BP go up anxiety gets bad, if it was just me having to get the calls all day about staff “stealing” stuff I could handle it, but she will frantically look for item all day & not be diverted. She has heart aneurysm so it’s critical she stays calm. I’m at my wits end!
My mom focuses on things 'walking out the door' and truth it, stuff IS walking out the door. She's hoarded out her place and we recently had a cleanout that addressed about 30% of the mess. But when any of us sibs go to visit, we will remove stuff that is a tripping hazard or just garbage. For a day or so she will 'miss' the item. Then she forgets. If she were overly concerned about something, we'd stop, but truth is, she doesn't even KNOW she has so much junk.
We're kind of 'Swedish Death Cleaning' right under her nose. BUT, we're just tossing old catalogs and papers and rancid candles and lotions--stuff like that.
When he place got so filled with junk that a visitor cannot sit down anywhere--it's a problem.
I would be brutally honest when this subject comes up. I found it worked with my brother, to say "your mind is not functioning as it should. That is all right, and it is in the normal course of things, but when it does harm to yourself and to those who take care of you, and are unjustly accused, it isn't all right."
That may not work, and to be honest, in most cases nothing DOES work. If Mom has an uptick in anxiety that is also difficult to deal with. Those medications that help may make her more fall prone.
I sure wish you luck with this, but it falls well within the realm of those things, those MANY things, that have no "fix it" answer in this aging process.
Reassure her that she has nothing left with her that others will find worth stealing and if she is worried about things you will provide her a small safe for her closet with a key to wear round her neck.
On the other end of this awful spectrum is the fact that with this most common paranoia it DOES make them vulnerable to those few people who ARE out to do harm, to steal things.
Just wish I had a better answer for you. Do discourage her constant chatter on this as she is forming a well trod path her brain cells wish to travel continuously. Do what diversion you can, even if it is to "have to get off the phone" when calls go South in this manner.