How Do You Cope With Repeated Attacks

ginateresa

Hi. I am having trouble coping with the personal attacks from my mother. She is hallucinating a whole group of people in the house and swears that I am "ministering" to them and having "group meetings". She also secretly told my brother that she feels I am doing something sinister. Sometimes she will look at me as if I am a piece of garbage.

How do you cope with that? I live with her and everyone says don't take it personally...and It's not really her....and I get that. But it doesn't make it any easier to take when it is repeated blows. Maybe I am not the personality type for taking care of her?

Any suggestions, reflections, comments, ideas or input would be appreciated. Not a good mother's day for me... :( Currently, I want out.....

terei

Your mother needs medication to calm her behavior. Don’t accept that you have to live with chronic abuse. Yes, her brain is damaged but you deserve to live a life without these type of attacks. Talk to her doctors about these issues.

jfkoc

Wow... you have to wonder where that comes from. I have no suggestion that you have probably not thought of. BTW, I think we all understand "wanting out".

Judith

LicketyGlitz

I've been there with the hateful glares for months on end. Terei is right, consult with her primary care physician on medications that can help. Even better, ask for a referral to a geriatric psych doctor who specializes in medications for elderly cognitive issues! My mom's geri psych was the most important person on her care team, and worked with us on types of meds available for certain behaviors, best dosage amounts and times of day.

In the meantime, if you can't beat dementia (and you can't), join it! When she gets on a rant respond in her world. Something like, "Geez, what should I be ministering to them about? What should I say? I'll go ahead and cancel the group meeting. Should we have snacks out for the group? Wanna help me? I didn't get how sinister I was being! How can I change that?" Just anything that happens to come to you at the time to acknowledge that she's right and then try and get her involved in the process to fix it. You know your mom best, it may not work at all, but if you haven't gone that route yet it's worth a try!

I heard from a caregiver in England that her Mom was hallucinating about all the displaced children in the room (World War II memory?), and the daughter was at her wits end until she picked up a clipboard and starting "checking in the children" and seeing to their needs with her mom shouting suggestions to her from her chair as she went through the "young crowd." Weird things work sometimes.

BassetHoundAnn

I recently moved my mom to a new memory care. After the first week, during which she settled in easily, she somehow got the notion that she was living in her old house and I had rented out the rooms against her wishes. "How many people did you give the key to?" she kept bitterly demanding, pointing to other residents. If I tried to reason with her, and remind her that she was in her own new apartment, she would lash out, attacking me. So...I started telling her she was living in her brother's house. She has thought that on occasion. So she would lash out at him--and her mother because it was supposedly her house too. Both those people have been deceased for decades. This little diversion always ends her fixation on unleashing her anger on me.

Yeah, it's tough. My mom's bottomless anger with me is why she is no longer living at our house. That together with her shadowing me 24/7...can anyone who's not been a caregiver for a dementia sufferer possibly understand how awful it is to be shadowed day and night by someone who is constantly spitting mad at you? I simply couldn't take it any longer.

harshedbuzz

Short answer?

Psychoactive medication.

Aside from my mom, dad's geripsych was the most important person on Team Dad. His geripsych put together a cocktail of meds the relieved the anxiety and aggression dialing it back to something more amenable to validation and redirection strategies.

HB

semmie

https://alzconnected.org/discussion/64983/how-do-you-cope-with-repeated-attacks

Hey Gina. I just wanted to assure you that you’re not alone. My mom is in a very similar place right now. She grows angry with me because I apparently allow strangers to just come in… whenever they want… for however long they want… and do whatever they want.

Trying to reason with her is pointless. Don’t even try.

And the part about not taking it personally? Well… it hurts. It truly hurts. Allow yourself to feel what you need to feel. Just… don’t mistake your mom for the disease.

Hoping the best for you and your mom.

Jo C.

I am sorry for what is happening and can understand the difficulties and feelings this is causing.

Many times, when our Loved One (LO) has a ramping up of highly negative behaviors, the simplest thing can be the driver. That "simple thing" can happen over and over at intervals and is best to have checked out . . . that simplest "thing" can be, the presence of a "silent" urinary tract infection.

These UTIs are called, "silent" because there will be no symptoms of pain or burning, and often, not even frequency of voiding or incontinence.

However; the most common symptom of a silent UTI will be a significant change in behavior to the very negative side of the ledger. UTIs can also cause a change in cognition and function for some. In my own LO, the silent UTIs caused that significant dramatic change in behavior and it was over the top florid until the UTI was treated.

It is worthwhile to note that our LOs who are compromised will often direct their anger at the one doing the most for them; that is quite common. I had to learn the hard way to disengage myself and realize it was the disease in the very broken brain talking, not my mother. Still, it hurt and was frustrating as I was doing so much and I sincerely cared. It was exhausting. One good thing I did learn was not to give weight to the words themselves, but to sense the feelings behind the words. That taught me a lot and was helpful in refocusing and understanding which helped as I was then able to validate the feelings without the words throwing me into a gray place. I also learned that routine and structure to each and every day in a reasonably peaceful and uncluttered environment was extremely important. This is true for most of our LOs. Routine and structure are their friends; change is their enemy.

Now; if our LO has no UTI causing the ramped up behaviors, or even if it was, it is by far best to have a dementia specialist to assess and prescribe appropriately for what is present and to manage all things dementia; as the disease progresses, this can become even more important. Our wonderful primary care MDs are awesome at so much, but they are not on the cutting edge of dementia as are the specialists and that can lead to meds that are not the best for the existing issues and at times can even cause more issues.

If our LO is driving us to distraction, imagine what it is like to live inside their head not only believing all of that but also FEELING it on a 24 hour basis with no peace within themselves. It is hellish for them with no quality of life. Since our LO cannot do anything to help themselves, we must get them to adequate care to rule out that UTI as well as having appropriate medication which will bring our LOs peace.

When one has a dementia specialist it is very important to be open about wanting to have the diagnosis for TYPE of dementia confirmed. There are multiple kinds of dementia of which Alzheimer's is only one. That accurate diagnosis is important as meds for one type of dementia can be contraindicated in another and lead to other problem issues. In what you describe with your mother, I would ask for a behavioral variant of FrontoTemporal Dementia to be ruled out. Since she is hallucinating, Lewy Bodies Dementia would also be ruled out.

In our case, my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's by her Board Certified Geriatrician. Meds were started and she got worse. I finally got her to a dementia specialist; an excellent Neurologist who sees dementia patients as a routine part of his practice. Turned out after re-assessment and diagnostics, she did not have Alzheimers, she had a behavioral variant of FTD and was on contraindicated meds that made things worse which had to be addressed immediately.

Best thing I ever did was to get her to a specialist who prescribed appropriately and within 24 - 48 hours the improvement was dramatic. Not perfect, but much, much better with my LO having a reasonable quality of life restored.

Having that specialist may well make a difference; I send you best wishes and warm thoughts from one daughter to another,

J.