I have detailed my mom's craziness many time so will not go over that.
Botton line, her anxiety is through the roof. When my dad was going down from ALZ a few years ago and health professionals came over, they said they are not worried about my dad, but my mom. They would use terms like her anxiety is through the roof, off the charts. You name it, they said it.
It's getting worse and driving everyone crazy, especially me as I am the primary caregiver . Every issue is anxiety producing for her, the smallest unanswered question causes her huge anxiety and she calls me to help
I can of course can not answer the phone all the time, but in the meanwhile she is driving fellow residents at her independent living facility crazy. The staff there tells me I must be a saint to put up with her.
One time when she was in rehab after breaking a pelvis, the RN who was primarily responsible for her (and coordinated others like PTs, OTs, etc.) gingerly approached me and asked if it was OK if she had a psychiatric nurse visit my mom. I suppose some might find that offensive. I said OK, please, please send one! The psychiatric nurse visited and spent time with my mom and asked me if she was on any anxiety meds. I said a small dose of prozac. The psych nurse sort of snorted and said prozac for my mom was like giving an aspirin to someone with a brain tumor.
She listed some high power drugs to bring to my mom's doctor. My mom's doctor was a bit miffed by being told what to do by a nurse, but second said they are high powered drugs that she, as a GP should not really be prescribing. Third, she said my mom would never take them as my mom reads all the warnings that come with any drug and gets scared.
My moms GP has basically had it with my mom and given up. I don't blame her. She tells me that she is in an exam room with my mom for ten minutes and is worn out.
Anyway, I did not mean to ramble this long. Any ideas of what to do? I think my mom's next stop is not assisted living, but rather some mental health facility.
Find a good geriatric psychiatrist. Make an appointment. Take mom.
Perhaps you need to say "mom, your anxiety and OCD are making me crazy. If you don't get treatment, I am going to have to step away from helping you to protect my own mental health".
It's her choice to get treatment or not. And YOUR choice to continue grinning and bearing it.
I honestly have no idea how you can help a mentally ill parent. We have never seen anyone I know of on Forum have any success, nor have I seen it as a nurse.
Sadly my own advice to families is not to attempt POA or conservatorship/guardianship.
I always recommend Liz Scheier's excellent Memoir, Never Simple. Ms. S. tried for decades to help her mentally ill mom along with the help and auspices of New York City and State. All to no avail.
I wish I had better ideas for you and hope others do, and am so sorry for all you deal with.
Her primary docs also issue is that my mom will often not take her BP meds as her OCD compels her to read every word of the instructions/disclaimers that come with it and is afraid of potential side effects. Her primary doc said if she is afraid to take BP meds, can you imagine what she would do when reading disclaimers for high end psychiatric meds.
Anyway, thanks all, and I do have a request for her primary doc to get her to a geriatric psych doctor.
As Alva alluded to, their own anxious condition makes it difficult for them to accept treatment, sort of a catch 25 or whatever it is
Even if I walked away, she is driving fellow residents in her senior living facility nuts at times and I expect at some point they will tell me she has to leave, and I am not sure the next step is assisted living, but rather some mental health facility.
I know this sounds cruel, but there is simply no good way to care for a mentally ill person who won't take their meds if you have no authority.
Tell them to send her to a psychiatric hospital.
And if you haven't already, read Liz Scheier's Never Simple.
My mom read all of the pamphlets that came in meds too.
For us, it took something drastic for mom to consider going on meds. She was trying to walk out of the front door in the middle of the night. Then she agreed to trying Ativan and Seroquel. Both of those meds helped her tremendously.
Since meds affect everyone differently, it really is trial and error until you find what works.
I hope that you will eventually become successful in getting your mom on the correct meds. Best wishes to you and your mother.
Be firm, set boundaries. Your mom is an adult, and responsible for her actions.
I really feel for you! I watched my MIL deal with a mentally ill mother. I use the word mother very loosely because she was anything but a mother to my MIL growing up!
My MIL would pray that her father would divorce her mom when she was a young child so that her dad, a very kind man would be happy.
Unfortunately, some people never find the help they need and live their entire lives in complete misery and they try to take everyone else down with them. It’s horribly sad.
I don’t believe these people are capable of feeling love for anyone, not their spouses or their children. They have no friends because they don’t know how to be a friend to anyone.
I found that extremely kind nurses were able to speak to my mother about her anxiety and depression. My mom hid her depression and anxiety at times because she saw it as being a failure. She was the rock in our family that held it together when my brother went off the rails.
Our parents were part of the ‘Pull yourself up by your bootstraps generation!’ They didn’t feel comfortable speaking about anything that was bothering them. For the most part they had to grin and bear it.
You shouldn’t grin and bear it. You should do whatever you need to do to find peace in your life.
Wishing you all the best, Karsten and I truly hope that this will all be behind you one day. Take care.
Apparently, even though we lived in moderately large metro area (about four millions) I have been told geriatric psychiatrists are few and far between in this area, and almost impossible to find one
I dont get that
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Your update prompted me to see if we have geriatric psychiatry in our area. We have Ochsner Health Care in our area and it turns out that we do have psychiatric care for the elderly.
I am sorry that this isn’t available in your area. I would do more research in your area.
All I did just now, was to google Geriatric psychiatry in New Orleans and it popped right up.
Best wishes to you.
A gentle, soft spoken lady entered our lives as she entered my LO’s room, and she was able to interpret for us, as no one ever had, the crime and cruelty of the illness that had invaded my LO’s fragile life.
She and her coworkers were with my LO until we lost her in December 2022.
I will never forget the Blessing they were to her last years.
I would contact the best teaching hospital in your metro area and talk to both their Geriatrics unit and their Psychiatry/Neurology unit.
You might also check if they do comprehensive neuropsych workups. Often a psychiatrist or Advanced Practice Psychiatric Nurse (who can prescribe) is part of that team.
Would have been cheaper to have helped her, rather than let 6 kids get messed up.
But how?
Anxious +++. Too anxious to take any meds.
Confession; I have read the warning pamphlet & decided against. But I have also read the pamphlet, had concerns, discussed these with my Doctor, weighed up the pros & cons, decided my life may well be better with a little help & accepted 'medication to help' for 6 months. I'm glad I did. It got me partially out of a hole. Then with my head out I could access other forms of help.
Mental health care is here where I live but seems incrediably hard to get into also - services not Govt funded, long wait lists or Psych Drs so busy they can't take on new patients.
There is an emergency mental health crises team, for immediate self-harm or harm to others. As others said, this may lead to a short hold then release. May lead to 2 week inpatient stay to find the right approach, talk therapy & medication mix.
It really is crazy that it takes a crises to get help when prevention would be so much better.
One huge barrier is that lack of insight. Another is having clear judgement.
Being able to clearly weighing up the choice: #1. Anxiety making life so very hard VS #2. Anxiety regarding medication side effects but possible reducuction of anxiety overall.
Karsten, your Mom is making her choice & sticking going with #1.
I totally get that if you could get to the right professional she could feel safe to try option #2.
As VetCareGiver said well "Your mom is an adult, and responsible for her actions".
If the IL management find her behaviour too hard to manage, can they have her Primary Doctor refer her for Psych eval? Does that pathway lead anywhere?
Karsten said below "I have been told geriatric psychiatrists are few and far between in this area, and almost impossible to find one".
Even a regular psychiatrist, being in IL it would require Mom to concent to going to the appointment.
Sometimes it is easier to gain concent to 'talk to a Doctor' when 'captive' so to speak in hospital, rehab or even an AL facility. People are already out of their comfort zone, already having to trust in the system they find themself in, are willing to say yes to get home.
If already home eg in their own IL room, they have all the control.
Getting court ordered meds is difficult in some areas and easy in others, just depends on how enlightened your area's judicial system is in regards to mental illnesses.
My MIL had schizophrenia and her biggest issue was anxiety. Same problem for my son who inherited her illness. When MIL was diagnosed late in her life, she had been taken to a geriatric psych unit of a hospital where she was diagnosed with vascular dementia and schizophrenia.
For my MIL, she didn't need the other psych meds, she just needed her Xanax and a lot of it. They upped her Xanax and everyone's life got easier. As her systems failed due to vascular dementia we really had to watch how much Xanax she was given in the nursing home. As often occurs with many meds and the elderly, the amounts had to be reduced as she aged.