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Posted: Thu Dec 31, 2015 9:35 pm
by GORDON
Again, if she wanted to live by her own rules she shouldn't have begged for my help and agreed to live by MY rules. The fact she won't lends support to the "is a fucking liar" theory.
Edited By GORDON on 1451615782
Posted: Fri Jan 01, 2016 1:07 am
by Alhazad
GORDON wrote:So there's the constant question: does she really have dementia, or is she faking and using it as an excuse?
I doubt it's black and white. Once she's seen you accept a real attack as an excuse, she's exactly the type to pretend they're more frequent than they are to escape responsibility. Maybe with a screeching denial to stop you pressing too hard.
I don't think you can expect her personality to self-regulate at all. Dementia is irrelevant.
Posted: Fri Jan 01, 2016 2:48 am
by TPRJones
Yeah. You might as well give up, you aren't going to be able to change her. Expect everything you tell her to be ignored whenever it's convenient and act accordingly.
EDIT: Might as well tell her you give up and she can eat whatever she wants, but that you're going to get a heavy cleaver and keep it nice and sharp for when the time comes to amputate her feet. Then anytime you see her in the kitchen eating sugar stroll in and sharpen it in front of her while staring with a completely blank expression. Waiting. Patiently.
Edited By TPRJones on 1451634953
Posted: Fri Jan 01, 2016 10:34 am
by GORDON
We're about getting tired of fighting with her, and we feel that it is morally ok because we tried our best, but I feel it may bite me in the ass. Someday I may wish I had kept being strict with her.
Posted: Fri Jan 01, 2016 12:13 pm
by Alhazad
If that's the route you're going, you should sit down with your wife and discuss putting her in a home now, before she becomes completely footloose and foot-less. It would be kinder to her and to the mooks who have to care for her to uproot her while she can still make new friends.
A senior home would be able to keep the bad foods away in ways that you're unwilling to do, so it would even be healthier.
Posted: Fri Jan 01, 2016 1:17 pm
by Malcolm
You're already looking for a way out or permission to cut and run. You can do that or find someone to be the health Nazi. Maybe you, maybe not. If you can't deal with the fallout now, it's not like that gets easier with time.
Edited By Malcolm on 1451672253
Posted: Fri Jan 01, 2016 7:17 pm
by Malcolm
So there's the constant question: does she really have dementia, or is she faking and using it as an excuse? I think it's legit and she has a rotten brain, my wife thinks she fakes it a lot.
"Oh, was I supposed to do dishes while you were gone? I forgot."
"Oh, did I already have a bowl of cereal today and now I am having another? I forgot."
"Oh, was I supposed to stop playing mah jong on the computer after 2 hours? I forgot."
There are ways to test this.
1) Is she forgetting only the rules that make life more convenient for her? Does she forget how to operate the computer and boot up her games? Does she forget where the cookies are?
2) Put post-it notes inside the containers that say, "Insane people shouldn't take any," or some such warning.
If this doesn't work, then tell her that you don't think you can provide the constant care and monitoring she needs, which means going to an assisted living home ... which means she loses her cat. She can't take care of herself without fucking up royally, she shouldn't be allowed or trusted to handle an animal.
Posted: Fri Jan 01, 2016 7:53 pm
by GORDON
She is fond of telling us she'll just move in with someoe else, at which time I get to tell her yet again that I tried doing that, but no one wanted her.
Posted: Fri Jan 01, 2016 7:57 pm
by GORDON
Tonight, against my wife's wishes, I invited her out to join us shopping, and eating out. She rushed around to wash her hair because while looking like shit in a bathrobe is fine for us, she "Cant go out like this." So she got ready and then yet again can't find her purse because she always hides it because of home invasions and she forgets where she puts it, and my wife told her we don't have time to find her purse agaian, so she got mad and stormed off crying and slammed her bedroom door.
So we left without her.
Posted: Sun Jan 03, 2016 7:59 pm
by GORDON
Tonight I made tacos which my MIL refuses to eat, so I took one of her cube steaks out of the freezer to cook for herself. I made her a tossed salad since I was cutting up taco fixins anyway, put out her cube steak and a tater, and left her to cook her own dinner.
Midway through dinner... we were in the living room watching Idiocracy, I happened to get up to go to the kitchen... and I got there just in time to watch my MIL throw a cup full of cold water onto her fried potatoes, starting a huge grease fire that was licking at the wood cabinets above the oven hood. She of course froze up watching it, and I had to grab the pan before the flames ignited something. Threw a lid on it. The fire quickly extinguished itself, and I am just staring at her... at this point I am frozen up too, in a pure WTF moment... and she looks at me glaring at her and says, "Well that never happened at MY house!"
So now what the fuck do I do. Can't exactly hide the stove or put it up out of her reach.
Posted: Sun Jan 03, 2016 8:30 pm
by Malcolm
If you aren't prepared to have a 2-year old that will die before she grows up, you need to consider professional assistance in the near future. If she can't understand the basics if combustion, she goes from senile to dangerous. Strike that, it's not a question of if she needs it, it's a question of you hiring one versus someone becoming it. I hear putting up with insane old people is a booming industry, and this is prime first-hand experience.
Edited By Malcolm on 1451871217
Posted: Sun Jan 03, 2016 8:40 pm
by GORDON
It becomes extra funny considering earlier today, we confronted her about her fucking cat puking up everyplace in the house, multiple times a day, and she needs to be on top of cleaning that shit up. "Well she never did that at MY house."
Posted: Sun Jan 03, 2016 8:46 pm
by Malcolm
Cats do that everywhere because they're evil.
Posted: Sun Jan 03, 2016 8:52 pm
by GORDON
She got mad at me and stormed off to her room when I asked her what was the point of telling us the cat, which pukes in our house, did not puke in her house. I asked her what we were doing wrong, then. She didn't like that. Tears and slammed doors.
Something is going to give soon, I think.
Posted: Sun Jan 03, 2016 11:31 pm
by TPRJones
"Feel free to go back to YOUR house. And good luck with that."
Posted: Sun Jan 03, 2016 11:33 pm
by GORDON
She has a doctor appointment in a couple weeks. I may have to take the doc aside and ask about cheap nursing home options. Can't ask in front of my MIL because she just denies, lies, then cries.
Posted: Mon Jan 04, 2016 9:19 pm
by Alhazad
If she's going to set the stovetop on fire and stand there wringing her hands, you can't accept any excuse or argument for letting her use the kitchen unsupervised, which means Nana's separate meals need to become cold food only unless an adult cooks them. What happened or never happened at her house doesn't matter, only family safety.
By the way, this is turning scary as shit.
Edited By Alhazad on 1451960553
Posted: Tue Feb 02, 2016 6:38 pm
by GORDON
This just went on Facebook:
Over time I have learned that I have to hide the foods that she would eat three times a day, if given a chance. Cereal, sugar free cookies, low-carb protein bars, "no sugar added" ice cream, just the little things that I could ration out so she didn't feel like she was in jail. Just a little snack once a day. But as I said, I have to hide them, because she will finish a box of cereal AND a half-gallon of ice cream in two days.
She then denies doing it, but that is not the point of this story, tonight.
Today she was gone all afternoon. I had been out grocery shopping, but when I got home and she was gone I assumed she was visiting our neighbor, as she does a few times a week. At about 4:30 she walks in the door, little plastic bag in her hand. I gave her time to take off her shoes, and put on her slippers.
Me: What's in the bag?
She doesn't answer.
Me, a little louder: What's in the bag?
Mother in Law: Some ice cream I bought for myself.
She had walked out to the little carry-out and bought choco tacos, peanut butter cup ice cream, and whatever else she already ate while walking back to the house.
Me: Well FUCK your diabetes, I guess.
I was pretty pissed off.
And after I gave it some thought, and I realized that she just proved to me that I cannot control her diet, at all. Any time she wants she can walk out to the carry-out and buy all the candy she wants... and she will. So I dunno. I give up?
This is what I won't say on Facebook:
I'm thinking about letting her eat whatever she wants, so she ends up in the hospital again. It will give me a few days respite, and maybe it will remind her how good she actually has it here when they wont let her have her cat, or cook her meals for her the way she likes, or have a private room, etc etc. Basically, maybe it would be a reality check. She needs a reminder.
Posted: Tue Feb 02, 2016 7:18 pm
by TPRJones
How far is it to the store? Maybe the exercise is worth it. If not the next question would be: can you bribe the store clerks to stop selling things to her? Or maybe set up a situation that will get her permanently banned from the closest stores?
Edited By TPRJones on 1454458767
Posted: Tue Feb 02, 2016 7:21 pm
by GORDON
Not far enough. And I was concerned about that store when she first moved in, but to my knowledge she didn't go there so I thought I was safe and forgot about it.
I have been considering printing up a picture of her and making a "DO NOT SELL TO THIS WOMAN" sign out of it. I don't know how they deal with that kind of stuff.