My mother has undiagnosed dementia. It is undiagnosed because she refuses to be tested for it but her PCP and a neurologist states that they suspect she does. She gets confused and has lapses in time. I am currently staying with her because I lost my job, have not been able to find another one except for occasional odd jobs online and am a single parent with no support (so it's a rough time).
Today, she became quite violent (hitting and yelling insults) after I talked to her about an evaluation. She has also hidden her documents where she named me POA. I'm calling local shelters to move ASAP and calling around for any job (cashier, stock clerk, whatever is available). Should I file a police report or just move out? This is not the first time this has happened either. To be honest, I'm really scared not for only our safety but being on the streets.
If you file a police report Adult Protective Services will likely be called. Then you will be in the 'system'. You may need to get a lawyer if you can't be responsible for your mom yourself. She will need a guardian and a lawyer and court costs can be thousands of dollars. However, if you just take off you can get in trouble for leaving your mom alone.
Take some time and figure out what you're next step needs to be. Don't just take off without thinking things through. I know the combativeness is upsetting and scary but I would think living on the street or in a shelter would be worse.
With that said, I wouldn't be surprised to find that her outburst was based on fear. Would there be any of us reading this who would not find an evaluation a stressful and fearful thing? Would that not be a likely way to cause an outburst? I think that if I were her that I might not want to take a test that tells me something that I probably not only do not want to know, but would find to be a terrible, terrible burden to bear. Dementia and memory loss are two extremely feared situations and many people do not want to know that they are sliding into them.
Let me ask this: is it important that she get tested for dementia? Is there some benefit or something she would get that's different than if she weren't tested? Another way to look at this is, from her point of view, what's in it for her to comply? If she fears being put away, being labeled with dementia, or something else that she finds distasteful, I wouldn't think she would want to go along with this. If there's no useful outcome, I wouldn't bother with it, for the moment.
If you truly fear for yours and your children's safety, this is truly a problem, but if you think you should/would stay, try thinking of other tactics to work with her.
One more tip: when I got POA for my mother's finances and health, a lawyer friend suggested two notarized copies of each, one for Mom, one for me. If your mom ever gets hers out, see if you can at least get it copied.
And if you really lose your ability to manage, as well as the ability to recognize that, do you really want to be left sitting in a pile of excrement, trash, and rotting food, or do you want someone to take over for you? Do you really want all your money to go to the first sweet-talking con artist, related or not, rather than to your care and then your responsible and possibly genuinely needy loved ones?
I can't begin to tell you how much grief and suffering is preventable with timely diagnosis. Not all, it's true, but advice to stick your head in the sand and pretend everything is OK to avoid hurting the feelings of the person invovled is flat out bad advice.
Then you can call the state to investigate self-neglect of your mom by your mom.
You might 'trick' her by telling her you need therapy because you're depressed about the job loss, etc. and asking her to go with you. You could start out talking about yourself and the kids and work up to talking about her.
And you can try the county courthouse for a copy of the POA, if you don't know the attorney. If you do know him, he should be able to help out.
I don't talk to my mother about dementia, because it serves no purpose in her case. She talks about my uncle and aunt who had/have dementia, and speaks of them as crazy. Chances are that she knows she has it, but doesn't want other people to know because she doesn't want to be seen as crazy. I can understand that. I don't think any of us want other people to know how crazy we really are. :)
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