So a I stated in my previous post there have been lots of changes in my life over the last little bit. There have actually been a few more since I penned that last post as well.
My daughter has switched to the University of Tennessee and is now majoring in Classics. Maryville just wasn't a good fit for her.
I finally got my mother to the Dr and as was expected she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's and dementia. Although if you ask her she doesn't. She is convinced she has 3 spots on her lung and has near constant diarrhea. Neither of those things is true, but we will get into that later.
I am currently really struggling with my role as her caregiver. I think now that moving here to take care of her was a bad idea and one that I currently regret. My intention with picking the blog back up is to give myself an outlet to vent my daily struggles, frustrations, and the sad shit that current makes up my days. As I said before my mother and I have never been close and I have always felt rejected and resented by her. That being said I fancy myself a decent being and regardless of how she has treated me I have taken on her care because she has no one else and she is still a human being. That does however leave me with some pretty difficult feelings to wade through. Our lack of connection even on a basic level coupled with her dementia attitude have made an already difficult situation exponentially harder. My hope is that writing things down here will help me process things with some clarity giving me the opportunity to deal with this.
So here goes. My mother has been a smoker since she was 9 if you believe what she has to say. I don't smoke and neither does anyone in my family. That being said part of the agreement to us coming her to take care of her was she agreed to smoke outside from the time we moved in on. We built her a new deck off her bedroom to make that easier. She also has a garage she could smoke in where I set up a smoke station with a chair heater and ashtray. The entire length of the front of this house is a covered front porch that was also fair game for her smoking. Has a nice porch swing, a few benches, and a table and chairs. So it's not like the request was horrible or made her stand in the blaring sun or the pouring rain. Either way that shit lasted maybe a week before she started smoking in the house again. When I would catch her doing it and ask why she wasn't outside she was always on her way, or the phone rang, or she needed to shit. (her words) Then as she began to benefit fro me making sure she was eating and sleeping in her bed she began to feel better. So at that point when she was caught smoking in the house she would yell and say it was her house and she could do whatever she wanted in it. I would remind her that it was now OUR house as we sold our home to move here with her. She didn't give a shit it was her house. That has gone on for months at this point with us not running the center heat and air, closing off every air gap we could find, and separating our living spaces as much as we could. (it still made the whole house stink BTW) Fast forward to just before Christmas I had been cleaning on her side of the house and had put several paper towels in the kitchen trash can. She came through and put a lit cigarette in said trash can catching it on fire. She didn't notice the fire and went back into her bedroom. Luckily my husband and I walked through her side of the house as it went up. It has burned through the plastic lid and had melted the trash can into the kitchen cabinet. She denied putting a cigarette in there and said she had no idea how it happened... (we found the charred remains of a filter in the top of the burned out can) We again attempted to get her to go outside and smoke and to put her cigarette butts in a metal can on the porch. She would comply when we were home or she thought we weren't paying attention. Then when we would go over and find her smoking she would out right deny that she was. Smoldering cigarette in her hand or dangling from her lip. She would honestly say she wasn't smoking!!!!!! That went on for a abut a month with her burning holes in her, clothes, shoes, bed linens, and dining room table. Then just this past Saturday night after I had put her to bed I went back over to check on her before I went to bed for the night and found her nightstand drawer engulfed in flames and her sound asleep a foot from it. I managed to get the fire out and her up and guess what she says it wasn't a "real fire" and that she didn't do anything to start it. It burned up half a carton of her cigarettes, her house shoes, a few pads, her aspercream, and the bottom and front of the drawer, but it wan't a real fire.
Since clearly we have a major safety issue with her and her smoking I told her she couldn't have her cigarettes anymore that I would keep them and her lighters and when she wanted to smoke she could ask me and I would take her outside and then make sure when she was done that it was safely extinguished. Well that really pissed her off so we have had several arguments about it and I am not budging. I am not putting my family and the house at risk because she wants to do whatever she wants. I got her some nicotine patches and gum to use at night to help curb the night time stuff. I have tried to be as nice about it as I can. She says she can take care of herself and doesn't need me getting in her business. However she can't dress herself for the most part, change her own depend, fix herself a reasonable meal, or remember to feed or water her pets. She gave up cleaning her house or picking up the dog shit years ago. She hits me, calls me the fat dictator and a hateful bitch several times a day. All while telling me she doesn't need my help. We had the conversation today with her accusing me of stealing her money, and taking over her whole life. That I was not her mother or her keeper and I should just leave her alone. As she was walking away from me yelling this she stepped in a pile of dogshit that had just been shat in her path. She noticed it and use the tissue she has in her hand to swipe at the shit on her house-shoe (one that I had to help her put on) she then proceeds to stand up straight and start wiping her nose with the shit covered tissue. When I try and stop her she tells me to leave her alone, she knows what she doing she's not a mo-ron. So she wiped shit on her face and her ear. I can't in good conscience leave her that way although it is so tempting so I get a wash cloth and clean her up while being berated and told she doesn't need me.
I know that some of this is the dementia, but some of it is just how she always has been toward me. So while I can rationalize in my head that she doesn't mean it and she doesn't know what she's saying, my heart knows that she does and it has a hard time dealing with it.
Folks will tell you oh it's just the disease, that's not really your mother, don't get upset by that stuff, just be happy that you get to do this for her. Well you know what? I am not happy about any of this and disease or no getting called names and treated like shit day in and day out by someone that you clean up after, wipe her butt, wash her clothes, de-shit her bed, feed, and keep from killing herself in a house fire it still fucking hurts and it's said by people that never actually have to deal with her.
It's just me.
I am the only one that shows up to take the shit and take care of her.
I don't want to put her in a facility because somehow in my twisted head that means I failed, not her so much, but myself. I want to think that I am a decent enough person to stay the course and take care of her.
It gets harder everyday
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