Mother living independently in a tailspin

[Methuen]

Mother is 88, and in a serious mental health crisis along with her laundry list of physical problems.  She has fiercely resisted assisted living for some years, saying "she would rather die".  She has also fiercely resisted getting home care help. 

After an acute eye infection 2-3 years ago, she had to put drops in her eyes 4X/day.  She lives independently, and I was not going to drive there 4X/day to put them in and give up my life, so I managed to get home care.  After about 4 months she cancelled home care and started putting in her own drops.  The problem is she has Parkinson's and shakes like a leaf, so the drops don't actually get in.

Yesterday my H took her to her ophthalmologist appointment, and learned that her vision is now 20/400 and 20/100.  She's going blind.  Her eye doc told her yesterday that moving forward, she needed home care to put her drops in.  She started blubbering in front of her Dr who recognized she is depressed, and also told her that to keep the vision she has, she needs home care to put all her drops in.

Last week she had another ministroke.  She chewed 2 aspirin and didn't even report it to her Dr.

She's lost so much weight that her PJ bottoms don't stay up on her bum.  Kind of a nasty situation when visiting.  She doesn't care.

Both her hearing and word recognition have declined, so she now hears 32% at 85dB in one ear and 36% at 80 dB in the other ear.  Trying to talk to her is a gong show.  It's impossible to have a conversation.

Before we went on our holiday, she told her Dr she was depressed and asked for an increase dose of her antidepressant.  He prescribed it.  Now she refuses to fill the prescription and says she's not taking a higher dose.

She wanted a bath assist, but since she refuses to get any service through home care (i.e. an OT to come assess and advise which type of bath assist would be better for her), my H told her she could pay to have a private OT come look.  She said yes to the price.  The OT advised her on her bath assist, and also told her she should not be taking her compost outside (which involves going down 3 steps).  She didn't want to hear that, so when the invoice came, she told my H "she wasn't paying that BI_ _ H".  H told her he had guaranteed the visit to his credit card, and she replied that "he could pay for it". 

While we were on holidays, her housekeeper got daily calls from her, including that her phone wasn't working.  There is nothing wrong with the phone.  But she bugged her housekeeper daily until the housekeeper went out and bought her a new one. Attention seeking?  Now she has 2 phones.

This isn't even the tip of the iceberg.

Her "independent living" is a horror show.

Today I told her family Dr that she was refusing to taking her increased dose of anti-depressant, and talking about "assisted death".  He said he would "note it on her file" but didn't say we should bring her in.  She is scheduled to get a "home assessment", but will undoubtedly cancel it, because she can.  She has already cancelled it 2X since last May (when she was supposed to get it).

She's negative, mean, and utterly toxic to be around.  She will never follow medical advice that would help her, and she texts H and I each daily to tell us how terrible her life is.  We never reply.

A few days ago, I got a text from mom "You have figured out how to spend the least amount of time with me".

I live a 5 min drive from her.  I am well past being "burned out".  The truth is I don't even want contact any more.  After spending my life trying to be the perfect daughter to her, I let go of the "impossible" 3 years ago, and stopped being her "caregiver".  H took over grocery shopping and bringing her to appointments, and he acknowledges it's the hardest thing he's had to do in his life.  He would like to "be done".   I've only seen her once in the last 3 weeks because after we got home from our trip we got Covid, and then after we recovered from that, we were gone for a weekend again.

I'm feeling FOG to visit her again this weekend, but I know it will be a disaster.

Any advice?