"Ain't no party like a dementia party because dementia party don't stop!"

With dementia, they can be good for a while and then have a drop off, and then level out again, rather than just a slow decline like people think it is.  And my mother seems to have had another recent drop off, as her cognitive abilities seem to be getting all mucked again.  She had one right before we moved here, another after we moved in, another after her surgery, and one not too long ago, and now this one.  So I'm finding it slightly harder to get as angry at the things she does, as I know she's going a bit more insane (even though I know it's still mixed through the lens of her narcissism).

Recently, I threw away the dish cleaning sponges (we use luffas) because the one she was using was gross, so I got out another one and found that it reeked of some sort of perfumed chemcialy smelling cleaner.  So I grabbed the last one and it smelled the same.  I was scared she has used them for cleaning or sprayed some sort of unsafe cleaner on them (which she could have only gotten from my bedroom, which I have to lock up now if I'm not home or outside) and then was going to be using them to clean the dishes.  So I threw them away into the garbage.  The next day, guess where I found them?  Oh, you most likely guessed right.  

I found them back in their place on the fucking counter.  

Oh.  Fucking.  Ew.  

I mean, I wanted to stop her from washing the dishes, as she doesn't clean them at all, and puts most of the dishes away dirty (something I assume is from her dementia), but to find out she would pull the sponges out of the garbage and use them on our dishes????  Oh holy geezus.  Now that's pretty fucking crazy.  

So I went and got some Dawn foamy spray bottle soap (I don't remember the name) to use so I don't have to soak them, and my son showed my mother the bottle and said "We're going to use this on the dishes so we don't have ot use water to soak them" and she replied "Not me!!  I guess your mother is going to wash them then!"  So he got her to believe she gave up her dishwashing rights to me, and we didn't take them away from her.  Which annoys me a little, because it gives her the upper hand.  But that's petty.  I know.  And it's so much better for her to believe she had a choice in this, rather than me taking something away form her.  

Because she believes I take everything away from her.  If I wash the cabinets, she will say "I WAS GOING TO DO THAT!  YOU TOOK MY JOB AWAY FROM ME!"  The same goes for if I wash the windows or do anything else in the house.  It's so bad that I am afraid to clean things.  She refuses to clean things, but if I do it, she says SHE was going to do it and I am wrong for doing it.  I don't want to listen to her shit, so I clean when she's asleep.  So she'll make the comment "Oh, I need to stay up later, since you seem to have a party when I'm asleep".   I absolutely hate those types of comments.  Its her disapproval of what I've done, even though what I've done was a good thing.  She loves to claim she's the "cleaner" in the family, that she loves to clean, yet she never cleans anything.  I clean, and she doesn't even say it's not good enough, she makes it out to be that I've literally done something wrong by doing it. 

And I am not mentally strong enough anymore to handle it anymore.  

I have severe anxiety, and medical issues that exacerbate said anxiety.  And so the idea of having to do with my mother when I need to clean something or do something in the house, my anxiety will flare up and make me feel horrible.  So the next time I need to do the same thing, my anxiety will just flare up thinking about it.  It turns into this horrible cycle, which leads me to becoming completely stuck and frozen and not doing anything at all.  And then the guilt sets in that I haven't cleaned anything and my mother will pick up on this, and she will then make comments about how something needs to be done and she'll say "I guess I have to do it" in her shitty voice.  It's a vicious cycle of crap.  

And now my mother is having accidents, but it may just be due to food and not her body failing.  But if it's her body failing, she will be going in a home soon, because I cannot handle that either.  Even less than I can handle her shitty behavior.  She keeps saying she can wear diapers.  Or that I can hire someone to take care of her in the house.  I know she doesn't want to go in a home.  I know it scares her.  I know she knows that once she goes in on, she will never leave it.  I know that she knows she will lose every bit of freedom she has left.  And she will be forced to listen to what others say, something she hates more than anything else in life.  

She does not see me as her daughter, she sees me as her jailor, her warden, her bossy parent.  So she acts out like a little kid, yelling and screaming and stamping her feet and throwing fits.  Although she used to threaten me, and still tries to, but for the most part, she's stopped that, because I've taken away everything she can threaten me with. 

She always has thrown a fit whenever I do the right thing, and her favorite motto was to yell "You're taking everything away from me!", but when she started saying that, the only thing I had taken away from her was her ability to drive.  Then, I could not get the city, the state, or her doctors to take her license away, so I had to give her her car back.  Then I permanently took it away in 2020, and she screamed it at me again.  Then I stopped her from going in the basement (per her physical therapist's orders) and she said it again.  It's so funny thought that one or two things was "everything", but it wasn't until she had surgery and went to rehab for several months that literally took everything away from her (she was mismanaging her money and making really bad decisions about most things).  When she got back from surgery, she was livid about all of that, and then started threatening to sell her pain narcotics to drug addicts she knew (although those drug addicts are dead--due to overdoses), so took those away from her, too, and only doled out to her what she needed.  Recently, I had to take away her ability to get Tylenol or ibuprofen on her own, as she was taking too many of those.  I also took away her ability to get the mail, and told her if she did get it, I'd get a PO box instead (otherwise she will try to buy everything she sees in the junk mail).  

So I have taken away many things from her.  Many, many things.  But only because I had to.  My response is always "I am not taking these things away from you, your body is taking them away."  But she never listens.  

But I am okay with her getting angry at her losing her freedoms.  I mean, I would never complain and treat my kids like shit over it (but I am not a narcissist, so yeah).  But I cannot tolerate her treating me like I am taking away things from her when I do the things she refuses to do.  "I can't wash that until you buy me special scrubbies!"  "I can't do this, unless you buy this special product!"  I have bought some of those products and she refuses to use them anyways.  Or pretends to forget I bought them.  She just wants to put me out in some way or blame me in some way so when she doesn't clean or do something (I never ask her to clean, by the way), then it's my fault because I didn't "buy the thing" she needed to do it or I took too long to buy the thing, etc.  So I never buy the thing, and do whatever it is she is saying she wants to buy the thing for.  "I need scrubbies to wash the bathroom trim!"  YET, the floor is dirty or the fridge is dirty or a billion other things are dirty, yet she wants to clean some obscure stupid thing that doesn't matter.  It's just game.  She doesn't really want to clean it.  Or, if she does clean it, she will make a huge deal out of it as though it was the hardest thing in the world.  When I clean things, I clean them quietly and without fanfare.  I used to be more like her.  Because I learned from her how to keep a house.  But eventually, I learned that cleaning isn't that big of a deal and nobody even needs to know you did it.  Well, unless you're super proud of yourself.  Like cleaning the garage or something.  Something my mother bitched about so much back in the day, so I'd clean it, and she'd say nothing at all about it.  

She just wants something to bitch about. 

I need to set up a cleaning routine for myself and ignore her.  Just some daily tasks, even though now I have the wash the dishes every single night, instead of the morning (by nighttime, my energy is completely wasted, but I do it anyways, because I have to).  But sweeping and/or vacuuming (I have a new Shark vacuum!) and window spot cleaning and cleaning the outside of the fridge off each day isn't a big deal.  I can do some of these things while cooking (even washing the dishes as I go).  And I just need to ignore her stupid comments.  Because, in reality of things, who cares?  She's on a downward decline as of lately, so maybe she'll stop her comments all together soon?  That would be nice.  

My brain has been fried lately.  I've been having a horrible flareup of my symptoms (I get skin fevers, nausea, insomnia, and dizziness and other stupid crap).  So I've been running around most days on 4 hours of sleep and I am like an animal when I don't get enough sleep and will snap at everyone (though, not really that much, just only when I am at my breaking point).  So the whole "taking away her dishwashing job" thing was seriously wearing on my nerves.  She kept on and on about it.  But she quit now and actually put away the dishes I washed last night, which was nice.  Normally she leaves them for me, which is fine, but it's a message: "You wash them?  I wash my hands of the whole thing."  Again, as though I am doing something wrong by wanting to clean the dishes I paid for and I cook on, in my own house.  It's FUCKING RIDICULOUS how much she guilts me for wanting to clean my own house.  But, like I said, she quit talking about it and I hope it stays that way, or else I'll just ask her "What's wrong with me wanting to clean my own dishes?  You know, I did keep a house for almost twenty years before moving in here with you.  You aren't the only person who can do these things."  Or do them even remotely well.  But I won't add that part in.  Because, you know, dementia, and all that.

Ugh, well that's how this week is going.  So much fun.  And so silly, yet so aggravating.  

PS: I hate that Dawn foamy spray bottle cleaner.  I hate hate hate it.  And because I do, it gives me anxiety to have to wash the dishes with it.  So I went back to a sink full of water instead.  But mother doesn't have to know that.  Let her believe I am doing them in some fancy schmancy way so she won't want to do them herself.  Problem solved.