To leave my elderly mother without food shopping.

[TheoriginalLEM]

There is back story but it's long.

So my mother is pretty much house bound. She has carers 3 times a day. (Again, issues here). We do her shopping, i keep her bank card for this reason.

She got into a strop over something and demanded her card back at the beginning of the week. After a difficult week i persuaded her to give me the card on Friday so dp could fetch the shop on Saturday. She called DP on Saturday morning just as he was going ibto the shop telling him to bring the card back, she doesn't want/Will do her own/will find someone else to do it. So DP returned the card before doing the shopping.

I had s call from the care agency yesterday telling me she has no food and can i "rectify the situation"

Firstly, she does have food but not really sufficient/appropriate.

Secondly, i now don't have her card and I cannot afford to do her weekly shop.

Aibu for simply not doing it I should I just shop from my own (tight) budget?

Despite what other posters are saying, you probably need a crisis before things can be sorted. Just propping her up won’t solve any problems.

Hence my earlier suggestion of phoning adult social services. Key words are ‘carer breakdown’. You can’t continue being the go-for.

My mother recently died after 10 years living with dementia. She never went into a home and really lived her best life. It was really hard. It would have been impossible had I not put down at an early stage and set out my conditions. (POA was the main one.) There wars a lot of screaming and tantrums, as my mother resisted the reversal of the parent child relationship. It had to be done.

You're really considering leaving your clearly unwell mother without sufficient food

What do you expect the OP to do if she doesn't have funds to subsidise her mother's food shop?

rededucator you might want to read OP's very many other threads on the subject of her DM ...

I'm sorry you're still having issues with your mum.
Absolutely tell the agency you cannot shop for her. Your DH did the right thing returning the card with no shopping. She had withdrawn her consent.
Ask the agency to sort it and take a step back. You need to look after yourself

@rededucator Seriouscly rtft. OP's DM had her visiting the shops daily, collecting her card first.
I'd leave her to sort herself, she'll learn the hard way like a child.

Imagine you are living hundreds of miles away from your mother. You couldn't do her shopping then. Let her carers and SS look after her. You need to look after yourself. She won't change. She will only get worse.

So you are taking a few bits so that she has something & then what?

Telling the agency that something else must now be sorted out?

Who else does she think that she might give the card to?

Idk, my parent is in a care home (dementia), but one of the criteria (iirc) was not making appropriate decisions for their care.

So she called with some cockamaime reason why she wanted her card. She told me that she gave dp the card in the morning and then rang him because she knew he needed to fetch dd but she needed her cigarettes sooner so wanted her card back. This isn't what happened at all. She had given me the card on Friday night.

DP reckons she is backtracking because of course now she realised she needs stuff from shop etc. But we agree that this is not quite right.

She is also convinced she has run out of tablets despite my delivering 4/5 boxes of 28 on Thursday.

Something isnt right - this is the first time ive felt there are memory issues in the years that she has been playing up.

Anyway, we were just dishing dinner up so i took some round to her. She insisted I take her card I didn't want it but I've taken it and done a big online shop that dp will collect tomorrow, I'll save the card and then return it to her. I've bought freezer meals to last a couple of weeks.

I'm going to call the dr AGAIN tomorrow highlighting my concerns re her memory - I don't know if that is her trying to wriggle out of the way she behaved or not.

I wanted to just tell her to get on with it but i took the path of least resistance.

I'm going to see my own Dr tomorrow to increase my AD dose as my anxiety has snowballed, I'm not coping and I'm hoping my gp can help.

I'm going to call the care agency and tell them what is happening, that i am on the edge of walking away that i only want to be called in an emergency.

What you need your GP to do is to "sign you off" from being a carer not drug you up more so you can put up with even more abuse for even longer.

You have to cut contact. She has money. She has carers three times a day. She wants you because she loves kicking you, it's her entertainment. Well, fuck that, walk away, she can watch Strictly instead.

I disagree. It is vital she signs a POA. Once this is done you can make decisions in her best interests, overruling her if need be. Vital if her decision making capacity is impaired by age/infirmity.

The Court of Protection, if she does not sign the POA in time, is the slowest, most inefficient, least user friendly part of the public sector. (Bitter experience!) Without a POA you, or Social Services need to apply for Guardianship, which is expensive and which will take a year or more.

Is there anyone she trusts: vicar, sensible neighbour etc who could persuade her. You don’t need lawyers, and can download forms online from the Office of Public Guardian. (Who are helpful.) Long term you won’t be able to help her without a POA. Her choice. She signs, or she does not. If the latter, you wash your hands and she will have to rely on SS. .

Again talk to adult SS and work out how they can help. They will want the POA set up.

What has happened for her to suddenly change her mind surely she is only hurting herself?

@ Needmoresleep it sounds like she might be beyond having capacity to sign a POA .

Since you mentioned her cigarettes it may not be related.
My DM started acting strange over a few weeks making demands, been very rude, forgetful, we thought she had developed sudden alzheimer's.
Eventually she was admitted to hospital over her lung it turned out her body was producing carbon monoxide instead of oxygen, not sure of the finer details.
Could she be ill an infection can cause crazy abrupt behaviour, especially like my DM she heavily relies on you.

Meant to add it was caused from smoking indoors while house bound.

Can social services do meals on wheels?

If you are doing her shopping online, and have an account at say , tesco, you wont need the card every time. Just write the last 3 numbers from the back of the card down, and you can do it without the card

Please look after yourself op

December, we have done this now. I preferred to use M&S for food as their ready meals are better suited but after today i will not be using her actual card again so Tescos it is.

We tried meals on wheels and it was a disaster - she decided cshe hated it (before she even tried it), I'd persuaded her to give it a try as she has broken her cooker (deliberately a few years ago - long story that suggests psychosis) so only has microwave and ready meals are grim.

Thankyou for the support I appreciate not getting roasted, i posted in aibu to get honest opinion.

You have my sympathies, and it's difficult, whether the situation is brought about by mental health difficulties, early dementia or simple being awkward (looking at you FIL)

We struggled for a couple of years when my parents were early stage dementia, not accepting and refusing care as 'they were fine and had me to help'. . I will admit that I kept one of my dads bank cards for a long time, and eventually setting up deliveries with milk and more, Iceland (will deliver the n just £25 goods), Wiltshire farm foods and amazon prime for the various things they ran out of. I was going to suggest that you just took note of the bank card details for online shop so hopefully this will work for you.

We found that care agencies didn't have capacity time wise to go and do shopping but would heat the ready meals I got delivered. But an elderly person accepting to get carers in in the first place is actually a big step forward. In my experience additional support and changes were easier to make once the first carer was in past the door.

Good luck with additional social services and GP assessments- it can take time, and often a lot of pushing (both with professionals and family members) but is worth trying to persevere.

And as others have said , the power of attorney is vital. I phrased this to my parents that it would enable me to look after their money when they were no longer able, but there is an option on the form that this can start immediately (this saves going through the capacity assessments but you and your mum will both get s card / copy if statements) You have to pick your time though .

We were unfortunate in having a bit if a crisis period before things improved but ultimately as more services came on board things did become easier. Good luck .

In cases like this I do wonder what would happen if there was no one to shop for Op's mum.

@Oldbutstillgotit

Capacity is a sliding scale. The mother has only just started showing memory issues. From my experience the loss of understanding of other people's needs is a very early sign of problems, as if the person is aware of a bit of a mind fog and so starts uber-controlling in a not very logical way. When this happened to my mother I took the view that she was behaving likely a frightened animal.

But none of this suggests she has lots so much capacity that she is in incapable of understanding a POA. Plus you just need to get a professional who knows the person to witness. And given there is no diagnosis, there seems no reason why the GP would not do this (for an inevitable fee.) My mother was further down the road, but the priest who knew her well was happy to sign. The alternative, Court of Protection, is grim, slow, expensive and unfit for purpose. As long as OP acts in her mother's bests insteres, which often will not be the same as what the mother "wants" there will not be a challenge.

If the mother refuses to allow OP the power to manage her interests when incapacitated, it will almost certainly have to be done by SS as the will have the funds to do the COP application, to eventually be repaid from the mothers assets. This means that SS rather than the OP will pull the levers and make the decisions. My mother stayed out of a care home and had a decade of happy, safe and content Groundhog Days, because I was able to manage her assets and make the decisions. Plus there is now an inheritance for the Grandchildren.

The mm has a bank card. If she did not have capacity the bank would take this away.

OP should post in the Elderly Parents forum. Until you have actually looked after an elderly parent you have NO idea how tough it is, and the importance of preserving your energies, making sure your efforts are well focussed, and setting boundaries. It seems odd to post in AIBU and expect people to be both kind and informed.

My mil - who is completely housebound but with full capacity - orders her food over the phone reading from a list and it is delivered by someone who puts it on the shelf or in the fridge. There are companies that do this. Age UK can probs help you find someone near your mil. www.ageuk.org.uk/services/in-your-area/shopping/

Wiltshire Farm Foods is one I think.

It’s an expensive option but it works as long as she still has capacity and you find a trusted provider.

If she is fussy and wants M&S why not check to see if you are within a Cook! delivery area. Nicer (and more expensive than the alternatives), but just need microwaving.

You could have Gordon Ramsay personally cook all her meals for free and she'd turn her nose up. As you know yourself, she is messing with you like she has done for your whole life.

If you don't want to stop her access to you, could you fake being distressed about some random thing that doesn't actually bother you. Pretend that getting meals from X is a major hassle so you have this disaster and that disaster and it messes up your life (all fake stories) so she's happy because she thinks she's getting to fuck you over and you are happy because she isn't really?

OP Ive followed your threads. Im afraid to say that you really do need to write/ call all the people in authority (GP, SS etc). You need to make it clear that from x date you will no longer be in any way involved in helping your mum AT ALL, no shopping, anything. That will kick in things;

1. the SS etc will HAVE to step up and stop using you. They will continue to do so till you say no!
2. your mum will learn very fast that you are no longer a doormat. you keep being one !! remember there are people with no one to help....and they get SS etc input.

STOP BEING HER CARER!! YOU DO NOT HAVE TO BE!!!!