Yelling...

Yelling, screaming, insults, bad words, cursing, threats, is not what I envisioned for my household after I got divorced.  I yell, my daughter yells, screams, almost curses but doesn't cause she knows she will get in trouble, mother yells, curses ( althought we never were allowed to think a curse word around her) and threatens.  The yelling starts between the two of them, soon as they lay eyes on each other morning, afternoon or night. I just cannot abide it, and yet I cannot control it.  I can't be here in the afternoons when my daughter gets home from school, and they are here alone. I can control it when I am here, but then it transfers to me from one of them. I understand my daughter being frustrated, it's very hard to be 17, selfish, and wanting life to be different, but it can't be because you have very certain restrictions.  Can't go away over night, can't be out late, must make sure nana has dinner, can't be truly spontaneous, can't always go to dinner when we want, etc.  She tries to help her Nana and she does alot for her, but her Nana sees it as trying to control her, make her less independent and fights like a wild woman.  Mother answers my daughter with a scream, with an insult last one was , " you should have been drowned in a pool of water when you were born."  She sputters, yells and almost cannot articulate at times she gets so angry.  I understand mother being frustated, her world is so much different than it was, she can't think, she can't remember, she can't see, she can't walk well, she is totally dependent on us for almost everything, including dialing the phone. Her independence is shredding before her eyes.   I yell to stop the two of them, that doesn't help. I feel really out of control and very very sad that our life has disintegrated into this kind of communication. It makes me go to my room instead of interacting with these two, I do this all the time even though I want to spend time with them, I cannot. I can't take the fighting,  alot of the time when I leave the area they tend to settle down, sometimes not. I get calls at work in the afternoon, SHE DOES THIS, I DO NOT I hear in the background... sighs..
The time is coming for a change and it will have to be sooner than later. We all deserve a better life.

BUGS BUGS BUGS

Bugs in the toliet, bugs on the wall, bugs falling on me in the shower, bugs in the sink, bugs on the counter. "MY bathroom is full of bugs." I am not sure how to convince my mother that she doesn't have a bathroom full of bugs.  SEE BUGS ON MY SOCKS.. no bugs on your socks that is lint. It won't even come off your socks, " THAT'S right the bugs are holding on." She scrubbed her toliet and said she got all the bugs, they form a ring in the toliet. I told her there wasn't bugs in there it was just a ring that forms in the toliet. She stuck her hand down in the water and up the hole where everything goes and rubbed and rubbed. I lost my cool, I yelled at her what in the hell are you doing? Why would you put your hand in that toliet and reach up there? she said she was stirring up the bugs.  she showed me her light switch that is on the wall beside her toliet. "SEE BUGS!" no bugs mom... Do I mention what it is? She turns over her booster seat on her toliet and says " SEE BUGS!" Do I mention what it is?
Okay, yes I do, it's poop, and yes it's nasty and yes it's terrible, but she has poop on the seat, poop on the light switch, poop on the sink in spots.  She also has a large chocolate bar in her bathroom and it has chocolate crumbles that fall on the sink. She has very bad eyesight and can't distinquish what she is looking at when I show her.  She doesn't believe that it is poop on anything, even when I wet toliet paper and scrub it off the seat and off the light switch and show her.
Is this dementia making her delusional? She has gone on about bugs for 3 months now and there are a few little bugs but they aren't forming a ring in her toliet and holding on to each other to be scrubbed out...
I wish I could handle this better, but I didn't handle it well.

Damned if you do, Damned if you don't...

"My son is coming? Why is he coming today?" well it started off well, I got to have the preemptive strike that he had bullied his way into coming here, without asking.  She was receptive to the idea, till her dementia took hold of her comprehension. Then it was a diabolical plot to throw her out of the house. She willingly went along, scoped out the facility, got back in the car grim faced and rigid of body. She was mad.  Her son took us to lunch, and afterwards, didn't come inside to hear anything, just left after requesting documents from me. She fumed and slept and wouldn't talk the rest of the day. Her paranoia took hold and the story was wild by the time it got to be nightfall. She was very angry, wouldn't eat dinner, wouldn't speak hardly.  My daughter had babysat that night and I had to go pick her up, my mother started crying in the car, saying " I've always loved you, always been happy in the house, can't believe you are doing this to me. You two plotted and planned and couldn't even tell me about it, just threw me into the car and made me go to that pigpen." This is hard enough for me without this, but I also realize probably most of the people that have to go to assisted living will use the same tactic.  I explained how she "stews" over things, how she becomes obsessed as part of her dementia and I was trying to prevent that from happening and thought it best to tell her the day of not before.  I explained she repeatedly said she was unhappy here and of course she denied that. She said she had always been happy here and couldn't understand any of this. I explained that she would be able to make friends, she said never. I explained it was better to go before your mind was gone altogether. She said not going to happen.
My anger goes to my brother, who didn't call the day after to hear or talk to his mother. She was totally discombobulated, couldn't articulate her thoughts and highly agitated. She was still angry, bitter and wouldn't talk much with us at all. Of course he wouldn't call he would have to hear from her what she thought he had done.  Coward is all I can say, once again I'm left with the pieces.
I have decided she is not going right away, they do have room. I am going to let her sit here in the house lonely while I go back to work, and my daughter goes back to school and let her think of the fact there is somewhere that she can go and not be lonely.  Meanwhile, my brother insisted I take her there to eat lunch and dinner on Monday, my last day of vacation, HA not going to happen.  He didn't ask about any plans of mine,  I refuse to prolong this agony the last day of my vacation.
Another tactic is needed, am giving a lot of thought to having someone come in and check on her, maybe fix her lunch, take her places.
Frankly, I am tired.

It just seems too much...

So I asked for help, I shouldn't be surprised at what I got. Superman flies into town today to take over the decision about where our mother might be staying for the possible rest of her life. I asked for his help, his understanding of the situation here, and I got Superman acting like a dumbass.  While I understand most men are hardwired for a "fix," after 8 years of taking care of our mother EXCLUSIVELY, and 8 years of making decisions for her EXCLUSIVELY, I need a little respect.  While it was fine for me to make all the decisions alone, now he needs to be involved, telling me what paperwork he needs, telling me he needs to see the facility, he needs to talk to admin, he needs to come today. This is my last weekend before I start back to work on Tuesday. The summer as you could see from other posts has been fraught with mostly downs. The friends I would talk to that would say oh let's have lunch, a movie, never call back, and while I am not pursuing them, sometimes it is all I can do to get out of bed and carry on through the day at this point.  I needed them to carry through. He didn't ask if he could come today, he just said he was coming and he cannot take off during the week. Well frankly folks, this is a lie, he just went to see his wife's very weatlhy aunt for her 95 birthday in another state and more than likely took off a day for that. He had a new grandchild and he took off two weeks for that.  There is no courtesy, respect, consideration from my brother at all, again treating me like a 12 year old child, that while is responsible, only just enough to get things done, but not enough to respect my effort.
Not one thank you, sorry this is so hard, wished I could have done more, I feel for you and your daughter, appreciate all you have done for our mother, all the hours, money, angst, emotion you have put out in 8 years, just nothing.
I truly feel very alone at this point in my life, I have no one to help me, no one has my back, I can't call anyone and complain. Sure everyone says oh call me, but not really ... they really can't be bothered.

Thanks for the help

I have emailed my brother to ask him for help in finding an assisted living facility for our mother.  I got a one sentence reply  "Moving here at the present time would be hard finding doctors to attend her needs."  Not I am sorry I can't help you, not I will be glad to find somewhere for her to live, not I am sorry you are having a difficult time, not I am aware you have a child to raise and it has reached a crisis point in your house. Just one sentence, not even his name typed on the reply.  Am I wrong to feel just highly disappointed in the fact that my only brother, my mother's only other child, has just refused to help me? I have taken care of our mother for 8 years. He has helped me twice, once when I went on a choir tour with my daughter for 7 days he had her at his house, this past November my daughter was 16 and he came and stayed less than 24 hours in my house.  I cannot begin to convey the hurt I feel at reading this one sentence.  I explained it was reaching a crisis point, she is not happy here, and I need help. The facilities here are quite limited, the large amount of facilities up there is beyond belief. He is about to retire and therefore he and his wife have no intention of looking after his mother.  While I can appreciate this fact, taking care of someone in your home 24/7, all the doctor appointments, errands, mood swings, dementia, anger, expectations, disappointments doesn't in any way compare to visiting someone in an assisted living facility. Pretty much all you do is go, check and leave.
I am profoundly sad at this point, and although I have always known my brother, me and his mother don't share the same intimacy level, it is still his mother as well.  He is in control of her finances and assumes his quota of responsibility ends there. It does not.  A highly involved Christian in his church should read his bible and understand he has a responsibility to his family, which includes his mother and his sister. 
I am not expecting them to take her into their house, which is highly impractical considering they bought an unfriendly to elders house.  Many steps, just one bedroom on the first floor, a dog that rules the basement level which has a bathroom and living area and bedroom.
All that comes to my mind now, is thanks for nothing.

I know it is not easy...

The third person in the house isn't having an easy time dealing with the declining mental health of her grandmother.  While I realize at 16 1/2 most are only interested in themselves to the nth degree and this is so in my household. I raised a beautiful, intelligent daughter, but she is just about as selfish as she can be at this point and it's not the time for that. I am trying to find an assisted living facility for my mother and she knows this, has been with me, she wants to be actively involved in this decision. But she cannot keep the contempt, the frustration out of her mouth when she speaks to her grandmother.  No respect for the age, no respect for the relation. I feel very close to backhanding at least once a day. Yesterday her grandmother needed to go the bathroom. We were downtown and its a busy place at lunchtime on Friday, small town downtown. Not alot of parking or options for the bathroom, I suggested she get out with her grandmother and I would circle, no go. She had a 3 year old tantrum about how she is tired of taking her grandmother to the bathroom and refused. I explained I would have to find a place to park, park, maneuver mother out of the car, take her in and then repeat the reverse process of getting her in the car.  She didn't care, she proceeded to shriek.  She even commented she's wearing a depends she can go in there. So inappropriate, only good thing is that her grandmother didn't hear her.  Although all the yelling makes mother very nervous and she threatens to jump out of the moving car.  Fine, we will drive home, 20 minutes and the errands downtown will be cancelled.  She continued to yell, I pulled over my car and physically removed her from my backseat and made her stand on a sidewalk beside the car for 10 minutes.   When she got back in, she said " YOU REALIZE I COULD HAVE BEEN TAKEN??? YOU WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO GET OUT OF THE CAR..." " YOU DONT KNOW HOW EMBARRASSED I AM?" Truly I am at wits end with this, I don't know how to help her, soothe her or make her understand it's just something we have to endure till it is over. As a result of not wanting to be helpful, she lost her facebook account, her phone and is not allowed to use my electricity to charge her ipod touch. If you don't want to be a part of the family, then the things I pay for will be mine!
Being in the middle is not the best spot, being on either end isn't either. The only spot that is okay is my brother's 100 miles away and not having to deal with any of this. Which opens another whole can of worms... squiggly and messy.

2 Disasters in One Week

The house was hot, and getting hotter. Mother came panting into the room and said I think I am going to die. I said well I doubt you will die from this heat. Checked the thermostat, 88, 89 ... We will have to go stay in a hotel they cannot fix it tonight.  I pack her cosmetics and attempt to get her to give me some clothes to put in the suitcase.  She is walking in circles worrying about the cat. The cat will not survive. The cat will not know what to do while I'm gone.  I tell my mother I don't think we need to suffer because of the cat, and she will survive over night.  We get to the hotel, and mother cannot move in the bed.  She is disoriented and her body refuses to do what she wants it to do.  She physically cannot make her legs move so she can relax in the bed. I have to help her move further in the bed.   Day 2, we have high hopes should be fixed. New compressor, heat is bad at 2 pm, we know it won't be fixed in time to sleep in the house, mom has gathered more clothes and many polident tablets.  We get to the hotel early, go get something to eat and I suggest a nice shower and she refuses saying she cannot even think.  Her speech has become very agitated. She cannot articulate what she wants, screams and then just says shit! We get home the next morning and its very hot in the house, but it appears late in the day to be getting cooler.  She just sits in front of a fan and sleeps, wakes up, goes to the bathroom,  slumps back into the chair and lets the fan cool her.
Monday night the storms come and the power zips off.  We call and they say it will be off for 2 hours. I was almost finished with mother's dinner and so I took care of the food, put it into containers. I left the plastic lid on the stove and ran out to Wendy's to get her a hamburger, gone 15 minutes.  We come back home and to the garage open, door to house from garage open, front door open and smoke rolling out, the fire alarm blaring through the neighborhood. Seems the power came on and the plastic lid went up in flames and mother was home alone, she said the flames went up to the ceiling. She didn't call 911, she didn't call me. Said she couldn't think and yes I believe it.  She was framing the door to the garage to the house and panting. House full of smoke, fortunately her cat didn't get out or she would have stroked.  Microwave and stove are ruined, but she was safe.
 I am sorry mother it was my fault.