It makes me feel a bit better in one way...
Having "capacity" means they consider she has the mental capacity to make her own decisions and understand the consequences, e.g to choose to eat, wash, get out of bed or not. But also things like whether she has carers come round, who she sees, where she lives. If they are right, I must be wrong and vice versa. The person I see most definitely cannot make any decisions, informed or otherwise. With my sister, both in person and on the phone, Mum is as lucid as I am. (which isn't saying much as she has caused me quite some stress!) My sister also has a psychology degree so she should be more informed about it all than me. Which may be one reason she can see through it and I couldn't. Mum has also been playing us off against each other "He/she takes better care of me than you... you just don't know how to look after me..." or even worse, "He/she hurts me, I need you to rescue me..."
Isn't it crazy that there is this massive gap people can fall into where they are clearly ill, where it is seriously affecting their behaviour to the point they hurt themselves, but they are still considered to be able to be responsible for themselves? It isn't just dementia, it covers all mental health issues but I am getting the dementia issue up close and personal right now.
If I am right, if Mum is as bad as she seems *to me* then she should be in 24 hour residential care. But the way she appears to others just isn't as bad...
I have to draw the conclusion she is manipulating me. Last year before her hip replacement she let her ex look after her and pretty much stay at her house all day. She phoned me up a lot saying he was emotionally and verbally abusing her and she was so scared of him she was contemplating suicide. So I got social services to talk to her while she was in the hospital and he couldn't be there looking over her shoulder. She got really upset and kept saying "This has to stop, he;s doing a great job, I don't know why M (me) has it in for him so badly, he's never done anything to her.... I love him, he's looking after me so well" and she banned social services from talking to me about her. Until of course she wanted to complain about him some more.
Weighing it all up, I have to conclude... She's doing this on purpose. Which makes me feel so betrayed and hateful towards her. Grrrr.