Hi all. My Mum has Alzheimer's. She's not too bad when you talk to her, still with it and intelligent but because of her personality and the disease cannot look after herself at all physically. She has always been what I call "professionally useless". Passive aggressive and needy. She has always used a fake inability to cope with things for herself as her excuse to make people come round and pay her attention. This is now coming back to bite her in the bum in a massive way but true to form it is not her who seems to end up with the responsibility for sorting it out. My brother is an invisible and me and my sister live 80 odd miles away, in opposite directions. Her friends have abandoned her because they can't face her ex. My sister has her own problems, so it is left to me to try to sort this stuff out while Mum's ex, (my Dad) does the day to day things and babysits her all day as he lives nearer. He wont relinquish this duty despite us trying to get him to and Mum telling him she wants him to leave her alone. He just keeps coming back.
Anyway. She cannot pyshically dress, wash, use the phone or the TV, lock or unlock the doors, open windows, make herself a cuppa, or even a glass of squash. She can't even make a bowl of cereal. She hasn't done any housework for years. More years than she has had dementia! If it wasn't for her ex and the carers looking after every single aspect of her life, if she got her way and they all left her to "control her own life" she would starve in her own filth. She wants them all to go away as she feels she isn't allowed any control in her own life, she is sick of people controlling her life for her. Angry with it, sick of it and getting very beligerent and even suicidal over it, specially having to have her ex round all the time. She hates him but is too scared to tell him to go away and mean it enough so that we can get the police involved. She complains about him *constantly* but will not allow us to do anything about it in case he finds out she has gone against his wishes and takes revenge on her. She talks of murdering him.
Social services have recommended that she needs to be in residential care as the one person (other than carers) who looks after her, is her formerly very abusive ex. BUT. She looked round the local, very nice, care home and she really doesn't want to go. She would be the youngest resident by far as she is only 67. And comparing her level of dementia with the others, they were all far more advanced than her too. She would get one room to be private in or have to sit in a room full of (being brutal) drooling, incontinent, snoring, seriously demented and very old people watching nothing much on TV in the residents lounge. She hates the thought of that and so do I, being honest. But she has almost no choice left, thanks to her refusal of all the other choices we offered her. I don't know what to do, short of just bailing on it and looking after my own sanity. Please can you give me your opinions and advice so I can maybe see a way out of this awful cyclic conumdrum I am in.
PS we tried her living with me. She made it to 4 days before we mutually decided it was a horrible decision. She can't stand all the attention I have to pay to my kids, pets, boyfriend and job. She threw a wobbly on me on Christmas day and my boyfriend has said, categorically, NO. He owns the house, so I would have to choose between my own future and life and kids and family, and becoming a 24/7 slave to my Mum. Sorry Mum but it's no choice. :-(
Anyway. She cannot pyshically dress, wash, use the phone or the TV, lock or unlock the doors, open windows, make herself a cuppa, or even a glass of squash. She can't even make a bowl of cereal. She hasn't done any housework for years. More years than she has had dementia! If it wasn't for her ex and the carers looking after every single aspect of her life, if she got her way and they all left her to "control her own life" she would starve in her own filth. She wants them all to go away as she feels she isn't allowed any control in her own life, she is sick of people controlling her life for her. Angry with it, sick of it and getting very beligerent and even suicidal over it, specially having to have her ex round all the time. She hates him but is too scared to tell him to go away and mean it enough so that we can get the police involved. She complains about him *constantly* but will not allow us to do anything about it in case he finds out she has gone against his wishes and takes revenge on her. She talks of murdering him.
Social services have recommended that she needs to be in residential care as the one person (other than carers) who looks after her, is her formerly very abusive ex. BUT. She looked round the local, very nice, care home and she really doesn't want to go. She would be the youngest resident by far as she is only 67. And comparing her level of dementia with the others, they were all far more advanced than her too. She would get one room to be private in or have to sit in a room full of (being brutal) drooling, incontinent, snoring, seriously demented and very old people watching nothing much on TV in the residents lounge. She hates the thought of that and so do I, being honest. But she has almost no choice left, thanks to her refusal of all the other choices we offered her. I don't know what to do, short of just bailing on it and looking after my own sanity. Please can you give me your opinions and advice so I can maybe see a way out of this awful cyclic conumdrum I am in.
PS we tried her living with me. She made it to 4 days before we mutually decided it was a horrible decision. She can't stand all the attention I have to pay to my kids, pets, boyfriend and job. She threw a wobbly on me on Christmas day and my boyfriend has said, categorically, NO. He owns the house, so I would have to choose between my own future and life and kids and family, and becoming a 24/7 slave to my Mum. Sorry Mum but it's no choice. :-(
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