We didn't get along great growing up and I feel like she is mostly mean and accusing of me. She calls my daughter and talks bad about me, now my daughter takes her side and isn't talking to me. She tells my brother and anyone who will listen everything is my fault. I moved in with her to help but she says I am trying to take over when I am only trying to help her. Do people with Dementia know to pick on only who they want to?
Those who want to be left alone
Those who won't leave you alone
It sounds to me like your mom wants to be left alone, and because you're the other kind of person who won't leave her alone, she gets mean and hateful. It sounds to me like this is pretty typical among elderly and their caregivers. If the person needs care, then they need it and there's nothing they can do about it if they're just not able to take care of themselves (and they're not incompetent). When you've left home as a young adult and lived on your own for long enough, you become so accustomed to it you just don't want it no other way because living on your own means independence. Sometimes when you get old you may get to the point where you could no longer live on your own whereas others can. When you really enjoy your independence, you may very well resent anyone who comes along to help because you know you're losing your independence by accepting help. Let's say you're incompetent and decline help, but your choice is overridden by a persistent person who becomes your caregiver. Of course the patient becomes mean and hateful because they already know they don't want help but in their minds it's being forced on them when they want to be left alone. If you put yourself in the patient's shoes, I think you could clearly understand the patient's view. It's pretty sad when someone loses the ability to take care of themselves, and to even live on their own. This is why it's such a hard decision to make when you know this is not what they would want but they need it. This is why all you can say is if they need it, they need it though some may become mean and hateful after losing their independence. The more that's taken from some of these people, the angrier they'll off then become, depending on how good of stuff they had, including the home they may have owned. When you own your home, of course you won't want to leave it because you probably have a mortgage, or maybe you paid it off. If you still like that home by time you pay it off, you're not likely to want to leave it. Those who own their homes into old age seems to be the ones who take the hardest hit since it's their lives that are being changed. After all, it is the patient having to face that change. Put yourself in their shoes and you'll see what I mean, see it from their viewpoint and you'll know why some patients become mean and hateful. Sometimes the hatefulness can also be a front to protect themselves when they know they're going downhill because they don't want no one else knowing they are secretly declining. Sometimes people who are secretly declining but still live at home may put on this angry front in order to keep anyone from taking advantage of them because so often predatory people do take advantage of declining people. There could be any number of reasons why older people become mean and hateful, but at least what I have to say will at very least give you some idea into some of the reasons why this happens