Three weeks into moving into her residential home (there's a long account of the trials and tribulations up to this stage elsewhere), Mum is showing every sign of being pretty unhappy there. The next sentence is going to sound cruel, but knowing my mother as I do, there's quite probably an element of being determined to be so. (She's a woman who's had her own way in pretty much every way for decades, and gets very resentful when she doesn't.)
There is also a huge element of complete and absolute refusal to accept that she has any kind of problem, despite a clear diagnosis of mixed dementia from an MRI scan and no less than four psychiatrists, and a whole history of supporting behavioural evidence. (She keeps telling me that she was "completely cleared by the hospital, except 'that doctor who put me in here'" - she took an instant dislike to the consultant pyschiatrist, partly as I suspect she realised that this was one person she couldn't play the denial card with.)
In choosing a home, I was faced with the dilemma of leaving her in her own neighbourhood (a 3 hour journey from me) or moving her nearer to us so that we could visit more easily. In the end, I chose the former. Quite apart from an endless pattern of 'I just want to go home' (which is perfectly reasonable to some extent as well as typical of her condition, except that's all she said when she was at home, at which point she believed she had three homes and had been put in one of them which she didn't recognise by some strange men one evening; she was phoning cabs and demanding to be taken to the house she was standing in at one stage), she is complaining non-stop during our visits of wanting to be in her own area - the opposite of what she was saying while in hospital.
The six week review is looming. Having raised the issue of meals with the home manageress (food was her first repeated complaint, and the cook is now checking every menu with her before cooking, and offering to let her help in the kitchen), should I speak to the home at this stage to see what their impressions are? Shortly after she arrived, the manageress commented 'I think you're going to be the one that gets the blame for everything', which struck me more as astute than surprising - it's the pattern of our relationship for 45 years. (She tells everyone else who proud she is of me behind my back, but is belittling, rude or insulting to my face: it's a lifelong pattern). I wonder how far she is seemingly reasonably settled and happy to them, and venting everything at me? (When he was alive, my father spent many an hour apologising to me for her behaviour towards me, usually telling me "She doesn't really mean it",with me usually replying "Then why does she keep ******* doing it then?").
Our observations since she's been at the home is that she is more lucid than when in hospital, although less so the last few days, but whether this is a more stimulating and caring environment or just a lucid phase (her condition is very, very fluctuating) I couldn't begin to guess. While in some ways this is lovely to see, it does mean that she's questioning *everything* (where's everything that was in her house, what's happening with her money, how did 'that doctor' find this place), and tonight I got an hour's non-stop barrage. I'd like to feel good about being able to vist her more often, but tonight just made me feel like slashing my wrists or driving into a brick wall on the way home.
I'm sorry this all sounds so horribly negative, and probably really selfish, but I really do need to vent this evening myself.
There is also a huge element of complete and absolute refusal to accept that she has any kind of problem, despite a clear diagnosis of mixed dementia from an MRI scan and no less than four psychiatrists, and a whole history of supporting behavioural evidence. (She keeps telling me that she was "completely cleared by the hospital, except 'that doctor who put me in here'" - she took an instant dislike to the consultant pyschiatrist, partly as I suspect she realised that this was one person she couldn't play the denial card with.)
In choosing a home, I was faced with the dilemma of leaving her in her own neighbourhood (a 3 hour journey from me) or moving her nearer to us so that we could visit more easily. In the end, I chose the former. Quite apart from an endless pattern of 'I just want to go home' (which is perfectly reasonable to some extent as well as typical of her condition, except that's all she said when she was at home, at which point she believed she had three homes and had been put in one of them which she didn't recognise by some strange men one evening; she was phoning cabs and demanding to be taken to the house she was standing in at one stage), she is complaining non-stop during our visits of wanting to be in her own area - the opposite of what she was saying while in hospital.
The six week review is looming. Having raised the issue of meals with the home manageress (food was her first repeated complaint, and the cook is now checking every menu with her before cooking, and offering to let her help in the kitchen), should I speak to the home at this stage to see what their impressions are? Shortly after she arrived, the manageress commented 'I think you're going to be the one that gets the blame for everything', which struck me more as astute than surprising - it's the pattern of our relationship for 45 years. (She tells everyone else who proud she is of me behind my back, but is belittling, rude or insulting to my face: it's a lifelong pattern). I wonder how far she is seemingly reasonably settled and happy to them, and venting everything at me? (When he was alive, my father spent many an hour apologising to me for her behaviour towards me, usually telling me "She doesn't really mean it",with me usually replying "Then why does she keep ******* doing it then?").
Our observations since she's been at the home is that she is more lucid than when in hospital, although less so the last few days, but whether this is a more stimulating and caring environment or just a lucid phase (her condition is very, very fluctuating) I couldn't begin to guess. While in some ways this is lovely to see, it does mean that she's questioning *everything* (where's everything that was in her house, what's happening with her money, how did 'that doctor' find this place), and tonight I got an hour's non-stop barrage. I'd like to feel good about being able to vist her more often, but tonight just made me feel like slashing my wrists or driving into a brick wall on the way home.
I'm sorry this all sounds so horribly negative, and probably really selfish, but I really do need to vent this evening myself.