Confused and Overwhelmed
by Your Parent's Bizarre Behavior?

So was I. This wasn't the Mom that I grew up with - the one who had always taken care of me and protected me. This woman was a stranger - and she was tearing my family apart.

Who Stole My Mother? A Daughter’s Look at Dementia is a first-hand account of a family’s struggle with mental illness.

Delving into the emotional, physical, and financial obstacles that arise when a family member becomes inflicted with dementia, Who Stole My Mother? provides readers with encouragement, understanding and direction.

It includes suggestions for how to handle delicate legal and medical matters as well as valuable tips about dealing with holidays, social situations, and everyday concerns.

The lessons of Who Stole My Mother? offer families hope for the journey ahead as they struggle with this challenging and degenerative disease.

Who Stole My Mother? is about endurance: that notion of stoic perseverance and hanging in there at all costs. It’s about getting up every morning with no clue of what the day will hold. It’s real life for thousands of people: the chaos, the pain and challenge of caring for parents, spouse, children and you under the same roof.

Raising children is a tough job, not just today but in any generation. Each age has its own set of challenges and in the 21st century, ours seem a little more stringent than the ones before. After all, we’re a Mother-Daughter-Wife-Professional-Homemaker-Carpooler-PTAmember-ScoutMaster-Soccer-Mom. Who has time for anything else?

Caring for your parents in their elder years is no piece of cake, either. How do you transition to making decisions regarding their care and still maintain a working relationship? At what point must those decisions be made? What about parents with dementia? Where do you, as the caretaker, go for support and answers?

My story isn’t over. There are no smiley faces, no attempts to ‘get along.’ There are too many days of being called a f*ckingbitch and certainly too many days of feeling like one. There are the well-intentioned but mis-informed statements of ‘It’s the illness talking. You have to remember how she used to be.’

It’s those statements, the ones of ‘remember how she used to be’ that spawned this book. My mother is the way she used to be; only now she’s much, much worse.

For too long we’ve kept the struggles we face inside. After all, how dare we resent caring for the very ones who gave us life and provided for us all those years? It’s time to be honest with those around us and ourselves. It’s time we start talking.

Our story is a bit different than most. My mother was suicidal, had been diagnosed with depression and was on too many different medications - medications clinically proven to negatively react when given together.

Tensions had been building and we often asked ourselves, “What else can she do?” For years I had tried to contain her and smooth the many feathers that she ruffled, but finally I could do that no longer.

When my older boys would climb out the window to take my four-year-old away from her rages, reality set in that she was out of control and tearing our family apart. Recently diagnosed with dementia and put on even more medications that were documented to negatively react with each other, I demanded that she be medically re-evaluated. She chose to leave our home and attacked with a vengeance. Ultimately she retained five different lawyers and finally found one to file suit against us.

We were forced to fight a nasty lawsuit while raising our three sons. These events led me to re-examine my relationship with my mother, along with my entire childhood and everything I had believed to be true.

I learned lessons about life, love, friendship and support that most likely would have evaded me  This book is not about blaming – It’s about healing, reclaiming our lives and moving ahead. Life doesn’t have to stop because we fulfill our care giving roles. I believe that people do the best they can with what they’ve got, wherever they happen to be. This book is about helping you to do it better. We have not minced words, nor are we stingy with sharing what we’ve learned. Some things may apply; some may not. Take away the things that work for you.

This book doesn’t sugarcoat the trials and challenges of caring for aging parents and raising children. I’m still angry and hurt. And I’m still looking for answers. Perhaps one day I’ll find them.

Sue St. Clair
July 2004

Read Chapter 1 of Who Stole My Mother?

(c) 2004-2010 Stan and Sue St. Clair