Emotional Abuse

jyhoward

Hi there,

This is my first post and, I'm really desperate for help or advice. I am moving cross country to care for and support my mother who was just diagnosed with Alzheimer's (though, I think this has been progressing over the last several years). I am doing everything I can to help her and it never seems like enough or the right thing. We've had our ups and downs, but for the last three weeks, she's had daily aggressive/rage episodes. I've tried every de-escalation tactic I can think of and it never works. Her Dr. prescribed Seroquel and of course, I know that's going to take some time to kick in.

But, today I was trying to come up with options for what we could do today and she criticized me for having all black pajamas. Said she's already depressed as it is, and she doesn't need me adding to it. It sounds so simple, but it was the last straw on a pile of constant criticism and anger and abuse. :s I'm about to fly back to MT, pack up all of my life, and move it to VA just to live with someone who is treating me like I'm enemy #1 every single day. I don't know what to do. It doesn't feel like the right time to put her in a home, but I can't live like this. I feel like I'm being held emotionally hostage.

Looking for any advice or help as I'm seriously at my wit's end with this.

Lynn24

Good morning,

My experience with my mother is very similar. I moved her in with my family in another state, over a year and a half ago. As she has declined, her rage and anger towards me has become more abusive. It is interesting because before this disease, we had a really good relationship.

She has been taking Seroquel for a couple months. She takes 75 mg twice a day, and it helps with her rage. Maybe ask doctor to increase dosage once your mom has taken the medication a few weeks. My mother started with only 50 mg once a day, but the new dosage is much better. She still has rage but only when we attempt sponge baths, or help her change clothes, because she was accustomed to doing everything on her own before the disease.

Hope this helps. Please know that we are doing the best we can, and practice giving yourself grace each day because serving as caregiver is a long and exhausting journey.

jyhoward

> @Lynn24 said:
> Good morning,
> My experience with my mother is very similar. I moved her in with my family in another state, over a year and a half ago. As she has declined, her rage and anger towards me has become more abusive. It is interesting because before this disease, we had a really good relationship.
> She has been taking Seroquel for a couple months. She takes 75 mg twice a day, and it helps with her rage. Maybe ask doctor to increase dosage once your mom has taken the medication a few weeks. My mother started with only 50 mg once a day, but the new dosage is much better. She still has rage but only when we attempt sponge baths, or help her change clothes, because she was accustomed to doing everything on her own before the disease.
> Hope this helps. Please know that we are doing the best we can, and practice giving yourself grace each day because serving as caregiver is a long and exhausting journey.



Thank you so much for your kind words. Her Dr. has started her out at 25 mg. She's only been on it for two days, so I know it's too soon to hope for any changes. I'm just panicking about the future. I'm hiding from her daily and can't currently see a way forward for either of us. Feeling a little scared and hopeless at the moment.

Lynn24

i understand. I experienced the same emotions for the first six months after we moved my mother in with us. I used to hide from her, upstairs since her bedroom is downstairs.

Hope5757

@jyhoward -

I care for my MIL who is not abusive but is mean-spirited, ungrateful, sarcastic and a champ at being offended. This was her personality prior to dementia. Dementia has just made her more so. But added inability to independently toilet, dress and otherwise care for herself.

That’s pretty much the path of dementia. You have to go into this commitment with eyes wide open. You need to know that most of us feel very alone. Family members are busy, avoiding because of guilt or just don’t care enough. Friends drop off because friendships needs reciprocity and you won’t have reserves.

You’ll feel resentment and guilt in equally enormous measures.

And if you are stepping out of the workplace to care for your mom, you could be jeopardizing your own financial future.

Many caregivers look back and are glad they were able to care for their LO. Others look back and know facility placement was the best solution.

There really is no right or wrong response. And facility placement brings with it a different sort of pressure and burden.

Be sure you think things through. Try hard to recognize guilt can be crippling. And make a choice that makes sense for BOTH of you.

jyhoward

https://alzconnected.org/discussion/comment/206585#Comment_206585

Thank you so much. I am leaving the workforce to do this. I'm trying to get paid by the VA to be her primary caregiver. I'm going to have to fly back to MT to pack up my life and move it back here. I'm going to have to take her with me because I have no one to look after her. I'm an only child and she's divorced. It's only been two months and I'm already at the end of my rope.

She can still do so much on her own, so facility placement doesn't seem right, but I'm genuinely looking that up now because I don't know if I can do this. And, she can't afford facility placement and I'll be essentially homeless if I try to place her somewhere now.

jyhoward

The first month I was here was lovely. I hate that it's taken such a sharp, awful turn like this and I'm constantly hiding in my bedroom or leaving the house altogether to avoid her rages. She's threatened to have me arrested and has told me to leave or go back to Montana (we're in VA) and never come back. Then, when the rage goes away, she's sobbing and apologizing and telling me how much she loves and appreciates me and knows how much I'm giving up to do this and saying I'm the last person she'd ever want to hurt . . . I don't know what to do.

M1

make sure you have guardianship or power of attorney before you take this on. If you haven’t yet gotten legal and financial advice, I’d make an appointment with a certified elder law attorney in Virginia before you commit to a move.

jyhoward

https://alzconnected.org/discussion/comment/206621#Comment_206621

I have durable POA and am in the process of talking to the local Area Agency on Aging to help me plan for the future with her.

snowmegz

https://alzconnected.org/discussion/comment/206601#Comment_206601

I have been living with my mom for over 2 years. Prior to living with her I was going back & forth from my place 20 min away to her house for 2 years. It has been 4 years of this crazy Alzheimer's disease. She was working full-time before covid and during the quarantine lockdown in 2020 she started showing symptoms which rapidly got worse.

My situation is very similar to yours…my mom is divorced. I do have siblings but they rarely help… I can say that I would not have been able to survive the last 2 years (she started wandering, getting really angry/full of rage & constantly looking for her little kids who are all grown up now or her parents who are long dead) without adult day care. She goes to adult day care during the week while I go to work. I found one in NJ that picks her up & drops her off. She is much happier when she is in adult day care rather than angrily circling in her delusions while she is home. Often she just goes right to sleep when she gets home also….so I can catch up on things I need to do.

I cannot recommend adult day care enough. For me, it is the only way to survive.

Some of them are expensive, but most will work with the family on sliding scale. It is worth looking into- some State/County Elder Services also provide grants/aid.

harshedbuzz

I had a difficult relationship with my dad. Our situation was much like Hope's in terms of his negative characteristics being magnified. When he developed dementia, I moved him and my mom nearer to me. I think it's unfair to ask a caregiver to abandon their lives because the PWD didn't make plans for their own care in old age.

I would encourage you to move mom near you (in a MCF) and maintain a balance between caregiving and taking acre of you.

HB

Jackie_K

@jyhoward - I'm SO sorry you are going through this, and like others, I can totally relate. This is really, really hard stuff and it sounds like you have already made sacrifices to care for her, and now you have to bear the brunt of her anger on top of it. Yes, it is the disease, but you are human and I get that there are some days when reminding yourself of that doesn't make it any less painful or frustrating.

I am relatively new on this journey too, so I don't have the wisdom and advice to offer, but I wanted to pile on here in the spirit of making sure you know that you aren't alone (though I know it can really feel that way sometimes).

I also had a tough relationship with my mom, and she was pretty difficult before Alzheimer's (always angry, always criticizing, and if holding a grudge was an Olympic sport, she would be the gold medal winner every single year). Don't get me wrong, she is my mom and I love her, and she has lots of positive qualities too, but the constant negativity really wears on me and makes it difficult to be around her for long periods of time.

I personally made the decision not to move in with my mother. I thought very long and hard about this for many months, but in the end, I realized it would not be the best decision for either one of us. I do not have the expertise to care for her, and I know that my mental health would suffer greatly if I lived with her, and I do not want to resent her in the last years of her life. So, for now, I've patched together help where I can, and I am looking into assisted living placement for her. It's not perfect, but right now it's what I've been able to manage.

I have two siblings, and one tries to help, but the other one does absolutely nothing, so I am the one managing everything - her doctor appointments, her finances, her medications, etc. It is extremely time consuming and exhausting, but I still have my own space and my own life to go home to, and I am grateful for that. She does not have angry outbursts at anyone but me, which adds an extra layer of loneliness to it, but when I need a breather I have had to get comfortable with just not answering the phone for a bit, and I give my sibling a heads up so he can try to distract her while I need a break.

There is a lot of judgment and bias about what people should or should not do in these situations, and I've personally had to overcome my own ingrained beliefs about what is the "right" thing to do. I feel a lot of guilt for not deciding to live with her, but as others have said, in the end, you have to do what's best for BOTH of you.

This forum has been very helpful for me when I'm dealing with my mom's anger (we are just coming off a fun week and half or so of abusive phone calls because she didn't want to go to the doctor). I haven't been able to stop the outbursts, but whenever I've come to this forum it has at least made me feel less alone.

Hang in there and reach out any time.

drsd112

I too have had a similar experience. Only child, moved 400 miles to care for Mom.

I lived with her for about 8 months while I worked full time. Then it became very obvious she just couldn't be alone in the house any longer, so she moved into Assisted Living. That has been about a year and things had been mostly good but over the last few months she has become more angry, spiteful and cranky for no reason whatsoever. Then last week she had to have a couple of relatively routine surgeries and because she is now experiencing some pain from the surgeries, that pain is my fault. And due to the extra pain, she also has not been sleeping which has really amplified the anger and spite, and the last few days have been extremely trying.

I spent most of today at the ER because she keeps removing the bandages from one of the incisions and it has now become infected. And she was just digging at me all day. Even though the only thing I've been doing is trying my best to keep her as healthy as possible.

I was talking to Mom's lifelong best friend (60+) years a couple of days ago to update her on things and she said " I'll bet you're wishing you had six siblings right about now. Just so you could tap out and disappear for a couple of weeks." She's right I do. But more importantly it helps me know that even people who haven't had to walk this journey still acknowledge just how challenging it is.

One thing I do to help cope is to try and journal every day. For me there's just something about releasing all of that frustration and guilt into words on a page which allows me to finally let go of that day's bother and be able to relax in the evening and get a somewhat good night's sleep. One day at a time…

Coming to these forums and reading helps me too. Knowing I'm not alone in trying to navigate the stormy seas of dementia. Never forget you're not alone in this journey.

Edu-K8-

I am so sorry that all of us are experiencing this, and sometimes the stress is overwhelming.

My father in law, who has always thought he was the smartest person in the room, has been declining over the last year when he went with my wonderful MIL on a cruise, became discombobulated and that started this journey officially. But we realized that he had been trying to hide his symptoms for quite some time prior to the cruise.

Unfortunately, once the cat was out of the bag, he would be completely fine (although confused quite often), until he was challenged about anything. For example, he used to be a self proclaimed engineer, and did a lot of DIY work around their home, and it was usually a good result. However, when this started, he would try to work on something (paint, rewire an outlet, install tile), and decide that whatever way it was done, was the “right” way. He almost burned down the house with the wiring mishap.

When we confronted him about this, he told all of us that we were the ones with something wrong, and that he wanted each of us to go see a doctor bc he couldn’t believe that we would feel he was not ok.

Then we had to take his keys bc he was getting lost on simple trips, and that was one of the saddest things my husband and I have had to do. He insisted that he would stop driving when it was time, but he KNEW he was still alright. It took over 8 hours to talk him down. And that was the night we realized that my MIL was not safe. (My MIL is my husband’s mother, and my FIL that I’m referring to is her second marriage, much later in life and more of companions than anything else). He is over 6 feet tall and I think probably 225’ish pounds or more? And, physically, he is healthy for his age. (78)

So, very long story short, my MIL struggled with this guilt and thinking that she was always supposed to give in and keep him calm and apologize (basically, the advice on this site and many others regarding dealing with anger/behavioral issues). But, in the span of a year, she lost her identity, joy, and most likely, years off her life from the stress. My husband and I were checking on her every single morning and night to make sure he hadn’t killed her. It was a nightmare.

I finally decided that as a family, we had to be finished with this BS GUILT and SHAME!! We had a conversation as a family and decided that it was time to move him to a home. He was still “passable” and might fool someone for a few minutes, but it was obvious that he has Alzheimers after a conversation with him. Thank God my MIL worked for an attorney and had his POA and Medical POA. So we picked the night we were going to do it, and just did it. He was furious, we had to call the police, and overall it was a really really hard night. We felt like we were breaking all the rules, but he still has enough brainpower to understand consequences, and he can control his anger when it is beneficial for him.

Fast forward 6 weeks and he is now settled in a nursing home memory care unit. My MIL has decided to pursue a divorce (for financial reasons….she is wealthy and they had a prenup that is still in force, but she isn’t taking chances, especially with his volatile behavior). He is aware of the divorce and she still visits him 3-4 times a week and never knows how he will be when she comes, but she is so thankful that she no longer has to feel unsafe in her own home.

I am so sorry for what you all have and are going through. But I really wish there were more information out there for how to deal when you are losing your own sanity due to the stress and abuse you take from your loved ones. I think it is ok to call them out as long as they understand the behavior, and still have control over emotions for the most part. I’m sure I’m in the minority, but I had to save my MIL from being in an abusive marriage with someone who doesn’t realize or want to acknowledge his illness.

Again, I am sorry if I’ve offended someone, or provided bad advice, but you have to do what’s right for YOU!!

Sending love to each of you

psg712

https://alzconnected.org/discussion/comment/207228#Comment_207228

Thank you for sharing your difficult story. It's an excellent example of the fact that each family has its own unique situation, even as we share some common ground. Also shows the problem with saying "I would never place my family member in a facility" - few people truly want to do that, but sometimes it the right choice for the well-being of both the PWD and the family.

3rdfamily

https://alzconnected.org/discussion/comment/206745#Comment_206745

This is the first post I have seen about not being a care giver. Thanks For your honesty. It's early with my sis but I know I can't be her care giver. I'll help her but cannot be there daily. I would go down with her, it's already starting. There is a lot of guilt with that decision but i know it's not a good decision for either of us. I'm getting to a therapist asap.

scoutmom405

https://alzconnected.org/discussion/comment/206601#Comment_206601

If you get approved for the VA Caregiver program, it will open up alot of resources. Getting paid a stipend. Having access to a therapist, in office or telehealth. Respite, a few kinds. Respite up to 20hrs a week for you to get a break. Think sitter. In addition respite from a nurse who can be hands on for physical help. Vacation Respite if you plan a vacation.

Getting paid is very helpful & having 20 hr/wk respite sitter is too, but the telehealth Therapist has helped me so much. My FIL before this disease was the sweetest man. This disease causes him so much agitation. Seroquel worked so well for a couple yrs. Started out 12.5mg 2x day. Last working dose was 50mg a day. Due to insomnia & increased agitation he's now on respiridone. It's helping with agitation but insomnia not so much.

If you get into the VA Caregiver program, ask your support coordinator to explain every single benefit available to you & your mom. I couldn't do this without it.

ShaynaPitts

MMy mother is with the VA. She not a Veteran. My mom is 64 years old. She just got home from an ALF that pretty much malnourished my mom and really didn't do much for her while she was there. She also had a aneurysm during her brain surgery, and during her surgery she had a major stroke and she has the early stages of detention. Both of my gra dparents died from dementia. And she can be very verbally and emotionally abusive. It's very hard being her punching bag. But me and my boyfriend are are for her and helping her and she also wears an eye patch on her eyes because she's seeing double vision. NOT GOOD.

Anonymousjpl123

I’m so sorry for everyone struggling with emotionally abusive PWD. I know it’s common but it is just awful. What I do know is that on no planet should the remaining offspring be solely responsible for caring for any person with dementia. It’s too much. When we all had big extended families there was more support and this set up was more viable. For anyone experiencing guilt about needing a break from or needing to place a family member with dementia, here is my permission slip to let go of any guilt.

safety drives decision-making: yours and the PWD. If that means a part time caregiver, adult day care, MC, Or skilled nursing - all are legitimate. But you cannot and should not have to go through this alone.

kristin612

My Dad fought long and hard to stay in the condo. In May, we used our healthcare POA to move him against his wishes to dementia care. His agitation was much more than I would have been able to handle on my own. Visiting him daily and partnering with the staff was all I could handle. Even though he was in a facility, his disease took a HUGE toll on me and my siblings. I experienced a significant loss of income. I can't imagine moving across the country to care for him alone. Your mother's disease is going to progress. Things are going to get much harder. I would consider moving her closer to you. Remember, you are dealing with a terminal illness. If you destroy your own life caring for Mom, you won't have anything left when she is gone.

Jackie_K

@3rdfamily I am sorry I am just seeing this… I have taken a break from the forum as sometimes I just need a break from all things related to Alzheimer's. I am glad that my post was helpful, and I do hope you've been able to find yourself a good therapist or support group to help support you through this journey. The range of complicated emotions around this, from guilt to grief to sadness to anger, can really be overwhelming, in addition to all of the stuff that needs to happen on a day-to-day basis just to manage this ugly disease, and it is really smart of you to be proactive about taking care of your mental health.

You have to remind yourself that it can really be an act of love and kindness to understand your own limits and prioritize getting your LO the right level of care from the right sources. Everyone's circumstances and relationship are different, the key is to know what's best for you and your family.

Feel free to reach out to me directly any time if you need to chat with someone who 'gets it.'

kellyquinnsands

These insights are all so helpful. I feel like I'm in a club that none of us wants to be in but here we are. I have been helping my mom navigate life with undiagnosed dementia for 2 1/2 years. She refuses to see a doctor. And she lives with my 61 year old brother who has autism. My Mother and I have always had a terrible relationship, I believe due to her undiagnosed mental illness - no one is ever allowed to disagree with her - even if what she said today is the opposite of what she said yesterday. In spite of this, I answered her call for help one day, when she said she couldn't figure out how to pay her bills or balance her check book. I have been helping her with bill paying, banking and grocery shopping, and after a rocky start, we were mostly in a place where we were getting along. Probably because she was getting everything she needed and wanted from me.

I've watched her decline pretty quickly over this time, and now she is delusional or hallucinating, not always knowing who my brother is or who I am, thinking that other people live in her apartment or that she is not in her apartment and wants to go home. I just bought a bigger home with my husband with the plan to move her in along with my brother.

She was on board with that plan at first, but recently things have taken a turn for the worse. It's gotten to daily tantrums that seem like sundowning when she wakes up, and they often return again in the evening. Followed by extreme anger at me (I don't know how she is treating my brother when I'm not there) with name calling and accusations. And then sometimes, she is nice and conversational, with the occasional weird comment about all the kids in her apartment eating the food, or saying my brother is "the other Pat", etc.

I need to force her to see a doctor and I've just this week had to involve adult protective services, which is really blowing things up for her in terms of her behavior. I'm at the point where I want my Mother to be safe, but I don't think I want her in my home. I want my brother to be free of her. He's been under her thumb his entire life and he is so stressed out about the situation. She gives him zero agency. He never disagrees with her, no matter what crazy thing she says or does. Like he's brainwashed. He's literally keeping the household going, while she complains and yells and both of us. I feel like a terrible person and a terrible daughter, but I am starting to believe that I have to consider own and my brother's mental health, and try to get Mom seen by a doctor and get her into a Memory Care facility and get my brother moved in with me. I'm going to be a terrible daughter in her eyes no matter what.

M1

welcome to the forum Kelley. Do you hold durable power of attorney for both of them? You’re going to need it. If not get legal advice right away, you need a certified elder law attorney (look at nelf.org). The involvement of APS may complicate this but all the more reason you need legal advice.