Hello,
My gran (who lives in our house) has been behaving very badly recently, particularly on days that my Mum is home from work. She is really nasty to my Mum and has made her cry several times and is making life pretty hellish at home. She needs constant supervision and attention and is also up at night. The other day I let my Dad watch her for a second while I showered and she escaped in her slippers and was taken in by a neighbour.
We've been trying to contact social services for ages but have now been told we're unlikely to get any respite soon (we've been looking after gran and her vascular dementia for 7 years now but in the past year we've sought help) so when my Mum has her week off from work (she only has 1 in the summer and 1 at Christmas) we'll not be able to go to the beach for a day or get any break from Granny.
Just now in the kitchen Granny was being nasty to Mum and threatening to smear wet dog food on her arm and hit her. She had been stirring in wet dog food with her hands and when asked to wash them was furious and trying to hit. She said "Go get to hell, I'm not going to wash my hands" and folded her hands across her arms like a 2 year old. Unfortunately she always deliberately does dirty things (she knows I have severe OCD so likes to upset me with it!) and get very angry about washing her hands so although to begin I just said "Please just wash your hands Granny, then we won't have to clean everything", when she refused in an aggressive way I got annoyed and said "You can go to a care home if you like but if you want to stay in our house you need to wash your hands".
I feel really guilty because she'll feel rejected because of what I said and although she has what is probably moderate VaD (she can't remember family members very well, imagines babies upstairs, her parents in the house next door, fires in the garage, that she has slept in the shed and can't remember 1 word in the memory test for 2 minutes but is still able to talk and to understand some quite complex things) she always remembers negative things so I'm sure she'll be upset about this for a while. Sadly I think she's probably closest to me in the family so I don't want to make her feel rejected!
What should I do? If I apologize she's likely to be nasty and probably say she'll never wash her hands again. She might just forget if I leave it long enough but she may not.
x
My gran (who lives in our house) has been behaving very badly recently, particularly on days that my Mum is home from work. She is really nasty to my Mum and has made her cry several times and is making life pretty hellish at home. She needs constant supervision and attention and is also up at night. The other day I let my Dad watch her for a second while I showered and she escaped in her slippers and was taken in by a neighbour.
We've been trying to contact social services for ages but have now been told we're unlikely to get any respite soon (we've been looking after gran and her vascular dementia for 7 years now but in the past year we've sought help) so when my Mum has her week off from work (she only has 1 in the summer and 1 at Christmas) we'll not be able to go to the beach for a day or get any break from Granny.
Just now in the kitchen Granny was being nasty to Mum and threatening to smear wet dog food on her arm and hit her. She had been stirring in wet dog food with her hands and when asked to wash them was furious and trying to hit. She said "Go get to hell, I'm not going to wash my hands" and folded her hands across her arms like a 2 year old. Unfortunately she always deliberately does dirty things (she knows I have severe OCD so likes to upset me with it!) and get very angry about washing her hands so although to begin I just said "Please just wash your hands Granny, then we won't have to clean everything", when she refused in an aggressive way I got annoyed and said "You can go to a care home if you like but if you want to stay in our house you need to wash your hands".
I feel really guilty because she'll feel rejected because of what I said and although she has what is probably moderate VaD (she can't remember family members very well, imagines babies upstairs, her parents in the house next door, fires in the garage, that she has slept in the shed and can't remember 1 word in the memory test for 2 minutes but is still able to talk and to understand some quite complex things) she always remembers negative things so I'm sure she'll be upset about this for a while. Sadly I think she's probably closest to me in the family so I don't want to make her feel rejected!
What should I do? If I apologize she's likely to be nasty and probably say she'll never wash her hands again. She might just forget if I leave it long enough but she may not.
x
