Not handling mom dementia well

momvern

Mom is now in nursing home for 3 months. She keeps asking to go back to her home country in the Caribbean. We tried that last year and it was a disaster. There is no one there that can care for her. I am her only child. How do I respond to her when she is insisting to leave the nursing home to go there. Help me please with what to say

M1

Welcome to the forum. My partner has been in memory care for a year, and every time I see her she tells me she wants to go home with me (though she doesn't remember where home is) or wants to move back to Texas (her childhood home). It is difficult for me to visit, because I am a trigger for her wanting to leave and becoming more unhappy. I have to either have someone with me to visit, and/or when this comes up repeatedly, I just go along with it and tell her that it can't be today. The mercy is that she has no sense of time, so she appears to have no sense that we have this same conversation over and over and over. Maybe that could be the case for you, too? Would it work to just tell her you are trying to make arrangements?

momvern

M1 very helpful advise, it makes me stay away when she is having these outbursts, due to lack of me not being able to calmly handling her aggression. That further adds to my guilt of not being able to take care of her. I know she is safe where she is for now I feel this nursing facility is good and supportive. Thanks for providing some solutions.

Alek

I too am struggling with how to handle my Mom. She also lives thousands of miles from us, and we tried to support her in her home with disastrous results. She has been in a great facility for 3 1/2 months, but goes through stages of rages, crying, threatening me. I've stopped answering the phone, and I can't even listen to the messages (I send them to my brother who listens God bless him). I visit by video call every week, and though I want to help her, I'm at a loss as to how to help her "settle" in.