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I love my mother desperately. I want to help but I feel like a horrible person because I’m starting to get resentful. I get angry, don’t want to talk to her and if I hear her repeat or tell the same story again or ask me to fix her another cup of coffee or tell her she has to eat or any of the other stuff like I’m dealing with a five year old ,it drives me insane and it’s only been three months. I feel really bad. My husband is very supportive and a wonderful person and she smokes all the time (outside on the back porch at least she does it there thank God) claims she always wants him to do but when ounce to do something refuses I say things like, been there done that don’t want to do anything don’t have to do anything. All she wants is for me to sit there and listen to her and talk to her and she’s partially deaf so I have to yell. She doesn’t understand she’s 79 years old, doesn’t know how to use a cell phone, won’t learn, won’t try anything, is critical of everyone and everything. It gets so bad sometimes I literally go and hide in my basement and I feel horrible. And she comes looking for me she won’t come to the basement, she won’t go up her downstairs thank God but she will stand there and scream and yell for me and make me feel bad. I don’t even know what to do.

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One of the things that will help could be getting a voice amplifier (I got a simple one on Amazon) and a cheap $10 sony headset, so that you don’t have to yell. No sense in dealing with hearing aids, etc if she’s not going to be able to use them ( or will lose them). It’s so hard to stay calm when you’re forced to yell at someone. Keep in mind that dementia affects how people can process words, and so this may not be all hearing loss. She may be understanding only about one in four of what you say. She may also find listening to music through the headset soothing. Set her up with some music time to get a break.

A lot of what you’re describing is the dementia. It’s not that she won’t try to learn to use a cell phone, it’s that the disease has scrambled her brain’s connections so that she can’t learn anything new. Keys to success will be routine, familiar things, and agreeing with her. What this weird disease does is still let the person still be social and interactive, and so it’s hard at first to understand that they really have lost a lot of their abilities, not just memory, but being able to use logic and reasoning, and judgement. You can download a checklist from here:
https://tamcummings.com/stages-of-dementia/
This is a helpful read:
http://www.dementiacarestrategies.com/12_pt_Understanding_the_Dementia_Experience.pdf
and go on youtube and check out the Teepa Snow videos.
this is good too
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cZTgG6kDjs
It sounds like you need a break-either in-house assistance, daycare, or perhaps moving mom to memory care.
You’re trying to do right by your mom. That’s a loving thing. But she may need more care than you can provide by yourself.
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You are dealing with a lot of difficult situations. Have you done any reading on dementia/alz? Like the 36 hour day? I'm sure there are more but it is helpful. This forum is very helpful, learning that so many people are going through the same difficult things you are.

I understand and live with feeling like a horrible person for many of your same reasons.

Conversation is very difficult. At dinner, I quiz my husband a lot about what happened at work today so that there will be SOMETHING to talk about. I have heard all her stories. A million times. It's mind numbing. And now she does some confabulation so the words are just that, words with little to no reality behind them. Sometimes she's right on track others, not so much. Car rides? Yikes. I sing the whole time to the radio. Unless I need to tell her something. It's a 30 minute drive to almost anywhere so that is a long drive!

Like you, I am very lucky to have a wonderful and supportive husband. If he was frustrated with this, I would have to make other arrangements but lucky for her, he's one of the good guys.

You say she won't learn and won't try. Please consider that she is probably not able to. New things are probably confusing to her and she just might not be able to try. Frustrating but it could be a reality that you need to try to accept. Don't expect her to grasp new things. People with dementia really can't learn new things.

I totally understand hiding in the basement. Maybe you can hire some help to sit with her for a few hours so you don't have to hide in your house. Instead, get out of the house and do something for yourself and get a break from her.

Adjusting your mind set can help a bit too. I expect conversation to be boring and maybe not make any sense. I expect silly questions, though they do still take me by surprise sometimes and I don't recover quickly enough to not respond in a fashion that shows I'm confused by the question.

Good luck.
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Dementia is very hard to deal with for all the reasons you have listed. I did it for 20 months in my home. After a year, I got her set up with a Daycare 3x a week. Monday, Wed and Friday. They picked her up at 8am and dropped her off at 3pm. Gave me and DH some time to ourselves. She got 2 meals and they bathed her for me. It cost about $300 a week which came out of Moms money. Medicaid may pay total or part of the cost.

If Mom has any money, you may want to place her into an AL. I placed Mom into one. When her house didn't sell the money ran out I had to place her in LTC with Medicaid paying.

We all are not Caregivers. You have to be a very patient person and I am not. And I get overwhelmed if too much is coming at me at once.
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