My partner and I moved in to take care of my mother who has dementia 4 years ago. We left our home and friends and moved 100s of miles away to do this because she refused to move in with us and it was getting to the stage where she obviously, to us anyway, couldn’t take care of herself. In the intervening period her dementia has progressed and she is now reliant on us for everything. She goes to day care 3 times a week but apart from that is with me constantly following me everywhere. On the whole we all get on quite well and apart from the frustrations of dementia live together quite happily. However she still thinks that she does everything for herself, cooking, cleaning, washing, gardening, shopping and tells everyone that we are just visiting for a few days.
I have now had the opportunity to do a job that I have always wanted to do but it is 200 miles away and will mean us moving. I don’t want to give up this opportunity as at my age I still have a lot of life to live and enjoy. I know that my mother will refuse to come with us saying that she manages fine on her own. I also know that social services have said that they could not support her living on her own. I take that to mean that they will insist she goes into a care home but am not sure how that would be achieved – would they section her or just wait for a crisis? She doesn’t understand that by refusing to move with us that she will end up in a care home which is something she is vehemently against and would not be necessary if she moved with us.
I don’t know how to approach this. I thought about taking her to see some CH or just leaving her in her house to see what happens. I don’t want to do that as she gets very distressed when we go out even for a couple of hours so goodness knows how upset she would be if we weren’t there at all. Added to all that even if she did agree to come with us she wouldn’t remember doing so and we would have the whole scenario to deal with again. I need some ideas about how to deal with this situation.
I have now had the opportunity to do a job that I have always wanted to do but it is 200 miles away and will mean us moving. I don’t want to give up this opportunity as at my age I still have a lot of life to live and enjoy. I know that my mother will refuse to come with us saying that she manages fine on her own. I also know that social services have said that they could not support her living on her own. I take that to mean that they will insist she goes into a care home but am not sure how that would be achieved – would they section her or just wait for a crisis? She doesn’t understand that by refusing to move with us that she will end up in a care home which is something she is vehemently against and would not be necessary if she moved with us.
I don’t know how to approach this. I thought about taking her to see some CH or just leaving her in her house to see what happens. I don’t want to do that as she gets very distressed when we go out even for a couple of hours so goodness knows how upset she would be if we weren’t there at all. Added to all that even if she did agree to come with us she wouldn’t remember doing so and we would have the whole scenario to deal with again. I need some ideas about how to deal with this situation.