My mother is 85 and has had mental health issues as long as I can remember. They were in control pretty much until 7 years ago when she had a stroke. The stroke was not majorly debilitating but my mom took the opportunity to become "helpless" and she wanted to be waited on and taken care of. She just went to an assisted living facility and has complained of nausea and says she can't go on. I have had her to every kind of doctor and done every kind of test and there is nothing physically wrong. This is starting to affect my health as she calls me all night and all day and tells me she can't go on. When I am away, she calls and begs me to come home and take care of her. Her physical health has not declined and she is on 3 mental health medications. Any advice would be appreciated.
my mom is in assisted living too. And calls. And calls. AND CALLS!
she can’t go on - she’s worthless….
I am currently trying very hard to answer every OTHER phone call. Then the plan is to not answer calls at night.
*something that helped me was to call her / on MY terms when I was ready . *That took care of the phone calls for the 2 hours at least bc I knew she was safe . I just wouldn’t pick up .
I was walking the dog, doing laundry.Any excuse was at the
tip ofmy tongue for when she asked why I didn’t pick up, ive even knocked at my own door and said oh! Someone is here, gotta run!
anything to cut short a truly complaining call. I knew she was safe and I’m training her not to call . I hope it doesn’t sound horrible, but my sanity was at stake!!
I also made appointment with psych . She’s so negative I bet she won’t go ~. But, I’m trying to create buffers and time between calls. I hope this is helpful.
If she has Dementia, there is no reasoning with her. I would "lose" the phone and tell the staff they are not to allow her to call you on their phones. Emergency calls only.
If you use a cell, remove her # from your contact list. (U can leave her # in, lets say notes) Put your phone on Do Not Disturb, and her call will go to VM. You don't even hear it ring thru. I set my DND to only allow texts and calls from contacts list to come thru. From 11pm to 9am I don't even have it set up for texts or calls.
You need to take control not allow her to control you. She is safe, fed and cared for. You now can have a life.
You say she's in Assisted Living, so let them assist with her living.
Turn the phone off and your own life back on. NPDs are cagey game players and will survive . We may not ..unless we are free of them.
Instead, I will be taking her a bouquet of the fragrant and colorful Spring flowers she loved that grow in our yard, when I visit her at the cemetery today.
I am so lucky, and will always be grateful to be her son.
There are so many people on this forum tired to the bone because they are physically caring for their loved ones. It made me chuckle when I read you are at this same point … from … telephone calls?
Cell phones have all kinds of ways to be be silenced. if you can’t cope and you need to be able to use your cell phone, you can block her calls during business hours and unblock them whenever you wish.
Maybe it is the guilt that is really bothering you, not the ringing. Your mom is safe and receiving care. One day you will never receive another call from her ever again.
Listen to her on the phone when it is convenient for your schedule and you are emotionally capable to do so.
Better yet. Go see her in person and spend time together while you’re still able.
"Her physical health has not declined".
This makes me think she IS eating well.
"mental health issues as long as I can remember. They were in control pretty much until 7 years ago when she had a stroke".
This makes me think a'ha! Vascular Dementia. More small strokes or lack of O2 to the brain causing ? increased feelings of anxiety/fear/dread being described as nausea & pain + ? decreased memory to know she just called you.
But also I have recently heard, Vascular Dementia can also cause small clots or strokes in the gut. I imagine these wouldn't hurt like acute pain (not many nerve/pain receptors there) but could reduce ability to digest food properly? It was my theory when my LO had abdo pain.. however, later found to be bladder infection & kidney stones.
Some people become more intolerant to lactose with age. If she switched to a lactose free diet I wonder...
Does she still complain of nausea when you visit & sit & hold her hand? I think that could be a small test if a 'behavioural' symptom.
If you have done all you can, your Mother's symptoms move from 'seeking active treatment' to it's beyond your control, to 'comfort care'. 😞
Pain fibers and nausea fibers in the brain are close to each other. That’s how it was explained to me.
I was in the hospital last year. The pain was intense, and the nausea was as well. The hospitalist was an a—hole about it, and didn’t believe me. I honestly thought I would die, there for awhile. The nausea was far worse than the pain.
I would tend to believe your mother. SOMETHING is causing this distress.
Sometimes the benefits of a medication outweigh the possible side effects.
Don't answer all her calls. Let her calls go to voicemail and screen them. Return the ones you want at your leisure. Or block her calls entirely and talk to her only when you want to call her.
She wants you to be at her beck and call 24 hours a day. Not only that but she wants you to care for her like a helpless infant and to also share in her misery.
If your health is starting to suffer because of your mother's miserable neediness and mental illness, then it's time for some tough love. Tell the AL they are the ones getting paid to handle her and make them do their job.
My mother is very much like yours except I'm her caregiver and we live in the same house. She has been mentally ill her entire life and it's always gone untreated. Now she is elderly and has some physical illness too. So life here is either like living in a hospice with a moaning dying person who can't breathe (this is one type of performance my mother gives for attention), or it is like living in a mental hospital. The hysterics, semantics, and lunacy is the other type of attention-seeking performance.
I finally got to the point where I just couldn't take anymore. She was working herself up into hysterics and hyperventilating. I told her that I have her POA and was calling an ambulance to take her to the hospital and that I would be having her admitted for a 72 involuntary psychiatric evaluation.
The hysterics and semantics stopped at once. She was able to get herself under control.
This is how you have to handle it. Don't play your mother's games. Don't share in her misery. Stop attending her attention-seeking performances. Your relationship with her will improve.
My mother was also chronically nauseous which had no organic reason to it, and ate Zofran like tic-tac. She eventually developed very bad vertigo to go along with the nausea, and car sickness too, so I had to take her to the ENT doctor dozens of times so they could perform the Epley maneuver on her, to which she'd have a super violent reaction every single time. I hired the PT/OTs at her ALF to help her with the vertigo, and they told me they'd never seen such violent reactions to PT/OT in all their years of experience working with patients! How do you spell histrionics?
Anyway, there are some things that lotions, potions, pills and doctors just can't fix. Have you tried Zofran for your mother? I'm sure you have. The last year of my mother's life, she was complaining about nausea constantly and I attributed it to her GERD. I asked her PCP to prescribe 20 mg of Omeprazole 2x a day, which she eventually increased to 40 mg 2x a day. That did the trick. The other GERD meds were doing nothing to address the situation, but I knew from personal experience about omeprazole.
If that doesn't work, you may want to give her a placebo type thing like tic tacs and tell her they've been proven to work wonders for nausea in elders.
Wishing you the best of luck with a difficult situation. I know that once these types of women get an idea in their heads, you can't chop it out of there with an AXE! :(
Maybe this is an anxiety for Mom. Or like said, a Med is causing the nausea. Is this something new since going into the AL.
Answering her calls does nothing to alleviate her mental ill health and buggers up yours. So don't answer them.
Don't misunderstand me. A sounding board can be very important for people who are experiencing this kind of illness; your mother does need someone to talk to, someone she can call and unload on. But not only does it not *have* to be you, arguably it would also be better if it is someone with professional insight, professional boundaries, and perhaps some techniques for weaning her off this behaviour.
The drugs aren't working. Her psychiatrist needs to come up with alternatives. Ideally, alternatives which aren't stock responses and don't necessarily come in a bottle.