Please help me. I need help with my mother!! I am at my wits end!!

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/dirty-secret/201011/compulsive-hoarding-beyond-the-crazy-cat-lady%3famp

Elaine, read the above article when you get a chance.

Barbbrooklyn, no she has an undiagnosed mental illness. She went into a psychiatric facility in the mid 1970’s. She was giving harassing phone calls to her in-laws. At the time he was a conservation officer and couldn’t have his number unlisted. She was relentless in screaming over the phone with her brother n law and sister n law. They called the cops on her after months of this bull. I’m pretty sure my father told them to call the cops. She was court ordered to go to a psychiatric facility for 30 days. She went. Nobody ever talked about it when she got out. One big secret. Later on in life she told me she had anxiety and depression. But I think she has bipolar because of the severe highs and lows. That was the only time she ever got HELP for it. Back then all they did was sedate her. She’s always been this way. She just never treated me this bad before. She was always screaming at someone else. She got kicked out of stores before because of her behavior. There is a part of me that feels bad for her. That’s why it is so hard to let go of her.

There is an interesting dynamic that I see sometimes between older moms and their daughters.

We ( the daughters) have had many more opportunities in out lives. We are better educated, have had careers, are often financially independent. Our moms got sold the post WWII hooey about staying home and having a perfect family. I think there is some jealousy going on!

That being said, most people who feel that they are being made to feel small have a problem inside their own heads. They lack the "me-ness", the sense of self worth that most of us acquire through a fortunate combination of okay parenting, good supportive mentoring relationships and a worthwhile endeavor like a job, whether paid or volunteer. Our self image does not shift with the immediate approval or actions or others.

I believe that you've said that your mother has previously diagnosed mental illness? Does she have Borderline Personality Disorder?

I know barbbrooklyn, you are so right. My mother told me that I make her feel small. I told her that SHE made ME feel like a piece of shit. I should have called her a cab and left. Then went home and called APS. Maybe next time.

If anyone, my mother included, ever told me to shut up in a restaurant, I would get up and leave.

Why do you put up with her BS, Elaine? Why are you afraid of her? Channel that doctor the next time she acts out.

If social services says she's fine enough to manage her own affairs, then leave her to do so

Glad her toe is fine. You probably saved her from sepsis. Get on with living YOUR life and leave her to hers.

Will you speak to her for me lealonnie? I wish I had your backbone!! I really do. I feel like I’m getting closer to doing what you tell me to do because I am AWARE of it now. I use to be oblivious and not aware. I feel like I am getting closer. Closer to blowing her in to APS or perhaps the COPS. I was also glad that the 2 women who were sitting there did not JUMP UP to help her. I told them I was her daughter and she is always pissed at me. That’s when she NUDGED me with her purse to QUIET me down. The woman said enjoy the rest if your evening and kept on eating. My mother grabbed a chair and used it as a walker to get to the bathroom. She gave the nurses a hard time. My mother told me that the nurse told her if you don’t let me draw blood you won’t be going home tomorrow. So she agreed. The last time she was in the hospital she refused a test that the doctor ordered and he marched right in his room and said if you don’t have this test done, you won’t get anything to eat or drink till Monday. Needless to say it was only Friday. She agreed to the test. So I see how she pulls it with other people and they don’t put up with her bullshit. I know. You are right. I have to put my foot down.

Needhelpwithmom, her mom, my grandmother never acted like this either!!! She died when I was 21 years old but I think about her every day. I almost said to my mother “ you were never a caregiver to YOUR mother!! But I didn’t say it. My grandma was in a nursing home and she was kind and nice and never screamed. I always felt safe with her. I keep her with me in my heart every day.

Needhelpwithmom, I know exactly what you mean. Thank you for responding!! Her whole demeanor changed from good to nasty at the doctors office. The doctor wanted her to sign a do not resuscitate order if she goes to the hospital and her heart stops beating. She doesn’t want to face or acknowledge that she isn’t going to live forever. She signed it. The doctor left. Then my mother just starts picking away at me over nonsense. Instead of her saying I’m afraid to die or break down and cry where I would have compassion for her, she just picks an argument with me. I know it’s just a matter of time here I will have to call APS on her. I’m always making excuses for her. I don’t want to ruin the holidays. I know how much she wants to see my son for thanksgiving.

I went with my mother to her doctors appt today. She got a clean bill of health. Her toe looks fine. But when it was time to go she started arguing with me about something and she told me to shut up. I got in her face and said don’t tell me to shut up again!! She got ready and we left. She was ok in the car so I said are you up for going out to dinner? (We had planned on going after her appt) she said yes. We each had one drink with dinner. We were at the restaurant for 2 1/2 hours already and she wanted to write a birthday and have me mail it. I said ok. She starts moving her dishes away for 10 minutes. I said cmon let’s write the card. She says I gotta go the bathroom first. I said cmon let’s go to the bathroom and write the card at your house. She mumbled something about why do I want to be her caregiver? I said I’m NOT your caregiver!!! You won’t let me do anything!! She was pissed. Get away from me she says!!! I tried to take her arm and she said get away from me!!! She went up to these 2 women eating dinner and she asked if they could take her to the bathroom. I said to them I am her daughter and she is always pissed at me. My mother swung her purse and hit me in the leg with it!!! She used a chair to push to get in the bathroom. I should have called the cops on her. But i didn’t. I sat back down. She finished writing her stupid birthday card. Now she’s all happy and let’s me take her arm. It’s not just me anymore. The nurses said they tried to take a Kleenex out of her that was shoved up her sleeves. She yanked her arm and yelled no. The call a bus driver said WHO she gets mad doesn’t she??? He rode alone with her. She made him turn around and take her back home to get her pills to take to the doctors office. I am starting to see it’s not just me. She tantrums when she doesn’t get her way. She tells me in the restaurant that I make her feel small. I told her you make me feel like a piece of shit!!! This is all going on in the restaurant!!! I just dumped her ass off home. I’m fuming!!! The best part is when she says I never give anyone a hard time!! DENIAL!!! She gives EVERYONE a hard time!!

Thank you to each and everyone of you that replied to me. It really does help and you give me suggestions to really think hard about. I know all of us wish we were not in the predicament that we are in now. Wishing things were different. I’m glad I can come here and vent without judgment but compassion from each and every one of you!! Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart!!!!

Dogmom, I have FMLA too and also have accumulated 1,000 hours sick time from my job so I do use FMLA when I need to be with my Mother and still get paid my whole salary at work. I am with my Mother now at the doctors office and I took FMLA for the whole day. It’s getting harder and harder for her to walk because her back hurts. It’s just a matter of time when she will be in a wheelchair. She will be going to assisted living or a nursing home when that happens. She is not moving in with me and she knows it. Don’t feel guilty going to Mexico. Have a great time!!

I feel your pain. My stepmom seems so sweet and very fluid when at the doctor's office but once we leave it "oh whoa is me". She doesn't tell him the truth about anything. Besides renal failure she has severe anxiety now and calls me many times per day ( I live out of state) because she "just needs someone to talk to". She does the same thing to her friends all day and night. She has 25mg Xanax but cuts them in half which does nothing to help her anxiety. She recently had a bout with high blood pressure and a seizure so I flew out for 3 weeks. After she got out of the hospital she was back to eating out 3 times and day and either on the phone on her computer telling every body she knows and doesn't know about her seizure. Now that I'm back home and working she's tries to make me feel guilty about not being there. She really wants me to quit my job and move to her little retirement town in another state and live with her. That's not happening. I have FMLA with my job and can and will be there if another medical emergency arises. Now she's making me feel guilty because I'm going to friends wedding in Mexico instead of coming to see her. It's a crazy roller coaster that I have a feeling I'll be on for quite some time.

CM,

Thanks for that explanation. My grandma always took the fluid pills at the correct dosage and it helped greatly for her. People shy away from meds sometimes. I don’t believe in over medicating but feel some meds are necessary to be at our best.

Elaine, this is what your mother needs to understand about diuretics (water pills).

They don't work on a sliding scale, where the pee results would go: nothing, a little bit, a bit more, a lot, gush...

The amount in your system needs to reach a critical level, so the pee goes: nothing, nothing, nothing, whoosh - !

(There is an unofficial formula for this: age + BUN = Lasix dose, which shouldn't work but does.)

Anyway. The important thing is that despite the discomfort and inconvenience of needing to pee urgently several times and going A LOT, what your mother is peeing out is the vast amount of excess water currently stored in the tissues throughout her body, and diluting her bloodstream. She NEEDS to get rid of it! - and get her to trust you, that she will feel a heck of a lot better once this is back under control.

If she won't listen to you, and if she won't comply with instructions unless the doctors and nurses are standing over her, then I think it really would be better for both HER and you if you took a break. Do not feel guilty! - this genuinely would be in her best interests, both short and long term. Is that something you could consider?

Elaine; Take a step back and a deep breath.

It's not worth fighting your mother if she doesn't want to be helped. Folks like this are their own worst enemy. If the hospital isn't seeing her as too far gone to care for herself, then it's not your job to foist your care upon her.

I know that this is hard. (((((((((hugs)))))))))

needhelpwithmom, my mother is the same way. Severe swelling in her ankles. She is a very small woman but her legs and ankles are big from the swelling. She was in the hospital since Friday and they gave her 20mg of a water pill. She cuts hers in half at home. But guess what? No more swelling!!! I told her the 20 mg works for you!! She says I cut them in half because they make me pee all the time. The nurses at the hospital said don’t cut them in half. She’ll do what she wants to do when she gets home.

Elaine,

I feel your pain! I went through the toenail stuff with my mom. It drove me crazy! She got mad at me when I told the doctor about her big toe. I know it was a pain to get those compression stockings off and on but nails have to be cut.

It was a fungus. I had to fight her to cut her nails and I was so afraid she would get ingrown toenails.

My mom refused the fluid pills. She had severe edema but said she wouldn’t take it because it would make her pee more. Grrrrr.

Insurance companies can be a pain in the butt! How can they say your son is cured of autism? That doesn’t make sense. How can they say you don’t need therapy? Remember years ago insurance didn’t cover lots of things. It’s still a challenge to deal with.

I have had issues with them covering meds, my blood pressure meds! The pharmacy no longer carried the milligrams that I needed so they had to give me two tablets to make up the right amount and the insurance squawked at paying for two pills instead of one. I had to fight them saying the manufacturer was out of them. It gets crazy dealing with insurance, doesn’t it? I had to pay out of pocket until it was settled and then they reimbursed me for it.

I live in NY. I had been in counseling on and off for years. I had a therapist for the last 3 years who I loved. But my insurance company decided I was CURED!!! Anxiety and depression only cover for 3 months now. So now I’m not seeing a counselor now. If I was filthy rich I would pay cas to talk to a psychiatrist!! My son has mental illness, Autism, impulse control issues, ocd, add , etc. My son was in an outpatient group program for 3 years. He’s on Medicare and Medicaid and they the insurance decided he was cured!! So now he isn’t getting counseling anymore. This is the world we live in now. The INSURANCE company dictating who needs help and who doesn’t.

Xenajada, you are so right! The law is on her side!! I can’t make her do a damn thing and neither can anybody else. It is her right not to bathe. It is her right not to have a home health aide. It is her own damn right to be a hoarder PERIOD. It’s a hard pill to swallow.

Thank you everyone with your help. Yes she lives alone by herself. I talked to the case manager at the hospital. They just give me the same old song and dance. We are very sorry but we tried 3 times to have a home health aid to come in. She refuses. I’m sorry there is nothing we can do. I said can you bathe her and wash her hair? Nurse says I’m sorry she won’t take her clothes off we can’t make her bathe. I’m sorry. There is nothing we can do. Hoarding, I’m sorry there is nothing we can do. She is allowed to live any way she wants. The house next door to her house sold for 200,000 dollars. Her house is run down but clean on the outside. No debris, no leaves, cut grass, etc. She owns her own home with nobody else and no pets. I’m sorry there is nothing we can do. I’m sorry. So now she is back in her own home.

NYDaughterInLaw: "My mother is abusive toward me. I need the hospital to work out her discharge plans with her directly. Do not include me on her care team."

Yes, you really need to say this to the hospital team. And you need to step away from helping her. I know you want to help her, but she won't let you.

You have at least one sibling, correct? Where is he or where are they? Do they know what you are dealing with?

Seek counseling. You are wasting far too much precious energy worrying about your mother and her toe when you ought to be worrying about your own mental health and learning to establish healthy boundaries with your mother.

Let the hospital social worker assigned to your mother deal with her discharge. Do not allow yourself to get roped into being her caregiver after discharge. Just be matter of fact about the way she treats you - verbal abuse, rejection of *your* help - and learn to say something like: "My mother is abusive toward me. I need the hospital to work out her discharge plans with her directly. Do not include me on her care team."

Your mother may be sharp as a tack and have mental illness; they are not mutually exclusive. That you are afraid your mother "will never speak to me again" demonstrates the power she has over you. If you don't take back the power, nothing will change. You certainly won't change her! You only can change yourself.

You have options. You matter. One step at a time.

If she is living in a dirty home, not bathing or properly taking care of herself, she is not of "sound mind". She will however drive you into being crazy unless you put a stop to this. Talk to social worker today and completely out her. Explain that her living conditions are unsafe. Have a home assessment arranged while she is in hospital; not sure if APS would do this but start asking that question.
When the hospital staff tell you she is "sharp as a tack" have them go in and really ask her questions about her living conditions etc and hopefully they will come to understand. If no one listens to you and she is discharged, you have to let her crash and burn and get APS in to do assessment. There is no reason for you to be abused but you have to stop allowing this for her good and for you as well.

You don't say where she is currently living. If in her own property on her own, then how she chooses to live is up to her, and however much you care, the only way to get her to do anything sensible is to leave her to everything until she ends up in hospital and they have to do an assessment to send her home. - Keep away and let the Drs and nurses she is so nice to make a decision on her needs.
You will always be in the wrong, because you don't have a white coat and "power".

We eventually told my mother things had to change ( due to health issues I have developed) and she had three choices, Assisted living, warden assisted flat, or change how things were currently arranged and happening living with us- so that she had far more care.

Needless to say she threw a right hissy fit, moved to Assisted living with the help of a "friend" (who created havoc in the annex she lived in, has taken goodness knows what away and also took her to change her will) and mother told everyone she came across how awful we were and had thrown her out.

Most the time she is what is deemed capable, but it is short term capability - she can make a decision but not give any reason for it, or understand the implications. So for instance she cashed £5K of government bonds but has no idea why or where the money went - but she is capable of making the decision.
She shut a bank account an opened a new one, without any idea of need to deal with monies going in and out - but she is capable of making the decision. (I could go on but won't)

Now four weeks later she is BEGINNING to settle in, we are slightly less terrible, she even said thank you for a couple of things last week.
From this experience - which is exactly what I would have expected (apart from the interference of the "friend", who has fortunately been in Australia for last three weeks), your mother may well be exceptionally negative about you if she goes into AL, but if you just ignore it and phone, call, email (if she uses it) as normal, once she settles she will come round.
If not the choice to be familyless is hers.

We can only do what we feel is best for everyone concerned, most the time we are right, sometimes we are wrong, same with bringing up children. Do what you feel you have to do, you cannot do any more, and don't allow anyone to guilt trip you on how she is, you are not in anyway responsible for that.

We have to accept that getting old means parts wear out, physically and mentally - I am not sure this is obvious to the current elderly who possibly never saw their own parents reach this state. Friends and family die leaving us with fewer or no connections. We become self centred through having only us to think about. We fear the fact we cannot do what we used to.
None of that means we should manipulate people as seems to be prevalent with current old generation, to try and solve some of our problems. Nor guilt trip them, nor make scenes to get attention. As carers we have to decide when enough is enough and the old are damaging us and even the younger generation. Its time for a home with others in a similar position and if you are blamed then that is just a fact of life and right in their opinion, but most the time it settles down and becomes better when they become settled into a new life.

1. Visit your mother at the hospital. Push the call button when she needs help. Do not do hands on care.

2. The minute mom says something nasty, get up and leave. "I'll come back when you're feeling better". No argument. Statement, then leave.

3. Seek out the discharge planning department and or the social work department. Explain your understanding of your mother's mental illness and the condition of her home. Explain that you don't live with her and that you are not permitted to help in meaningful ways. Ask their advice.

4. Try to get clarity on the fact that your mother's anger won't kill you. You can stand up to her, talk back to her or walk out on her. None of these actions will harm you. She has groomed you (look up Fear, Obligation and Guilt) to be controlled by her anger. If you need to seek out therapy to help you in this process, so be it.

5. Your mother has also groomed you to see "dirty looks" from folks like nurses. I'll tell you a secret. They are not giving you a moment's notice. My mother trained me to hear "tone of voice", raised eyebrows, etc., as meaning certain things. Hogwash. No one is thinking anything about you. They are far too busy.

During a 2 year battle with an elderly relative who needed to be in AL, but didn't want to go, I learned the law was on her side. She had the legal right to lay in her own filth, totally disabled, if her mind was deemed competent and that was her choice to live that way. Now, she wasn't an invalid but she had/has some health issues, pretty much EVERY ailment one can have in one's mid-80's.

Thank you lealonnie for cheering me on. I really do appreciate it!!

Thank you Geaton777, you certainly have given me something to think about.

Another vote for letting the hospital staff and social workers deal with her. Maybe show the social workers pictures of the inside of her house (she'll be apocalyptically angry but sounds like that's her default position with you anyway). The county may pursue guardianship over her at some point, which will be in her best interest and keep you outside her blame zone (maybe). She has chosen the way she wants to live her life. You keep wanting her to have a better life than she wants for herself. Blessings to you for your compassion and grace towards her but you should not subject yourself to her abuse and degradation.

lealonnie, will you come over and stand up to her, lol? In all seriousness, yes I have been conditioned all my life to back down to her. Don’t make waves with her. Yes, I need to be vocal and talk to the doctor and nurses and make them understand. Thank you!!