My mum is constantly in bed claiming illness.

[Bannedontherun]

Having finally gotten Social Care to intervene with my MIL who has Alzheimer’s, I now have a new problem.

My mum was widowed 2 years ago (not my dad) she is 79 and in good health, no mobility issues, and no sign of dementia.

I thought she was doing okay, she has friends nearby to her, and socialises with them.

She has a car and is a competent driver. I live about 40 minutes away. she has driven to my area for over 37 years as she worked nearby to me. This summer she found that she could not cope with the journey to my house so we will pick her up and take her back home for family events.

I also visit her once a week, as does one of my brothers. The other is unreliable.

I also face time her

She started cancelling arrangements over the following months, of planned visits to her.

In the last two months she is in bed more often than not, claiming to have the Flu when it clear once she is engaged in conversation there is nothing physically wrong with her.

I face timed her yesterday, again in bed. She agreed to have a bath and be ready for tomorrow, I arranged to go over today and take her Christmas shopping which she cancelled today as yet again she states she has the Flu.

I asked her to go and see her doctor which she said she would do and said that her illness might be clinical depression, she got a bit shirty with me.

I do not have a great relationship with my mum who is very self centred and she can be manipulative.

My daughter says leave her too it…but it is bothering me and do not know what to do.

Was it you or her that suggested it might be depression (could well be by the sound of it)?

If she won't engage with a GP then there's not a great deal you can do especially if you don't have the most straightforward of relationships. If you book a GP appointment for her and offer to take her, will she go?

If not, your daughter is right and there's not much you can do except keep reiterating that a GP appointment is what she needs.

thanks for replying, poor sentence structure on my part, i suggested she may have depression… thats what made her shirty she does not talk about her real feelings much.

And i have no clue who her GP is.

If she is cognitive then there is not a lot you can do apart from keep advising her to see her GP. If you think she is neglecting herself (poor hygiene, not eating/drinking, etc) then you can contact adult social services to request that they assess her, but otherwise you do need to leave her to it.

If she starts to complain about things you can respond with "I've suggested you talk to your GP about this. I can't help you if you don't speak to them first." and repeat ad finitum - if you think it might be attention seeking behaviour then you have to stop feeding it.

It's frustrating but you can't force her to do anything.

I have explained to her the risks of lying in bed all the time, she then claims she gets up.

I’m very much in two minds about it.

Ive seen friends ending up in bed, unable to do much despite looking well. They were also able to ‘mask’ being well when people came to see them or they were out and about.
They both had Long Covid, with symptoms really appearing about 6 weeks after they caught it.

I have ME myself and I could write a similar story. And yes a lot if people didn’t quite believe me either. And yes I had the ‘youre just depressed’ and ‘you should exercise/get up and move around’ thrown at me many times too.

Im not saying this is what is happening with your mum.
But it’s certainly has made me weary of automatically associated ‘staying in bed’ with depression.

@ThereIsALifeOutThere Thankyou for that i have considered the possibility of something else going on. She has had all her jabs and been fine. The only other possibilities is her lung disease which i am not sure is COPD or not.

Thanks as this may be the approach that i take with her.

She needs to see a doctor. So many things cause fatigue both physical and mental.

Again not saying that this is the case with your mum but you can have LC after a mild Covid infection and all your jabs.

And issue with her lung disease sounds like a more likely possibility.

I also agree she should just checked out by a doctor.
I don’t want to scare you, but my Dad’s last months were spent a lot in bed “with flu”… it turned out to be cancer that he just didn’t get checked out.
It could be any number of other things of course! Eg anaemia causes fatigue

When you say there's no sign of of dementia - this could in itself be a sign of dementia or cognitive decline. My DM is 78. I am fully convinced now that she's somewhere in the early to middle stages of dementia, and in the last year or two her cognitive issues have become quite obvious (very repetitive, poor memory, losing words and skills etc). However, for a good two or three years before that, the earlier symptoms were mainly around apathy, anxiety and depression. She stopped socialising and constantly cancelled things, and the reason given was always her health - which meant a nebulous collection of varied and largely invisible symptoms. Endless tests found basically nothing wrong. This pattern has continued, and it's now quite common that I'll phone and be told by my dad that she's sleeping or lying down and doesn't feel well enough to come to the phone. There are certainly some physical issues alongside her cognitive decline, but I think that really it's the likely dementia that lies at the root of many of her apparent symptoms.

I'm not saying your mum has dementia - it could be any number of things - but I wouldn't rule it out as a possibility.

If she is unwell you will feel awful for “just leaving her to it”.
Personally, I would take her at her word. If someone has an illness and they are gaslit and told they don’t have one (by someone not medically qualified) because they are trying their best to function, it’s so damaging mentally.
You don’t have to do anything, just sympathise a little. Keep encouraging her to see her GP. Don’t abandon her, it sounds like she has a lot going on with her health that you actually know about (the possible COPD and your suspicions about depression), and they could be combining to cause her symptoms.

People can feel very unwell, rally when they have visitors then feel exhausted afterwards. I would take her at her word and suggest that having ‘flu’ so often needs to be checked out. Years ago I thought I had flu on and off for several months but it turned out I had an autoimmune disease. As PP said, not all fatigue is depression, there could be quite a simple cause like a B12 deficiency.

Hi so grateful for everyone’s thoughts, that are all very helpful.

I had to gather myself together as was in an emergency meeting with my Mil and newly allocated social worker this morning re her dementia and wandering quite dangerously.

It was agreed she will be placed in care against her wishes by the end of this week, as she has no capacity.

My BIL was in bits, sil is away so does not know and hubby could not go so i went instead.

I was going to my mums afterwards but she cancelled me whilst in this meet up so was having a hard time considering two seperate people in the same headspace.

I felt i was wading in mud to be honest hence my post.

So after all your advice i pulled myself together and face timed my mum and reframed my conversation with her.

I gave her a list of potential problems (as advise by you lot) and said we are not qualified, so she must see her GP as it could be all manner of things.

And that if she wishes to remain in control of her life she must address her issues.

It went well she said how do i get an appointment so i said tell them your daughter is shouting at you to do this

She agreed so thanks all

hopefully i will not be back

Really happy you’ve found a way forward.

And I hope they’ll find something g really innocent to explain her tiredness.