Reply to Excessively dependent mother still completely helpless months after dad's death

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]She needs companionship. The cheaper solution is to hire an aide or elder companion for a few hours a day or every other day and save the big guns for when and if she needs it someday. [/quote]
Oops. Our messages overlapped.

As far as companionship, she has lovely neighbors - I've met three of them - who have asked her to join them with various social activities (and in the dining room for meals). So she has opportunity for socializing, but it's not the "help" she needs. When my sister and I made the very suggestion you did - hire an aide for every other day - she said she needs an aide full-time if she doesn't go back to AL. (Not overnights....she has the pendant.) But it would still be for at let 12 hours a day, at $25 an hour, five days a week, which adds up to $300 a day, or $1500 a week in addition to the $3,600 for the apartment. We're back up to almost $10,000 a month.

She has been irate on the phone the last couple of days because she says she is being neglected. 
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Dp.  She is not being neglected.  I really think it is loneliness and the fact that she seems to equate being taken care of completely with being cared for.  I think an aide for a few hours a day is a good compromise -- not all day.  You can be firm and say "I showed you last time how to adjust the shower/take out the trash/dial the phone.  If you still need help, you can ask the aide when she arrives."  None of the things she needs help with are true emergencies.  The trash can wait, the shower can wait....and if she's tired of waiting, she can try and do it herself.  She won't want to, but it's best in the long run.  [/quote]
Yes, all true. My sister and I know she is not being neglected. She has great meals there, and she also has the pendant for a true emergency. She also has some nice neighbors who want to befriend her.

But you are right. She sees having her every need met as being "loved."

While we are all chatting (and thank you to the posters helping me work through this), my sister just called - it's her weekend - because Mom is depressed and hasn't gotten out of bed since yesterday. (She had my sister bring up her meals yesterday.) She wants me to come over tomorrow, and together we are going to tell Mom that we are hiring an aide 4 hour a day, 3 days a week - and we are cutting our visits down to a regular weekend. That means, and we'll explain this to her, that she is "on her own" only 2 days a week, and in a true emergency, she has a pendant. I expect a LOT of push-back, and anger.

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