Bee~ Journal of then...

[freemotion]

A great book is "The 36 Hour Day" and is about the various forms of dementia.

It sounds like your mom is in serious danger now, it seems to be no longer an issue of her choosing to stay with an abusive man. It sounds like her life is truly in danger.

It is definitely more than she can handle. She needs someone strong (hint-hint) to step in and take control. It feels like betrayal to her to take care of business herself. And she has been putting up with it for years, as the violence gradually escalates. Kind of like the frog in the pot of cool water that a flame is under. The frog never figures out when it is time to jump out and ends up cooked.....

I have a dear client in a similar situation, without the violence....yet. I have urged her, with some success, to get her children involved. Like most families, there is only one who is willing to step up to the plate. But that is all it takes.

In my family, it is me, the problem solver and caretaker. I bet in yours, it is you! It can be a stressful and exhausting role, but what alternative do we have?

This is meant to cheer you on, I hope it doesn't sound....any other way. I am currently dealing with a similar situation in my own family. It is heart-wrenching.

 

[Farmfresh]

But God has given YOU all of the skills necessary to help out your "old bat". Each step in your life may have been to ready YOU for THIS particular situation.

God works in mysterious ways.

 

[Blackbird]

Thats what I am talking about.. police interference is better than nothing at all, if it saves her life.

 

[Up-the-Creek]

Bee,..those are some beautiful pictures. I have always wanted to come and visit in your part of the state. I had family in and around that area about 300 yrs ago in the german settlements. I have always been told how pretty it was there by everyone. My DH used to drive a chip truck(18 wheeler) up to Shepardsdtown everyday and back. He really enjoyed the ride, he also said it was beautiful country.

The situation with your parents is scary,..I know first hand how you feel because I am dealing with it also. My father is a very abusive man and now that he is getting up in years, he seems to be showing signs of dementia added to his abusive ways. (This has not been diagnosed by a doctor because he would have to go to the doctor first.) He is very stubborn and very bullying with my mother and anyone else he percieves weaker than him. I worry over my mother and her safety and so does my siblings. At this point we are at a wait and see thing. We keep close tabs on mom and try to make sure he knows one of us is lurking close by at all times watching him. The whole thing is scary,....I wish you the best of luck and stay strong.

 

[punkin]

I'm sorry to hear about the situation with your dad.

Several years ago, my Aunt moved in with my mom and dad. This was before I was married. At first, she only showed slight dimensia. Then, it seemed to suddenly escalate. My dad caught her running off several times. He caught her naked in the yard. He even caught her trying to light papers on the stove. She had threatened to burn the house down. That was it. Not only was she a danger to herself, but now to us. She became a screaming and fighting monster. It took a while to find somewhere that would accept her.

It really hurt my dad to place her in a facility. She was one of the sisters that helped raise him after their mother died. If it hadn't been for her, my dad probably would not have survived his childhood. But, he did the right thing, for her sake and ours.

for you and for your "old bat"

 

[jenlyn9483]

Bee, its really bad about your dad. I hate AlZ. If there is every one thing we need a cure for thats a biggie. My Gpa is 83, he has been more of a dad to me than my dad ever was. He thinks I rope the moon and the feeling is mutual. He has a long line of alz in his family. They have a history of living to be a very old age with no mind at all. I remember going with him to visit his mom at the hospital where she lived when she was like 97 yrs old. It was sad. My gpa has been a texas rancher for the past 40 yrs until 1998 he came to live at my moms house. He has 2 daughters and 2 sons but they are all worthless except my mom. My mom and me are his favorite people. I still lived at home back then and me and him were always close so basically for the last 11 years me and my mom have been his family. Last year he started showing more and more signs of dementia. Memory loss, all of that. Well Last Sept my mom had to have a craniotomy to remover a large tumor from her head. This required her to have to stay with my sister for several months til she could walk, drive, take care of herself on her own again. My mom had my uncle and me, since I dont live far from him looking out for him and taking care of him. When my mom left it caused my gpa's ALZ to spiral out of control. Finally she had to take him into the dr for testing, treatment, meds etc. My gpa has money and 22 acreas of land that he bought and planned to farm here, but never got well enough to do anything with. Because of the long line of dementia in his family my gpa made up a will and put my mom as POA on all his accounts as well as joint on his bank account back when he was sound so that none of his other kids could come in and try to take all his stuff in case this ever happend. Well when his other daughter and son found out he was in the hospital and what his mental state was they came in and railroaded my mother. My aunt went to DCF and filed a case against my mom for abuse to my gpa so that she could use the "pending" investigation to get into the hospital to see my gpa without my mom around. She brought a Notary into the facility the same day that the doctors deemed him totally incapacitated and a danger to hisself and others. (all documented). Anyway she had her own POA wrote up and told my gpa that my mom wasnt coming to get him out that she put him there to take his stuff and that if he signed this peice of paper they would release him to her. He didnt know what it was, he signed it. The hospital allowed her to ck him out into her custody. She took him to Another county where she lives and wont let anybody see him. She has been getting all his mail and government pentions and retirement, acting on her false POA. We have a lawyer and the case is in the court house now, we have been fighting to get him back and right all the wrongs. Hopefully in the next month we will find something out. LUCKILY when my mom heard what her sister was going to do, she beat her to the bank and moved his money into an accnt in her own name so her sister couldnt touch it. Boy was her sister mad about that!! She can waste all his monthly money until it get straightened out but at least she cant waste his life savings. Just goes to show you how worthless people are.

 

[FarmerDenise]

jenlyn9483, wow! That is similar what happened in our family when my gma had brain cancer. My aunt took over on gma and her money etc and ended up not letting us or any gma's friends visit and we were all out of whatever gma had set aside for us or our kids in her will. My sister and I were even uninvited to the funeral services!
Bee hopefully your family will come around and you'll all be on the same page. My friend found the local elder care organization so helpfull with that aspect as well. They actually had a counsilor that helped the whole family. The whole thing actually brought her family closer in good part to the assistance they received from the organization, which was free by the way!

 

[Beekissed]

Thank you all for your words of encouragement! Its a comfort to know that other people have and are dealing with similar circumstances.

Free, I would gladly step in and help my mom, but Dad still remembers that he hates me the most of all his kids. He also has some children that hate me with as much vigor. Plus I'm 4 hours away, so I can't step in and manage it all anyway, despite his feelings. Dad is very jealous of whenever Mom speaks on the phone with anyone, and especially with me....he thinks I am breaking up their marriage.

We were trying to wait for him to be a little more.....gone....but he's not progressing in that direction....he still knows who he hates and who he doesn't. He has even threatened to drive all the way to my house and kill me at one time.

We really can't wait until he may or may not get to the more docile stage of ALZ, as he is very physically fit and of evil intentions now.....and we never know what will bring it on, or if nothing at all will bring it on. He won't go back to the doctor's, Mom is slipping some meds in his morning drink or he would refuse those as well.

They already ordered him to no longer be able to have firearms in his home but everyone refuses to take them out of there and Mom can't do anything without him watching, can't go anywhere unless he insists on going.....although we have taken her away for respite days anyway.....he jumps in his truck and tries to follow. He gets lost...comes back later in the evening.

He is forgetting how to drive but, although Mom could take the keys, she fears what he would do if he were told why. When he loses his keys he searches all day, frantically and in a huge rage, accusing Mom of stealing them or of "somebody" trying to steal his truck, all the while tearing up the entire house and outbuildings....and then denies that he is the one who did it, and then Mom has to go put everything back.

This is just a little picture of what she is dealing with...there is soooo much more going on....jealousy, cursing, etc. that she is having to put up with all day, every day. Plus he's getting very "sexual", of you know what I mean and its the really icky, gross kind that is an insult to a lady like my mother.

I've tried to be an ear for her, encouraged her in many ways and will take time off work to be there at her side when this all goes down.....but we want it to stick this time. We don't want him coming home, like he did last time. The VA hospital said that he had PTSD, gave him Paxil and sent him home....to the woman who he feels betrayed him by insisting that he go in the first place. The VA hospital psych staff are clearly in need of psychoanalysis themselves if they think this man is okay to go home to a house full of firearms.....while he was there he threatened to come back and kill the doctor.

A tangled and tragic story....sorry to have bored you all to death with it. I'm hoping for an efficient, if not a stress-free, resolution of the situation this time.....and then Mom will come to live with me. Now THAT I'm looking forward to!

We are having a planning session this weekend when she travels up with my oldest sis. When she told him she was going for the weekend with my sister is when he started looking for his pistol.

My Mom has lived her whole life as an enabler to this abusive man but this stuff is even out of her experience....the ALZ has made him forget there are consequences to his actions and that he is showing his true nature to others. He's been pretty successful at hiding all this in front of everyone but his family. Not now....and I don't think he is thinking about the consequences of if he physically harms her either, as he has always maintained that he would kill himself also.

She finally called me the other night....after years of my telling her that this is too much even for her health to stand...and decided that she needed to just do it, that there is never going to be a "good" time to do something like this.

My oldest sis is going to give the other kids the option of caring for Dad themselves if they object to his being placed in a facility. Of course, they won't do it...this I know. At that time, we will be taking steps to make sure that he goes for a mental health hearing and that he does not come home again. Period.

It all hurts but we knew it would come to this. If it had been up to me the man would have been committed long years ago for his mental status.

 

[Frosting]

Beekissed, excuse me for posting here but, I have dealt with ALZ and the many problems the family faces. My FIL was real with jealousy, sexual, and abuse. What we ended up doing was telling the doctors he had no place to go one time when he was in the hospital (Everyone refused to take him in). They can't release someone to the streets so they got him into a home. I realize your father won't go to the doctors but, if something should happen that he lands in the hospital and is still at home please consider this.

Good luck in getting your father where he needs to be and I pray for the saftey of your mom and family.

 

[big brown horse]

Oh Bee, I am so sorry. That is one tangled up mess to have to deal with.