BEL MOONEY: Dementia is a toxic trap our family are refusing to help us and we feel let down. What can we do?

Dear Bel,

My mother-in-law Mary came to live with us 18 months ago. She lived a long way away, kept falling over after mini-strokes and began to get forgetful. So we suggested finding a place with an annexe for her but she refused, saying she’d never leave her own home.

Respecting this, we moved to a bungalow with no annexe. Then our son said that when he visited, she said she wished she’d accepted our offer and was lonely. My husband said he’d ask her once more – sure she wouldn’t accept. She said yes.

I had reservations from the outset. Mary is a creature of obsessive routines. I had heart-to-heart chats with her before she came, explaining her habits would need to be tempered in various ways. She told me I could ‘cope with anything’ and ‘you’re the daughter I never had’.

Now we have serious problems. My husband has multiple sclerosis and is deteriorating. His mother seems in denial and never asks how he is.

Her other son, who lived five minutes away before, promised to have a downstairs toilet and shower put in with the money he received from her house sale, so when she visited him she would have no mobility problems. He then said he’d changed his mind. We imagined respite visits to him but he’s had her for only five days since she moved to us. I totally understand that being 90 and moving away from all that’s familiar is frightening and confusing, but Mary has been absolutely horrendous. Now she’s been diagnosed with vascular dementia and Alzheimer’s so we have some help from the doctor.

A social prescriber recommended getting her out to ease some of the tension – but of course we have to drive her.

After taking her to a local Stroke Club meeting, the manager took me aside. Apparently Mary told a volunteer she’s very unhappy, has no financial control and spends every minute in her room. They could see how upset/angry I was but explained it has to be checked.

At first Mary denied everything, then admitted she might have ‘said something’ but refused to go back and explain to the manager. Meanwhile, he said it would be best if she didn’t return as she was upsetting the other members.

This is now a pattern – at the library and another coffee morning group. Her behaviour’s getting worse. We are only existing, not living. I cook, clean and say good morning, but other than that we avoid each other as much as we can.

The toxic atmosphere is destroying our lives. She hasn’t got the funds for a care home and we can’t afford it either.

We are completely trapped and feel let down by the rest of the family, too.

CHRISTINA 

Bel Mooney replies: Your email (originally longer than this) arrived before this newspaper launched its current, very important campaign to understand and help the difficulties faced by those who care for family members with dementia.

I’m glad to print it now, as yet another example of how families can struggle to cope – and I have nothing but sympathy for you as you face the immediate future.

Yours is the situation countless others try to deal with every day and it can lead to mental breakdown.

People who assert glibly (and usually piously) that, of course, people should take care of old and infirm parents usually have no idea of how awful it can be. The old often change for the worse and inevitably this is made more acute by dementia. It must be acknowledged.

My own mother gave me something of a shock, in the last year of her life, by… well… not being very nice to me, really. The mother-in-law who said you had been ‘like a daughter’ to her has, sadly, vanished. But I’m sure she really did appreciate you in the recent past and understood how generous an offer you and your husband had made.

Your letter should perhaps act as a warning against moving house when you are very old.

You described your mother’s daily routines, sounding almost like Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Without them she has lost herself.

She should have stayed put with her second son nearby, but too late now.

I would be curious to know what has happened to the money from the sale of her house and why that can’t be used for a care home – which she probably needs.

You will soon have your husband to look after too, and I do not see why your life should be ruined as it is currently being. It can’t be much fun for her either – to feel isolated because you are quite understandably angry and disappointed. Toxic atmospheres poison everybody.

Since you feel ‘let down by the rest of the family’ your husband needs to call some sort of meeting. Mary’s anti-social behaviour and fibs about you (more detail was given in your longer letter) has to be shared, and her younger son cannot be let off the hook. That’s the urgent first step and I beg you both to be tougher. Don’t be proud and brave. Lay it out.

Mary’s diagnosis ought now to unlock help. You need to become fully informed of what is possible and be sure your GP is fully aware of the strain you and your husband are under.

I hope reading all the information the Daily Mail is supplying can be helpful too, and that you can get your mother-in-law the care she needs.

Noisy neighbours make our life hell 

Dear Bel,

I read your problem page every week and think you give extremely useful advice so I am hoping you can do the same for me.

This may seem a trivial problem compared to others, but to me it isn’t. We’ve lived in a lovely, quiet close (in a semi-detached house) for nearly 40 years and have seen neighbours come and go without problems… until now.

Five months ago a couple moved in next door with a young baby and dog. My husband and I introduced ourselves (we are in our 60s – I’m not sure younger people do that any more) and said we hoped they’d be happy.

The man seemed fairly friendly but you could tell his wife didn’t want to know.

We thought: ‘Fair enough, some people would just rather keep themselves to themselves.’ However, at around 5am every morning, including weekends, she wakes the baby and starts two hours or more of ‘play time’.

The walls are thin and we hear everything – thumping, banging, woop-wooping, singing, toys making noises I can’t even describe.

We’re at the end of our tether. My husband wants to talk to them but I’m concerned it’ll make matters worse. We are thinking of moving house, but why should we? Your advice would be so welcome.

LINDA

Bel Mooney replies: Problems with neighbours can cause annoyance, stress and heartache, so you have my sympathy. It’s not ‘trivial’ at all to feel that your beloved home is no longer your castle because of the behaviour of new people next door.

And, of course, problems – real and perceived – have a habit of escalating quickly.

Please don’t take offence at that word ‘perceived’. I can see that neighbours who play loud heavy metal (or Wagner!) night and day – or have noisy parties, or litter their front gardens, or knock down your fence – would be a nightmare.

But, in contrast, playing with a baby early in the morning doesn’t seem so heinous.

In an age when too many young mothers consign their offspring to screens to keep them quiet, that playtime reads rather sweetly to me.

The neighbours are still quite new to you. Surely, it’s better to try compromise and understanding rather than moving house? All of us should try flipping situations so we see the other side. Walk in their shoes, as it were.

I’m guessing your neighbour didn’t seem too friendly because she is totally wrapped up in her baby and the stress of moving nearly killed her. Chatting over the fence wasn’t the most uppermost thing in her mind.

I don’t know how old this baby is but I assure you, no young mother I have ever known ‘wakes the baby up’ at 5am. Those infants, sure as hell, wake themselves.

So then this tired mum doesn’t yell, ‘Oh, please give me a break’ or any other perfectly normal response to the rude awakening. Instead, she plays.

I do sympathise with your impatience at being woken and imagine you in your main front bedroom and them mirroring that arrangement, with the cot in their room, too.

Here’s what I see as alternatives to moving house. You could shift your bedroom, even if only temporarily so that you are not right next to where this activity happens.

You could install soundproofing panels – expensive, yes, but a good investment for any semi. You could buy simple earplugs and block out the not-so-merry morning noise.

The last is the cheapest and simplest and should work wonders; that and a timer switching on relaxing Classic FM Calm in the morning to mask the sounds as well. Once you’ve taken this advice for one month (that’s my prescription), I predict you’ll feel better.

Do carry on befriending the couple. Remind yourself (a) that being in your 60s is hardly old, and that (b) having young people around keeps you youthful.

Are people friendly in your ‘lovely, quiet close’? Do you have each other in for Christmas drinks? Might this, after the earplugs, be a way forward – seeing where it leads?

And finally… ‘Gillian’ was touched by your love

I am glad to share something that will reach your hearts.

Two weeks ago I described your wonderful response to the sad story of ‘Gillian’ (October 17), alone, haunted by an abusive childhood and terminally ill. Hearing nothing back, after forwarding all your messages, I feared the worst. But now, this:

‘My dear Bel,

‘My deepest apologies for not responding to your wonderful message sooner. I think you will appreciate that with my condition and the very large amounts of morphine being got into me, I find the smallest things very difficult to accomplish.

‘How I managed to compose and send my original email to you is a mystery. Helping me now is one of the marvellous Macmillan nurses who comes to me in her free time. I am being very well looked after.

‘I was utterly astonished to read through so many kind messages sent by your readers. I only wish I could reply to them all.

‘At the very least I can go out of this world thinking better of it than I did. For that I thank you and your most excellent readers.

‘It has been overwhelming, in the very best way.

‘I must now say “adieu”, first because I must be put back to bed and, second, because I shall be taken somewhere mid-week where matters can be brought to a gentle close.

‘With my kindest regards and respect to you and all who read your sage words.’

‘Gillian’s’ real name is Georgina. I use it now to honour her with her own existence, which is why she wrote in the first place. Please note how deeply your emails to a suffering stranger affected her.

As I told you, they ‘added to the mysterious, powerful, invincible goodness we must all cling to’.

Believe it.