Young person caring for mum with young person alzheimers

[fman317]

Hi all,
I'm writing this as a post to hopefully connect with people in a similar situation to me.
I'm 28F with a young family, working full time. My mum is 63 and was finally diagnosed with advanced alzheimers this month after a 3 year battle of begging her to go to the Dr's. She was only diagnosed because of an emergency situation that involved the police that resulted in her going to hospital because they were worried about her level of confusion.
Mum started showing early signs 2.5-3 years ago and both my mum and dad were in denial and mum would not accept any support in seeking help. Now my mum is very advanced in her dementia and confusion and all the other things that come with dementia. She is quite aggressive and argumentative and the disease is making her nasty a lot of the time.
My dad is still not fully accepting the severity of where mum is at and he puts a lot of pressure on me to support them.
I'm feeling overwhelmed as well as having physical side effects from stress (hair loss, stomach issues etc)
I just don't know how much more I can take and I'm at the point of nearly quitting my job because its all too much for me.
I'm also an only child and not very close with aunts uncles etc so the support network feels quite small. My dad is also isolating himself and mum because she is hard to manage in public and he finds it difficult.
He also doesn't look after her that well and isn't very understanding of the disease.
I'm at the end of my tether after a particularly nasty weekend with mum where she kept telling me to leave and speaking to me in a cruel and patronising tone of voice. She regularly does not recognise me.

 

[canary]

Hello @fman317 and welcome to Talking Point

Unfortunately it is very common for people with dementia and/or their spouse (if they have one) to want only family to get involved. There is a feeling of not wanting to admit that things have got bad enough to need professional help and a dislike of having "strangers" in the house.

Im afraid that you will have to be very firm about what you can and (more importantly) what you cannot do. If it is not enough for your dad, do not get sucked into providing more care - dementia will eat you up and spit you out if you are not careful. Try and encourage your dad to get help, although it may end up in a crisis before he does. I tried to go it alone with caring for OH and ended up with carer breakdown that meant I became totally incapable of looking after OH, so he ended up in respite in a care home. He came home once I was better, but I had to get carers to come in to get him washed and dressed in the morning. I also have a Home Help from Age UK (this is often a good place to start getting people used to others coming into the house) and a gardener (though not in the winter!). It has worked out a lot better and OH now accepts the carers and they have become almost like friends.