Hello, so I am at a loss on where to turn so I wanted to post here. My mother is 55 years old but is riddled with mental health disorders that have quite literally paralyzed her to the point where she is confined to a bed and can only transport via Hoyer lift and wheelchair. She has struggled my whole life with severe OCD, anxiety, bi-polar, and BPD. She fell ill in 2019 which resulted in the placement of an ileostomy bag. After that she went through physical therapy until she was mobile again and able to care for herself. However, she quickly fell back into the same habits of obsessing and refusing to care for herself. She refused to empty her ostomy bag to the point that it would bust or leak and someone would have to help her clean it- she knew at that point that if she just did not care for it herself someone else would because otherwise, we would have a huge mess to clean. This resulted in her refusing to get up for months. The muscles in her legs have now completely atrophied and she is unable to bear weight and is confined to a hospital bed where she requires total care. She has recently developed a large ulcer to her bottom because when you turn her, she just turns herself right back to the position she was in. Physical therapy started seeing her in the hospital and working with her. She has since been discharged home where my dad and I have both been home to care for her until home health was to begin. Home health however has said they cannot admit her because once I go back to work, she will not have a caregiver here 24/7. Mom told the case worker in the hospital that she would have a 24/7 caregiver and that she did not want or need nursing home/skilled nursing/ or in patient rehab. I’ve spoken with Mom in length about this and how if she is unable to care for herself, she cannot be left home alone. She is alert and oriented, however with her mental health issues she does not make safe and sound decisions at all. She wants to be home and have us do everything for her. Every day it seems like she has discovered something new she can no longer do for herself, holding and controlling the TV remote, holding her eating utensils, raising, and lowering her bed with the bed remote, etc.
I love my mother very much, but I fully grasp that the socialization and routine from a facility, along with the 24/7 total care would benefit her SO much more than her life here at home where in just 8 days she would be faced with being here alone which then puts my father and I in trouble legally I’d fear. But how do you get an alert and oriented parent to do something they flat out do not want to do?
I am just at a loss of what we’re expected to do; how can we best help her without ruining our relationship with her by looking out for her wellbeing.
Any advice would be appreciated!
I personally find it mind boggling.
As long as you and your father continue to do the things that your mother should be able to do for herself, she will never get better. In a weird way you both are actually enabling her. And if you're wanting things to change, you and your father are going to have to quit enabling her and just let her do without.
If she can't figure out the remote, then she just doesn't get to watch TV. If she doesn't want to eat with her utensils, then she eats with her hands or she goes hungry. You get the idea.
She is playing both you and your father for fools and the sad thing is you're both falling for it. The more you do for her the more she will want you to do, as in her sick mind she is actually enjoying being the victim and having folks wait on her hand and foot, so why should she change when you both are at her beck and call?
You say you love your mother and I'm sure you do, but there comes a time when tough love is needed, and your mother is way past due for some of that for sure.
You and your father need to stand firm and tell her that you both can no longer care for her in the home, and that she's going to have to go into a nursing facility until she can start doing more things on her own. And you know that the good folks at the facility will NOT be at her beck and call and that she'll have to step it up and start doing more on her own. There's no logical reason that she's not already doing that, other than she figures why should she when she has both you and your father to do whatever she wants.
So it's time to change that dysfunctional behavior once and for all as you and your father deserve so much better. I hope you realize that.
You've been sucked into your mothers very sick and dysfunctional world for long enough. I hope and pray that you and your father will be smart enough and brave enough to do what you know in your heart of hearts needs to be done with and for your mother.
You are asking us for advice on how to deal with a mentally ill woman. I doubt any of us is capable of giving you any advice that might work because even society at large hasn't a CLUE how do deal with the mentally ill. There are no longer places that care for them. And the law will not adjudge them incompetent to make their own decisions. Meanwhile your father's and your life are sacrificed on the pyre of her illness.
I have a good recommendation. However, be warned it will not in any way "help you". It MAY make you feel less alone. It is called Never Simple, by Liz Scheier and is a memoir of her life spent try to get help, trying to help her mentally ill mother. All to no avail over the decades. And all along with the help of the social services of the city and state of New York.
You father has fewer choices than you do. You should have the right to a life. While this decubiti and others to follow it may shorten her life due to sepsis, you mother yet may live for decades. Are you willing to sacrifice your own life?
To my mind, it should be this way. You have a right to a life. The obligation goes generationally forward, the parent obligated to raise and care for the helpless child they bring into the world, not turned around the other way.
I would call Adult Protective Services and tell them, when you cannot go on, THAT you cannot go on. Leave your father and mother's needs to the State to help with.
You can walk away. It’s more difficult for your father to do that. Think about his options if you weren’t part of the support team. Could he continue? If not, what would he do? Is that a way to change things? If possible, you can explain it as a strategy to your father, not just disappear. Good luck!
You aren't responsible for your Mom's happiness. You can't have her "recovery" for her. But you keep thinking you can. You have a dysfunctional, co-dependent relationship with her. You are enabling her and helping to keep her "sick". This is where a therapist would be very helpful.