How to respond to MIL.

annierich

Registered User
Nov 11, 2015
63
0
My MIL is 90 yrs old and is now living in a residential care home - her choice - and has been doing so since Spring 2018. She has been diagnosed, following a CT scan (for another problem) with ‘small vessel disease’ but that diagnosis has gone unnoticed by her. She has settled reasonably well but has many complaints about various things which she doesn’t want us to do anything about ‘because the staff won’t like me if you complain’. (If she was my mother I would have overruled her wishes, but she’s not, so I have to live with that).
When my FIL was alive, and living with dementia on the dementia floor in the same care home, she visited him religiously at 2pm every day, and apologised to staff if she was late(!), and wouldn’t listen to our suggestions to visit at other times when FIL was less confused, eg in the mornings ‘because that didn’t suit her’.
Within the family we had a discussion when she moved into the care home (which is only a mile away from home) about how often and when we would visit her. We continued visiting her as we had done when she lived in her own flat - ie when we had a reason to do so, or if we were nearby shopping and had some time.
The other day she said to my husband / her son that she had ‘looked it up’ ( everything is written down because her short term memory is appalling) and worked out that she hadn’t been ‘taken out’ by us for 5 months prior to having Sunday lunch with us a fortnight ago.
She obviously expects to be ‘taken out’ a lot. We are retired but lead busy lives, and much as though we love her she is sometimes very hard to deal with. I have had a difficult relationship with her recently and decided to ‘back off’ from contact with her to try to diffuse the situation and preserve my sanity. We now have a ‘cool’ relationship.
I asked my husband what he felt about her comment about ‘it’s 5 months...’ and how he felt we should react to it. Typically he said that he didn’t know. What do others think? Do we let the comment go and do nothing or do we comply with her implied demand for more visits/ outings? I hasten to add that she is regularly taken to her multitude of hospital appointments by my husband and she still sees some of her non care home friends for lunch. It’s not as if she’s sitting in her care home on her own day after day.
Sorry this has been a bit of a long post!
 

canary

Registered User
Feb 25, 2014
25,018
0
South coast
Wanting to go out somewhere is a very common request. Every time I visited mum in her care home she would say "where are we going?". It often gives them enormous pleasure, but you do have to balance her wants with your feelings too. People with dementia have their world reducing and their insight narrowing so that eventually all they can see is their own wants and needs. To her it probably does feel as though it is 5 months since she did anything and the assumption is that you have nothing else to do apart from attend to her :rolleyes:

The best thing is to acknowledge to yourself that this is something that is becoming important to her and you may decide to take her out on a regular basis, but also decide how often you can do this. You might decide, for example, that you could take her out once a week, or once a month, or whatever, and then stick to it. She will probably demand more, but just say - we go out on Tuesdays (or whenever), I cant do it today, sorry.
 

Rosettastone57

Registered User
Oct 27, 2016
1,839
0
My MIL went into a care home 3 weeks ago. On my last visit there a few days ago she told me she hadn't seen me for a year . I just ignored this and distracted her with a conversation about clothes . She has always been needy and demanding expecting my husband to put his own life on hold to always deal with her. We have always kept strict boundaries as to when we saw her way before dementia set in . We're just keeping to the same boundaries when she's in a home and refuse to be bullied or emotionally blackmailed into seeing her more than we do
 

Sirena

Registered User
Feb 27, 2018
2,324
0
I suspect that however often you take her out, it won't be enough. From what you have said you have no desire to take her out (that isn't meant as a criticism at all) so you just need to decide whether you're prepared to put those feelings aside and take her out (e.g.) once a month. If not, ignore what she has said - given she has a terrible short term memory she may not remember saying it anyway. There's no right or wrong, it's a question of what you're prepared and able to do.
 

annierich

Registered User
Nov 11, 2015
63
0
My MIL went into a care home 3 weeks ago. On my last visit there a few days ago she told me she hadn't seen me for a year . I just ignored this and distracted her with a conversation about clothes . She has always been needy and demanding expecting my husband to put his own life on hold to always deal with her. We have always kept strict boundaries as to when we saw her way before dementia set in . We're just keeping to the same boundaries when she's in a home and refuse to be bullied or emotionally blackmailed into seeing her more than we do
Thanks - I think we will do as you do and wait for the fireworks. I do feel that she bullies and emotionally blackmails us. She’s been like this for quite some time. Maybe her dementia has been creeping up longer than we realise.
 

annierich

Registered User
Nov 11, 2015
63
0
Wanting to go out somewhere is a very common request. Every time I visited mum in her care home she would say "where are we going?". It often gives them enormous pleasure, but you do have to balance her wants with your feelings too. People with dementia have their world reducing and their insight narrowing so that eventually all they can see is their own wants and needs. To her it probably does feel as though it is 5 months since she did anything and the assumption is that you have nothing else to do apart from attend to her :rolleyes:

The best thing is to acknowledge to yourself that this is something that is becoming important to her and you may decide to take her out on a regular basis, but also decide how often you can do this. You might decide, for example, that you could take her out once a week, or once a month, or whatever, and then stick to it. She will probably demand more, but just say - we go out on Tuesdays (or whenever), I cant do it today, sorry.
Thank you. She has always been difficult and it’s so hard to work out what we attribute to dementia and what’s really her talking. Having had a mother and FIL with dementia you would think it would be easy to work all these problems out but as they say’once you’ve met one person with dementia you’ve met one person with dementia ‘.
 

Witzend

Registered User
Aug 29, 2007
4,283
0
SW London
If her short term memory is very bad now, would she even remember if you did take her out? Sometimes it can be the case that whatever you do, it's never enough, because they can't remember what you did half an hour/yesterday/a week or a month ago

My mother would forget everything so quickly - she once told me (and I'm sure truly believed it) that she hadn't seen my brother for weeks, when I'd met him getting into his car to go home just as I'd arrived.
 

KathrynAnne

Registered User
Jun 6, 2018
269
0
South Yorkshire
It’s true that the PWD forgets things almost as soon as they’ve happened but in the moment they are happy and content. That is all we can strive to achieve xx
 

annierich

Registered User
Nov 11, 2015
63
0
If her short term memory is very bad now, would she even remember if you did take her out? Sometimes it can be the case that whatever you do, it's never enough, because they can't remember what you did half an hour/yesterday/a week or a month ago

My mother would forget everything so quickly - she once told me (and I'm sure truly believed it) that she hadn't seen my brother for weeks, when I'd met him getting into his car to go home just as I'd arrived.

Trouble is she writes EVERYTHING down so at the moment she has a written reminder of what’s happened and when. I’m sure that if she didn’t do this then she wouldn’t remember things.
 

Malalie

Registered User
Sep 1, 2016
310
0
The symptoms of my MILs Dementia were rather masked because of her copious list making and organising now I look back on it, but I suppose it was her way of coping with her deteriorating memory. I'm sure it's what I will do when my memory starts to fail too - just natural I suppose.
 

Forum statistics

Threads
138,134
Messages
1,993,250
Members
89,790
Latest member
Jliesman