Living with Dementia

My Mom had dementia and got so bad that she would get mad at me and twice accused me of elder abuse. I did everything for Mom. The second time she accused me of elder abuse she had attacked me. I don’t know why she was mad at me but she came up behind me hit me in the head with her pill box. When I was down in the floor picking up pills she hit me on the scar on my back with her house shoe. (I have a nerve stimulator implanted in my spine to help with pain. I have RSD in my right hand and arm.)I couldn’t take anymore.

When the social worker came to investigate me the second time, I had already signed the final papers on my house. She told me to get out of there as soon as I could and not look back and if Mom got so bad she had to move in with one of us for me to let my sister take her. Mom blamed my sister for accusing me of being mean to her, she told her that I did everything for her that she didn’t know what she’d do without me. This happened in July and I moved out in September 2007. I know my sister took her to the doctor the same day I signed the final papers on my house so she knew Mom was accusing me again and she went along with it.

After I moved out it was like night and day, I was her daughter again and she loved me. I still took her to the doctor and took care of her meds. My brother lived there with Mom until she died in February 2008. After Mom died our doctor called and told me to come in. I went and he asked me how I did it; he said she was so mean to you and you treated her like a baby till the day she died. I said, “She was my Mom.” But she left so many unanswered questions. I don’t understand that when I was living upstairs from her, doing everything for her, she hated me and as soon as I moved out she loved me again. She called me everyday and when I would go in she would want me to spend the night.