My mother has Alzheimers, she has lived with us for two years. She is on two medications Donepezil HCL and Nuedexta which she has been taking for one year. In the past three weeks she has become angry mostly focused at my wife. She has always disliked my wife, we think is is due to thinking that I am her husband or brother. She is never wrong, lies all the time, and blames someone or them or they if she can't find something. She is 90 years old and in very good health no medication other than what is listed above. During the past two years our life has come to a halt and is affecting our marriage. Neither one of us want to put her in a nursing home, but we cannot continue in this manner.
pocket - "I guess it's just a matter of choosing to do what may be difficult or wash ones hands cause they can't handle it. My outlook is like the Asian perspective. Respect, love, and sacrifice".
Who ever said that placing a senior in a facility is washing their hands of them? Whoever said that being a caregiver for a parent in a facility was not difficult or sacrificial or lacked respect or love?
"I mean no offense to you. I just have a difficult time with masking failure to take care of ones own family and placing the burden on others"
whoever said that placing a parent in a facility was a failure.to take care of one's family and placing the burden on others?
You did.
I find that you are making some pretty harsh judgements,
What do you suggest to a family whose parent is and always was mentally ill paranoid, disruptive, suicidal and refuses to take the medication that would help them" This describes my living parent and the situation of others. I did not place her in a facility, she choose one for herself But, I would not have taken her into my home. as she would have destroyed my life.
You say your mum is your buddy. You are very fortunate and, obviously have no idea what it is like being brought up by a mentally ill mother who is abusive and has been since the day you were born, and still is. I am 76, my mother 101. I have dealt with her crises for about 70 years and still am. Yes, as a child I did. You want to talk about sacrifices???
Please keep your platitudes and criticisms to yourself. There is an old Indian saying. "Don't judge a man until you have walked two moons in his moccasins"
They are sick, mentally ill and cannot accept BLAME for their actions.
Have you taken her to a Neurologist or Gerontologist? I does not sound like her medications may be working as well as you may need them to. Perhaps changing her medications MAY HELP! This is the ONLY thing that allowed my mother to come home from the hospital as doctors advised me to put her into a nursing home. I absolutely could not handle it any longer, I was ready to commit suicide just to get away from the situation!
If that is not an option then you either need to hire in home care so your wife can leave the house and have a life of her own or the two of you can go to a movie or dinner or even a walk. YOUR WIFE SHOULD NOT BE SUBJECTED TO ABUSE FROM YOUR MOTHER! You wife is already having to care for YOUR mother, that is not fair. I heard a doctor the other day talk about women who were wasting their bodies away providing care to an elder, he said it is taking a toll on the women and they may suffer with additional problems as they age due to using up their bodies. I am sure this is true of men as well.
You only other option is a mental health facility. You may think it is not fair, but who is being fair to your wife!
You had better be good to her, tell her you love her and bring her flowers or a gift quite often for what she has been going through. This you YOUR Mom and YOU need to be bearing the burden, not her.
What a pity they (or at least the Chinese) are not as loving at the beginning of life too. Baby girls are left out to die like an unwanted animal. Mothers are forced to have abortions if they already have one child. I am confused I just can not reconcile with that.
There are times in all of our lives when we are desperately unhappy with our lot. Divorce, loss of jobs and chronic unemployment to name a few. Three friends who had lost husbands this year wrote at Christmas "I miss him so much" Nursing homes are not anyone's first choice but neither is chronic mental or physical illness whatever the age. Everyone can not look after their aged loved ones at home sad as that may be. The family is a unit and all must be able to survive whatever it takes.
Third, remember the ABC's of conversation. If the convo is between A and B you can "C" your way out of it!!
Now since some want to make this a public chastising for my opinion and advice let me make some corrections.
emjo, you wrote (in part)
"You say your mum is your buddy. You are very fortunate and, obviously have no idea what it is like being brought up by a mentally ill mother who is abusive and has been since the day you were born, and still is. I am 76, my mother 101. I have dealt with her crises for about 70 years and still am. Yes, as a child I did. You want to talk about sacrifices???"
Here is where the context thing comes in, AND reading with another's paradigm. Let me make some quick judgments ( kinda like you did to me) on your post.
My mom divorced my dad in 1969 when I was 2 cause he drank a lot, she then had a nervous breakdown in 1972 and I went to live with a sibling for a little while. Upon my moms release, she was put on valium and tofranil. She took those up until I joined the military for desert storm. (Yes I joined while others went AWOL.)
I was verbally, physically and sexually "abused" by my mother's BF, and I believe she knew but didn't want to believe it. I had been verbally "abused" and physically "abused " by my mother most of my life.
NOW when I said that my mom is my buddy, I am LOOKING PAST all that and treating her like a friend. Something your eyes didn't want to see or acknowledge.
So maybe you are the one crying out for help and want to focus anger on me cause something I am saying hits home a little too hard. Your mom placed herself? That sounds like she's an overbearing woman that could give a rats about you. Maybe you just feel guilty for allowing your mom to place herself or because she did place herself instead of asking you, maybe that was another blow to you cause she views you as a failure and would rather live in a facility... who knows
Look I see you are 76 and I don't want to treat or speak with you this way, I am sure you are a nice lady with her own issues and tribulations in life. However, when attacking someone beware of the consequences. Now I am sure there will be a backlash from this post but so be it. It's always so much easier to attack the lone wolf as a pack than to stand one by one.
To the rest of you,
Again, context of the communication. I wrote accepting responsibility and someone else writes "BLAME" on top of that out of context. I suggest that person read, re-read, and read again before having a mini nuke going off in their head and writing a reactionary comment instead of an intellectual comment. Then again maybe it's just one's paradigm...
This should be about your situation. I wish you all the best I figuring out the optimal solution for all. Let us know how it turns out.
Hi yes I agree to an extent on the Chinese. Anyone that knows the Chinese culture knows that girls are NOT the first choice of families, and they are viewed a inadequate to fathers. However, I didn't know that every girl was thrown into the cold to freeze to death. Makes one wonder how there are about 1.3 billion of them.
Now isn't there a law that all Chinese people know of that states along the lines 1 child per man and woman? (Of course this isn't verbatim). So what do you think about that population size? You think that they should continue on their desired path and have more births? NO I do not believe the gov't of any country should dictate anything in our lives and I am a lover of freedom, but if people cannot support themselves, or ;become a burden on others, then there NEEDS to be some sort of correction! I would not want to pay for any one else's consequences of their actions. I'm sorry that not everyone can look after their loved ones. At the same accord hopefully I won't have to pay for it. Yes I am talking about entitlements. I take care of my mother, and do not want to take care of anyone else's parent unless I am ASKED if I would like to or not.
I see your points though.
Be well,
Chris
There is, in certain parts of China - less so rural communities, where all hands are needed - a "one child" policy. In a culture where a traditional good luck blessing is "many sons" it is not surprising that the prospect of having one daughter instead goes down badly. However, if the Chinese government had had a SUCCESSFUL one child policy for this many decades, the population would by now have reduced. It hasn't; it has grown substantially. Work it out: it's a policy, pursued with more or less rigour according to local conditions. Take any other fifth of the world's population, and I bet you would find in it equivalent, egregious, isolated examples of cruelty, misogyny and neglect. This is not a uniquely Chinese phenomenon.
In India, in hard times, girl babies met (and, sad to say, still meet) with "unfortunate accidents" such as snake bite and drowning. The government continues attempts to address the underlying issues, which include the enormous cost of dowries - when made illegal, they're called something else instead and the practice continues - which can have catastrophic effects on families' economic survival. Survival, not just ease. Imagine being a father who had to find sums he could never hope to earn and who already had a widowed mother, a wife and children to support before you think he's a heartless bastard for not wanting his latest girl baby.
In Eastern cultures, girls generally leave their family homes and join their husbands' households. In Judaeo-Christian-Muslim cultures, it's the other way about - men leave their parents and "cleave unto" their wives. This, in very sweeping, generalised terms, has made its difference felt in the comparative value of sons and daughters; but I would point out that societies are composed of people, and most people are fortunate enough to love their children of either sex (to start with, anyway) and deal with what they're given.
Nowhere in the world that I have read of is it considered desirable to boot your parents out onto the street and go on your way without a care. In some cultures it is considered honourable on the part of the elder to recognise when he or she has exhausted his or her useful life span and take a graceful leave (let's not start on suttee, though); but I don't know of any where it's mandatory.
Pockets, there is one point on which I have some agreement with you: certainly in the UK, I'd have thought less so in America, there is a kind of "learned helplessness" when it comes to elder care, as though the default position is that the elder will struggle on at home and then transfer automatically to the nearest state-run nursing home (or "waiting room" as they're sometimes called, with gallows humour); and very little consideration appears to be given to alternative options. No one, in my view, ought to be obliged to take active, hands-on care of a parent; apart from anything else, if they're reluctant what kind of job will they make of it?; but I'd be happier if more seemed to give it genuine, open-minded thought. I find myself twitching with irritation when some vociferous woman comes on the news complaining bitterly about the dreadful treatment her father's endured in a care home; and I'm thinking "so where were you?" - though I do bear in mind that she may have other pressing commitments, and that I'm probably not seeing her at her best. But as I say, in America I'd have thought there is less casualness to the assumption that the state is responsible for caring for people, regardless of their families' ability to do so.
All in all, we need as societies to sort this issue out: who is responsible for caring for those who cannot or are no longer able to care for themselves? Don't think we'll manage it today.
You truly believe I want all y'all to know that much about me? She made assumptions, and I corrected them. I didn't mislead anyone into anything.
My mother is my buddy, a friend. She holds the title of mother in the family. Maybe from now on I should just call her carol or Virginia or Betty
I'm sorry y'all don't agree with me and I give you the right and respect to do so. I will never say a cross word to anyone debating the intellectual aspect or even the scientific. But come at me, unknowing what I have done in my life or been through... It's not cool. Well I guess now y'all know. No more atonement for my mothers shortcomings. As if no one here has any. I'm not a saint, I'm just trying to keep this site from becoming a placement for the aging. Finally, and lastly. If y'all don't like what I say, keep your yours and from this point forward I will keep mine mine.
If you feel I played foul I'm sorry that was never my intent. Everything I said here is true and accurate. Be well all. I'm out.