No one understands that my mother is toxic to me. What should I do?
My mother has not been diagnosed with dementia but I strongly feels that she has it. The reason is because of her paranoid behavior, way too much, she is delusional, fixed into her own thoughts and thinks she hears things and she is so mean and complains a lot. She is now in a wheel chair, and added incontinence. She is in complete denial about it all and is hard to work with. I got thrown in this position even though we have a very strained relationship, so not healthy for me. There is 1 other sibling, my brother. He is not always helping, her brothers and sisters are clueless and not helping either. I don't mind doing what I can but because of my unresolved issue with her and plus she is negative, she wets her floor but hides it, she goes in her garage and urinates and expect for me to clean. She is ready to talk about crazy things like demons, witches, rogues, pornography just name it, and non of those topics I'm interested in. She repeats it like a tape recorder over and over and she throws insult at me, and I'm helping her. I'm stressed. I have to haul her around to doctors appointment, wheelchair is damaging my back, and I feel like I'm driving Ms Daisy. I found out that she has life insurance on me with her as beneficiary and not my kids and I'm upset about that. I know nothing about her personal stuff like life insurance in case of death because she don't trust me, but like wise. I have a husband a 2 teens and I am wanting to focus on them, but there is my mom too, I help because nobody else is helping. No one understands that my mother is toxic to me and I can't do it all, advise.
What are her main health problems? (i.e. she didn't just land in a wheelchair, incontinent, for no reason - what happened?)
How does she suddenly come to be so dependent on your help?
You are part of a large family - your brother, but also aunts and uncles. You are NOT the only person who should take responsibility for your mother. Take heart, there will be a better answer than your having to take on a burden that is too much to ask, and too much for a busy mother to deal with anyway.
68 is nothing, especially these days. Your mother does not count as "old."
I don't want to guess and I don't want to be alarmist, but there is clearly something quite serious going on. Your mother's doctor can't talk to you, but you can talk to your mother's doctor. You can report her behaviour, her non-compliance with prescriptions, her dabbling with unproven herbal remedies (be prepared to hear some unseemly language from the doctor when you mention that part). You can then call a family conference - which your mother can choose to attend or not, as she pleases - and sharing as much information as you can get hold of you discuss a new care and support plan.
One which does not involve your being her primary carer.
You will have to be prepared to harden your nose, but what it comes down to is that you cannot take on the full-time care of a sick lady - whether or not you'd particularly choose to in your mother's case. Nobody is indispensable, and that includes you. There will be other options.
Um.
If it were me, I'd give APS another try. I'd request that they send a social worker to talk to your mother and see what, if anything, s/he made of the situation.
And I would *definitely* either find another doctor (and just take her to the new office without bothering to mention it - if she really won't talk to him then she won't, but you haven't lost anything); or, if there isn't another within reasonable travelling distance, put my concerns in writing to this one and hope that makes him get his finger out.
The thing is, your mother's indifference and daft excuses could easily be plain denial - she's afraid of what might be wrong, so she's pretending that almost anything else is going on.
You're right that it is her right to do that, if she must. But reality goes on, with or without her consent, and while she's busy pretending you're being denied the support you're entitled to, as well as she is.
And, if all else fails, at least you've tried. Yes, there is a limit, and you're right again to know when you've reached it.