Mom lives with me, she's fine physically, some dementia, but very capable. It was financial, she could not afford to pay live on her own any more. She wants more of my time and attention than I want to or can give. If she needed me to for tasks or care, I can handle that, it is the emotional demand I cannot handle. She wants us to let her know when we are leaving and coming home. She wants my kids to come back to her two rooms and see her, instead of just coming out to our living room and seeing them. They are busy with homes and lives of their own.
She thinks she has to help financially around the house. Focus should be on paying her bills and her needs, not ours. On my birthday, my husband was taking all of us out to eat...she had the waiter bring her the bill. She cannot afford it...I was livid.
Does anyone else have these same kind of issues?
Just before Christmas he was walking our 1 year old Labrador, who Dad gets so much enjoyment from, and fell, breaking his pelvis. Since then he's been in the hospital and in January moved into a local rehabilitation home. Everyday since then all he can concentrate on is coming home. His dementia has gotten worse due to the pain, stress and confusion from being there. He can't seem to be able to understand why he has to be there. He thinks he can get the same care with me at home. He's just now being able to use a walker, but still hasn't gotten the OK to put "weight as tolerated" ok from his surgeon and is only allowed to put 50% weight on his leg. Being a "doer" he keeps thinking he's supposed to do something to speed things up, yet if he pushed himself too much it will delay his leaving. Meanwhile, I get phone calls all day long with him begging to come home, crying and telling me that no one likes him and everyone's mad at him (meaning the nurses and the other residents). His friend visits him for hours each day. I'm going to school so I visit him once a day for an hour or 2, but my visits seem to upset him as much as help him. I bring the dog down to visit. I try to interest him in watching golf or the Olympics with me. I play memory games with him because he's terrified of losing his cognitive abilities (his brother has severe Alzheimer's). Yet it always is a battle to get him to understand why he's there, how long it will take and when he can come home. I find that a lot of my childhood buttons get pushed as I watch him either try to manipulate me or get angry with me. I know he's scared. I know he's miserable there. I know he wants to come home. I try to empathetic. But after 2 months of this constant neediness, of needing only me yet being miserable when I'm there, of calling me up to 22 times a day, I'm beginning to get really burnt out. I've stopped answering the phone most of the time. My sister, who lives with her family in CA, is doing what she can to support me and Dad. She was here for 3 weeks when he fell and helped get him settled into the rehab plus got the house ready for his return. She's coming back in the middle of March to help me get things ready for his return home. The best case scenario is Dad will be home by the end of March. Until he gets an OK from his surgeon to be able to put weight as tolerated, the PTs can only do so much. My sister and I will set up home care and get help from the neighbors.
But what I'm struggling with is his neediness, his whining, his depression. Dad's doctor and the nurses tell me to step back and let him adjust to the rehab, to not be as available. But he's not adjusting, he's getting needier. He starts calling at 6 am most days (I don't answer the phone before 9, but it still rings over and over, waking me up) and can call as late as 12 or 1 if he's having a bad day. I tell the nurses when this is happening. They give him seroquil as needed to calm him. The bottom line is that my dad's a drama queen, he has a personality that is used to the world revolving around him yet he doesn't feel worthy, he's scared, and all he wants is to come home and have me take care of him.
With my mom, I got to a point of being grateful for the chance to take care of her, to make a living amends. I keep trying to get to that point of gratefulness with my dad, for I'm grateful that I can be here, but he's sucking me dry. I do my best to have my own life. I have a great support group. I'm a recovering alcoholic and I work my program and go to meetings daily. During good weather, I take breaks to go visit a friend in the Berkshires or go off to the woods alone to camp. But this is a whole new game. Dad's neediness is driving me more crazy than my empathy can handle. I'm doing what I can but I dread him coming home.
Thank you for letting me rant. It's good to know that there are others out there with similar problems. Oh, I forgot to mention that my dad is a very solitary person and doesn't like to socialize although he does with a few people. He has a reading group who visits him twice a week. He has a friend come and give Eucharist on Sundays. But he's pushed most people away and doesn't want to have people in his life. As he told me, the only ones he wants around is my sister and I, not even his friend.
So each day I get up and do what's in front of my face, taking time for myself yet still do what I can for my dad when I can. One thing I'm learning is I definitely do not want to be a miserable, lonely, desperate, clingy old person - it's too hard on those who love you.
Kim
Those of you caring for parents in your homes have it much worse than I do, I know. I guess the only thing that has helped is resigning myself (accepting) that she is going to be unhappy for her remaining time and that is out of my control.
Yes, your mother cared for you. Did she give you absolutely everything you wanted? Did she provide every bit of your entertainment. If you whined two weeks into your summer vacation, "There's nothing to dooooo," did she drop everything and play with you? Or did she make a few suggestions and expect you to either do one of them or not complain about being bored? And if you were bored, did she allow you to whine all day, underfoot? Did she take you absolutely everywhere she went? Did she never have any private time with your dad as long as you were living at home?
So, if you are basing your behavior toward you mother on the fact that she cared for you for many years, please really think through exactly how she cared for you. If she was a sensible mother, I'll bet she didn't feel responsible for your entertainment 24/7, and I'll bet she maintained a life of her own, including time as a wife. Go and do likewise!
When I took my mother's car away and took over her finances back in June, it was quite overwhelming, but I did it and then explained what I did after the fact. Was it traumatic? Yes, quite, but now she has fully accepted all of the changes. I now oversee her medications, transportation, laundry and so on. I recognized that it was a sense of independence she was losing, I told her I realized it, but I had her best in mind with my decisions.
Life is much better now. She will complain on occasion, I just let her know that I cared enough to do what is best for her. Good luck and I hope that you get help with your mother, she needs it....you need it.
Finally, I started seeing a therapist. I cannot tell you how much that helped me. It gave me a chance to vent. My therapist also helped put things in perspective and ALSO helped me learn to set some limits. It's really hard to do that sometimes. Not only that, my dad was interfering with my marriage. It wasn't that he was doing it on purpose, but he was so pushy that my husband would get upset and I would feel caught in the middle. I wanted to be the good daughter and the good wife.
As a child of my parent, I wanted to be respectful. I wanted to please my dad and it was very difficult to set boundaries. But having the ability to talk to a professional really helped me see what was going on and that is was okay to say NO. I wasn't mean about it, but I did set some boundaries. And guess what, it wasn't the end of the world.
We love our parents, don't want to hurt their feelings and still feel like a little kid in a lot of ways. However, that doesn't mean we don't deserve some R-E-S-P-E-C-T! If you haven't done it already, seriously think about seeing someone.
My husband is in his 80s, has a kind of dementia that features Parkinson's symptoms. He uses a transport chair (although he can also walk short distances) and is sometimes incontinent. Overall he sounds like he is in somewhat better shape than your Dad. This summer we took a trip of about 8 hours. I decided traveling by car would suit us better than flying. My son drove. A daughter came along to help with her dad. I am in my 60s and in reasonably good health (I can travel without assistance.) The trip worked pretty well. Would I do it if I had to drive myself? Absolutely not! Was I glad to have a helper along (besides the driver)? Yes! Three able-bodied, able-minded adults to one impaired elder was do-able in good summer weather and for about 8 hours.
Would I consider a 2,000 mile trip by car with my husband in the winter? Absolutely no way. Not even wih a helper and a driver. Two adults with two impaired elders? Oh, I don't think so!
Sorry. That just does not sound feasible to me. Add that to the fact that the primary driver does not want to do it and I think you all should think of alternate plans for the holidays!
My husbands mother lived a few states away over 12 hours one way. She would lay the most horrible guilt trips on him for not coming home for every single minor holiday. She hated me and would plot these stupid scheme to cause problems if we were going to be there. She would try to pre-arrange for girls he knew in high school (and hadn't talked to since) or his ex-wife (whom he hates) to show up at things. She blamed me for every single thing he ever did that she didn't approve of. Nothing made this better and he was reluctant to stand up to his mother, instead getting mad at me for not wanting to go be insulted and stuck in the middle of her crazy games after driving half way across the US. I told him he was completely free to go visit his mother whenever he wanted and could fly to make it easier. I would even drive him to the airport..but I was not going to be stuck in the middle of the messed up family dynamic where I was her target all the time. He really didn't want to go see her but the guilt trips made him feel awful. Why didn't he want to see her? Because she was nasty and manipulative and spent the whole time making him feel guilty. This is what your in for unless your boyfriend can establish some rules and stand up to his mom.
Just to get that last jab in, at his mother's funeral she had her neighbor who was as much of a judgmental religious zealot as she was come up to me and inform me all the ways I was going to hell. I had never seen this person before in my life but his mom made sure she knew who I was! Crazy drama even from the grave...
Some people completely ignore their parents, some have distanced themselves because they really had to due to manipulative or abusive behavior. There are clearly lots of situations, you can't lump everyone together.
If I let my mom have her way I would have abandoned MY family and kids, completely given up my job and personal life because she wants me to be on call or doing things for her 24-7. She has lost the ability to be thoughtful, respectful or even aware of other people's needs or ability. She would literally run me into physical exhaustion if I let her. She almost has. I re-injured my back doing things I know I shouldn't be doing because she wanted them done. Now I am going through treatment trying to undo the damage I did to my back. I went through years of treatment and rehab, I would really rather not do that again and I am of no use to anyone if I get in that state.
I make sure my mom has proper care, she has multiple people who come to her home to assist her with her needs, she has social activities too. At some point people do have to put their foot down when the situation becomes abusive.
who took care of them, I took care of my mother and she is gone now
but I will miss her and I am not sorry for taking care of her, it was a
pleasure
Additionally, I think that parents are used to having things their own way in their relationships with their children. Parents condition their children to do whatever the parent says or likes. They mentally condition their children to constantly be in pursuit what the parent would like or enjoy, but they do not reciprocate in any way. For example, you're being a "good boy or girl" when you make mommy happy. They wrongly enforce this sentiment when we are children, and they expect it to remain in place when we are adults. Additional sentiments seem to be, "You should do this or that because I like it. See to my needs but don't expect gratitude. Do things my way and the way I say you should because I personally prefer it. Give me what I want, and don't bother telling me about what you want." It is utterly selfish and unhealthy.
The only solution I have been able to come up with is to set definite bounds and stick to them. I try to do it gently, but I do it. I remind my mother, for example, that I'm not failing her when I don't call her anymore than she is failing me when she doesn't call me. The phone--and life--works both ways.
Well, finally she stopped it! But why did she keep doing that and being so persistant when I asked several? Then finally I have to hurt her feelings to get her to stop it. It has over time been that way on many things with her.
Well, speaking of work I have to get ready now to go!
I will stay in touch