My siblings and I recognized mom couldn’t live alone any longer. She refused to consider independent living in a senior/graduated care setting so is living with me. After one month, it’s clear the correct decision has been made - but I had no idea how bad she was and in one month seems to be getting worse.
We've ignored and/or gently indulged her memory issues but today she wanted me to search my closet for a purse she has misplaced. I reminded her that we had done this together last week. This purse was a gift she received more than two years ago, she has never used it, and when we were moving her out of her home she was considering giving it away. She misplaced it or may have inadvertently thrown it out, but she’s alternately convinced I’ve hidden it or that it is at my sister’s house. (It’s not). At any rate, she became very defensive, angry and then embarrassed and apologetic and then just shut down. We’ve been planning a trip to the doctor and that will happen - but in the meantime do I indulge this behavior? She forgets increasingly important things and is making up stories which is not at all like her.
Yes, you indulge her, because there's really nothing else to be done. You won't be able to fix her memory problems, so more and more you'll have to let her take the lead with her version of reality and learn to make white lies to satisfy her desires for things that aren't real.
My mother invented a new husband when my dad died, ro for two years now we've had "Dan" as part of the family. I even went through the resentment of having my mother replace my dad with a stepfather I not only don't like, but I also can't see him. Still, he's real to her, he makes her feel safe especially during Covid isolation, and I've learned to live with the fact Mama doesn't remember her real husband of 66 years. Her reality is all that matters when we're together.
Read the 36 hour day.