The title says it all. I am ony at the very beginning of this sad and difficult journey, and with my mental issues I am frightened of many things.

Taking proper care of mom. Taking Proper Care of ME! I am getting lost in this maze of her needs. Granted, I had no life to begin with but now I am really lost.

I suffer from Severe Depression, panic/anxiety disorder, agoraphobia and PTSD. I have been through extensive therapy to learn how to manage and live with my issues, am on medications and do rather well under these circumstances. BUT!

Stress is "THE" enemy of my disorders and therefore, I am frightened I am going to be able to keep mom at home as promised.

She has been my source of strength, stability encouragement since my breakdown in 1997 and I am watching that slowly disappear.

With the help of others here, I have learned I can't agrue or correct her. Now I need to learn how to redirect her thoughts, keep her happy and LIE TO HER.

This one is hard for me. She is my mom!!!!
Maybe today is just one of "my" off days but I am so, so, so sad. And scared, very very scared!

Taking care of a LO at home is very difficult at best. I tried and found I could not do it. I came home to take care of my mom and had this whole plan how I would get a job and have caretakers during the day and then I would do the rest. I know God was having a little giggle.

I took care of her for about 5 months. I did try to find caretakers and went through 5 (long story). It got to the point of almost financial ruin for me and my own family. I had to get back to work.

And emotionally I was falling apart. I was really losing my mind. I felt tremendously guilty for even thinking of placing my mom but started the process of finding a place. I remember thinking and I think even telling my mom when I was a child that I would always take care of her.

Long story short, I found a private adult home. Although I felt comfortable with the home, I felt so bad. I struggled and thought I was so bad for placing her.

The funny(?) thing is that when moving day came and we brought her there, I remember as we drove away, and after some tears, I felt tremendous relief.

I went from relief to, and I am not kidding, to complete JOY. It was one of the happiest days of my life.

I was able to get back to work, my mom was/is well taken care of and I am still her advocate. Sometimes I wish I was more unselfish. I am not.
Sometimes I wish it hadn't made me so get so close to a nervous breakdown, but it did.

I Am so much better with her there and me here. I hope my story will help you make some decisions. IT is difficult BUT you have to matter too.

Stress, illness, depression, obesity, and more are all the things that caregivers can suffer trying to care for a loved one with a chronic and terminal illnes like AD. If you really can't handle it, and a lot of us cannot, then it may be time to think about placing your mother. You have to preserve your health no matter what or there won't be anyone there for her at all. It isn't defeat, it is admitting that this disease is harder on everyone than we ever imagined it would be. You did you best. It may be time to let the professionals take over and to allow yourself to heal while still being her friend and advocate.

Knowing your own limits is not being selfish. Knowing your own limits is placing a priority on your life in order to CONTINUE to be there for your mom as an advocate. Taking care of her does not mean that you are the only one who can meet her daily basic needs.... it means standing up FOR her and her needs. It does not mean that you have to do all of the day-to-day stuff that you are so anxious about. It's okay to ask for help. Help is what your mom was giving you. I think that in spite of any promises, if she was well, she would want you to continue to have 'help'. In this case, your help needs to be help that will take care of mother's needs so that you can get stress relief and cope. If she was well and could see things from perspective, she would want that. She sounds like that kind of a caring mother. She won't tell you that now, but you have to 'know' it in your heart. You have become the 'parent' figure and need to treat yourself with the same importance that you are treating her.

all the best whatever you decide is best for both of you

Dear Corky's Kid,
You have to take care of yourself first. I am finding that out the hard way. My mom is living with me and my husband, it's been 3 years now, and this week she is visiting one of my sisters for a rare respite for us. I went to a doctor yesterday for the first time in too many years and my blood pressure is dangerously high. Well, duh! I am seriously thinking about finding a place for my mom now. The last thing I need is to have a stroke myself.

You really have to have your ducks in a row to have a loved one with dementia live with you, and even then it doesn't always work the way you think it will.

You do have a life. And you are beginning to define it. You have so many choices. You can be so many wonderful things. Keep choosing what you really want to be. And before you know it, you'll be you. --Jim

What About Me?
This song says it all.

Corky's Kid, the promise you made to keep your Mom at home...Do you think if she were able to process and think that she would WANT you to stand behind that promise at the risk of your own health and well-being? I'm guessing not. We do make promises to our loved ones, but with this disease, all bets are off. This is one circumstance that we cannot predict in our lives because we never know which turns the disease is going to take. And how do you know that she would be unhappy in residential care, with activities and other people like her? My own granddaughter asked me once if I thought my Mom would feel more "normal" around people like herself. I have had my mom with for almost two years, and I seriously suspect that I am coming up on the end of that. I cannot meet her needs now as well as I could at the beginning. Therefore, as much as I had planned (HA!) to keep her with me until the end, it might be better for her for me to rethink those plans. I'm not certain, but I'm beginning to think, for my Mom anyway, that the sorrow that I feel about placing her might be replaced by seeing her have a more appropriate way of living. If placement is the path you take, you can feel good that you are doing what is best for both of you and that is what makes you a good caregiver!

CK, you sound like the last person who should be a caregiver. No offense, but even the strongest of us can be beaten down by AD, and you are so very fragile.

Listen to what the others have said, you've been given some very good advice. Let me add one more thing. Have a care manager or an agency track down the facilities that might be most suitable for your mom, and then go visit them.

My husband is nowhere near needing to be placed (thank heaven). However, I was required to take a training class when I petitioned the court to be his conservator. It used to be held in a brokerage firm office -- the class is taught by an organization of certified guardians/conservators, who are often CPAs -- so I was quite unprepared to walk up to the door of the new address I'd been given and see a small, discrete sign warning visitors not to let anyone out when entering or leaving ... and to have to press a small button above the door handle to be let inside.

It was an AD care facility. My first reaction was ... aaaaaccckkk!!! But ... I found my visit there curiously comforting. It was nice. I'm not talking fancy or glitzy, it's an older building, a little shabby, but in a comfortable, lived-in way. It was sunny, and very clean, and homey. Big old black labrador trotting in and out, eager to make new friends. There was a large lobby with a reception desk, with a very sweet and pretty, young receptionist. To the right, through open doors, I could see the residents at lunch. Soft murmur of voices, but mostly everyone was too busy eating to talk. Ahead of me, large windows open to a sunny courtyard full of flowers. The class was held in a room on the left, lots of comfortable couches and a huge plasma screen TV, piano, bookcases. It looked like somebody's well-lived-in family room. When the class was let out (thank heaven, at last!!! -- after a year and a half on this forum, there wasn't a whole bunch they could teach me in a couple of hours, and I was bored to tears), lunch was long over and quite a few residents were in the lobby, wandering around or in little groups chatting with each other. They all looked neat and clean, they were pleasant, several greeted me. I needed to use the "public" restroom which was down a hallway toward the "apartments". Still sunny and clean and pleasant, some residents in wheelchairs or using walkers, lots of CNAs with them, showing genuine affection toward each other.

You may feel a lot better about making a decision if you find a home like that for your mom.

quote:

... and my blood pressure is dangerously high. Well, duh! I am seriously thinking about finding a place for my mom now. The last thing I need is to have a stroke myself. ...

My blood pressure went SKY HIGH the first week that I had my mother in my house with me. (She has a little blood pressure cuff that she uses and so I started recording mine, too.)

Next treat: very soon I started feeling like a total failure and revisiting suicide ideas that I hadn't considered for years.

Next week: my mother is moving into assisted living.

Anyone wants to say I am a failure or selfish or immature or you-name-it? That's fine. You don't know me or this situation. And, by the way, I'm none of those.

Do what you have to do. And do it sooner rather than later!

LoveJoy

Joy

I am so sorry this has not worked out for you and your mom.

I have been lucky. With the hints and kindness from others here on the forum I have been able to adjust a little bit better to mom living with me.

I am not saying it is easy and not everyone is able to do this. I admire you greatly for knowing early on that this situation was not going to work for you and your family

Corky's Kid, I am glad we are able to help, if even in small ways.

Joy,
I, for one(and I am sure there are more than you think), feel you are far from a failure. You will be best providing the care your Mother needs. That is what we strive for. Not necessarily by us; not necessarily in our/their home; not necessarily near us.

You will also be caring for your own self, and there is nothing wrong with that. You are absolutely right: we have to do what we have to do.

CK, every caregiver needs to find the way he/she can take care of LO the best.

Some people are not comfortable with ALFs and NHs, navigating the paperwork and regulations and dealing with challenging staff -- the only way they can give care is to keep the LO at home and do as much as they can themselves.

Others are not gifted at in-home care (raising hand and waving it wildly here) but can give care by finding a good facility and continuing to advocate for their LO and manage their care.

One is not superior to the other; we are all simply different with different gifts. You must do what is best for you so you can continue to do what is best for her within those parameters. It's the old airplane oxygen mask story -- put yours on before assisting anyone else, because if you pass out, everybody passes out.

Be gentle with yourself.