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My mom is a sociopath who was very intelligent, so needless to say that I grew up in a single parent home with a person that was narcissistic, mentally, emotionally and at times physically abusive and neglectful to an extreme.

My mother was formerly diagnosed with Early Onset Alzheimer's Dementia along with Frontal Lobe Dementia in Dec 2012, and by all indications from both the CAT Scan and when we first noticed some real issues with her cognitive abilities she was likely 4 to 5 years into it.

Do to certain circumstances my mother moved from Canada to USA to live with me, my husband and our three children as we believed that perhaps we could help her out...which of course as we quickly discovered we could not.

Unfortunately what was to be a short term situation has ended up being a long term situation, which had we known we never would have agreed too...but alas such is the way of things.

In my efforts to seek out help and understanding I have discovered that there is very little help for those of us that are in this situation, and in fact very little understanding about the difficulties we face as caregivers and how it effects us differently from most people going through the horrors of watching their parents go through this awful set of diseases.

So while I've read a number of accounts from people facing similar situations, I have to say that in some ways it is very isolating and when you have a parent like this you know that talking about it in general is very difficult because as children we were taught not to speak about such things.

I also notice that many people don't realize that their parent actually has a mental illness along side of the Alzheimer's so I think it makes it even more difficult to deal with as an individual and from an emotional point of view.

So I've been thinking that we need to find a way to help each other out, to help each other find answers, learn to cope with our parent/s in a way that works, but more importantly I think we need to find ways to heal ourselves and understand what we are going through from a different angle.

Also, I believe that through this experience that perhaps we can find some healing from our trauma's through the process.

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Don't re invent the wheel.
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Pam, I'm not sure I understand your comment, re invent what wheel?
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Shannon - Pam's comment refers to the fact that a LARGE number if not the majority of the forums on here already deal with this as an issue!
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Vstefans...thank you...I wasn't sure.

I'm just putting out ideas because it's hard to find information specifically relating to the issue. Most of the articles that are written about dealing with the special issues of caring for a person with dementia, while often talking about burn out and having issues dealing with certain behaviors, don't take into account some of the very real emotional issues that surround this particular subject.

I'm grateful that there are a lot of people on this forum that have been dealing with this...it will be helpful...but I'm also wondering if it would behoove us to perhaps get with the Alzheimer's association to develop support groups specifically around our unique issues and things like that.

Does that make sense?
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Shakingthedustoff...I get what your saying and to some extent I agree that we should not be caring for our abuser...for several reasons.

I'm certainly not at the point where I'd like to abuse my mother...that goes against my personality and while I don't like my mom very much, I do in fact love her and wish she was not going through this and would not stand for abusive care for her no matter how angry I might get at any point.

I am a very strong believer that all humans deserve to be cared for as well as possible...and that being said...I can not give her as good of a life or as good of care as she could get by people that don't know her from the past.

To that end, I have been diligently trying to find and get her funding so that we can in fact get her into a nursing home...but it has not been as easily attainable as I'd like and after 6 months or so of working on it, filling out forms, waiting for responses, being told it was the wrong form etc...we are starting to get somewhere, but it sure isn't very fast.

As far as financing...mom only has an income of $600 a month...so if it's important to you...I supplement the money...not her supplementing me.

Understand that every person has a very different situation and the reasons we care for our parent/s in these situation varies greatly.

I know that if I'd have understood the full extent of what I was trying to do at the time, I never would have done it...but alas here me and my family are dealing with the situation as best as possible.

Still in some ways I'm glad I've done it because I've discovered some things about my mom that I didn't really understand before. The Dementia has brought out aspects that were hidden when she was more in control that have really helped me see clearer about who she is, who she was and it has put to bed any possibility of her changing, which I think secretly most of us hold onto hope for deep down.

I hope that all makes sense...but also I want to address the issue of finding no help or no one that totally understands etc...that is what I'm posing...that is what I'm advocating...that we start advocating for more understanding from the organizations that do help out and maybe search out other sources to assist us in dealing and also in healing.

I was fortunate to have done a lot of healing work prier to the disease, and I had actually a not to bad relationship with my mom for 10 years before it started to happen, but even then I had to have my guard up all the time...etc etc...I had coping skills and manipulation skills and could re direct her at times so the blow outs and direct abuse were minimized and that was nice. It helps that I did do all that work before, but still the dementia's actually enhanced those sociopath qualities, so it came on in spades and re awakened many things, also the past year and half I've had to re establish my guards and coping skills which does not allow me to be very open and happy all the time...I'm paying the price for that now.

Hope this makes some sense.
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Shannon- many of us on this site are dealing with a parent/patents who have been extremely abusive due to mental illness. I am included in that group. My mother has undiagnosed borderline personality disorder. She has all the classic symptoms and behaviors. She also is a diagnosed me.tally incapacitated due to Alzheimer's Disease. She does not live with me because my marriagecomes first and refuse to allow her mental issues to take presidence. I love my mother...that is more than she ever gave me. Yet, I see to it that my mother gets the best care possible in a memory care unit. I s
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Shary that is great...so glad you did that. I have to say that my husband really didn't know what mom was like to me in reality...she was really good at hiding it...and she had improved on her behavior prier. So he was an advocate for us to try and help her for a while...after a couple of months he finally understood what I'd been trying to tell him for years...:)....but then finances were not available to change the situation, not to mention I was the only one in the family that could do what I'm doing. It should not be too much longer before we can get her into a home and then we can begin to get back to normal.
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Shannon-because we lived in the same city as my parents., my hubs got to see first hand how my mom could be. My parents both worked and had contributed to pension plans so while not wealthy,there is enough money for my mom to re wive this type of care. Plus my mom took out a long term health care policy that pays 100% for the first 4 years. It is still a challenge. I. Isthmus all the time, take her to all her Dr appts. What I can say is that as the Alz has progressed., mom has gotten easier to be around. Hang in there and I hope the paperwork comes through quickly so you and your hubby can get your lives back. Hugs to you!
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