help of Exbixa . ) No one win at the end of the day, because the Only winner is the disease , as that stage which feel like it never end, does , then another stage appears.


PS

what I had to do at as time went on I recognized in myself that its all down to my feeling . How I felt, my feeling, my mother hated me , how I felt that emotion feeling when my mother said I was stealing her clothed , her food her money . Put the blame on me why not . I could not believe it that my mother had lost that insight

An emotion is a feeling its in the imagination its not real , may feel real but its in the past or in the future , its all in our mind , its for us to learn to control it, our feeling , emotion.

As you see I did not find it easy looking after my mother , but I new that I was not going down mentally , so I done a lot of self help for myself . Some day I use to feel like I was on a physiological plain mind trip with the going on with my mother .
 
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