Caring for elderly parents? Pop in for support and a rant

I’ve posted on this thread a couple of times under a different name and I read it avidly. Today I feel trapped and in despair and I just want to say thank you to everyone who posts on here because it makes me feel less isolated. It’s also such a funny thread.
People are just living far too long. I would absolutely hate to inflict this role as a carer on my children. I try and live a healthy life style in terms of diet, exercise and limiting my alcohol intake but sometimes I think what’s the point, I might as well drink myself to death

wordthe

Yes it is shocking isn't it. I suppose it's uncharted territory because we never used to live so long, at least not in these numbers.

I think I figured out the pinch point for me. I feel responsible for my mother generally now dad is gone. I feel like if she has a fall or anything, it would be my fault. I went to the supermarket with her this morning and I think she could have gone alone so why do I feel responsible? I also feel guilty that I'm the only good thing left in her life but that's a hell of a burden.

Another friend of hers was admitted to hospital last night. It all feels endless. I've got friends in real life who seem to be coping well with elderly parents although of course the anonymity of the board means we say other things here, not sure if people are feeling them and it's just too hard to say in real life.

well yes word but if we didnt laugh we'd cry... and I am the one with a free pass at the mo, because DM died. Therefore am making the most of the craic before the PIL start on the same path!!

This thread is very witty and fun to read but at the same time I am appalled at the way the oldies are sucking the life out of the middle aged wranglers

It shouldn't be like this

we shouldn't be in a position where the only way to have some dignity in your final years is to destroy the mental and physical health of your children

thigh judging by the numbers on here I'm not sure 4 bedrooms would be enough? I am thinking more a mansion, run along the lines of very posh oldfashioned luxury hotel - all mod cons you want but not if you dont want. Staff everywhere, but never in your face, they are mindreaders and will bring you/do exactly what you want whenever you want it and then bugger off unobtrusively until next required. Talking therapy provided in the form of thread participants sharing the burden and laughing through it.

When you enter MAOW Towers a work clone is issued and does all your paid employment for you and doesn't report back to you. You receive the pay though as the clone needs nothing.

Wrong you do look 17 to me. You have a very slender and elegant font. All you need is to be locked in MAOW Towers for 6 months. Yolo i believe your Mother's house could be a fitting venue, are there disability aids for those of us too weak to move unaided?

Monkey i hear you, and i do see a logic to the self medicating. Gummy has ADHD and, despite being intelligent, seems unable to put 2 and 2 together re life experience. His father said last week he wants nothing to do with him until he gets it together, hmmm ok. Gummy has turned a corner though and is taking baby steps forward and in psychotherapy. He wouldn't have taken anything on board when he was younger though. I had him at 20 and with the "extended" parenting and now the oldies i feel i have spent my entire adult life looking after people. And Florence Nightingale i ain't.

Dint oh that's awful, your poor Dad and what a worry for you. I just don't understand the economics of elder care, chucking him home unprepared is just setting up for failure. I don't know why that isn't obvious to the powers that be.

Gummy's apprentice going one step forwards, two back currently thigh. I believe self medicating is the polite phrase for it. He has ASD which is possibly the reason that he isn't actually learning anything from his screw ups.

thigh He hasn't got his keys with him, or any trousers. I fully expect them to send him hone by taxi in his pyjamas and dump him on the pavement. But they're doing another review on Monday, so we've got Sunday to finish the clean and tidy of the house, if I back out of a working party that I'm helping run on Sunday. Haven't slept well, which is why I'm back on MN - wind too noisy, although normally it wouldn't bother me.

Totally relate to all the sibling stuff resurfacing. Feel about 17 most of the time at the moment. Shame I don't look it

Dint Gummy has no clue he's an internet star, though he's suspicious when I mutter "recipes" at all the typing on MN.

Monkey is Gummy's Apprentice back on track or still being a PITA?

Dint bath, trashy book, sleep. Are they discharging him tomorrow? Are you there or do they propose to tip him out of the ambulance?

Well, as you see from my other thread, everything just gone tits up for us. Just feel hopeless at the moment. Will probably feel better in the morning.

Weighed Dad today, he's only lost a stone through hospital etc. He's about 5'8"/9" and 11 and a half stone so that's ok. He was a tiny bit tubby before thank goodness.

I also know a couple of people who left everything to a care home and never visited at all. Both old people had no clue who anyone was at all. I'm not sure what you do in those circumstances.

I know a couple of people who literally left their parents to a care home, asked not to be contacted for anything except death. They really couldn't cope. In one case, the parent didn't have a clue who her daughter was (advanced Alzheimer's). I must admit, if that happened to mum, I'd have to reconsider how I handled things.

I think you just cope because you have to? There isnt really another option, other than to abandon them to the state and for most of us there is too much love/obligation/guilt to do that, even though we (well, I did) consider it in our darkest moments.

Having said that, I am with nota on the awful things they say to our children making it much harder to maintain at least the love bit - this was a major bone of contention between me and DB, apparently my DDs are "well-rounded young women" who shouldn't have been upset by stuff DM said. They are 22 and 19. Yet my DNiece and DNephew who are all 30 something plus, married, kids etc, are allowed to be upset by things (true things) I said about DM's behaviour. DDs and I dealt with the day in day out, DN&N were like DB and SIL - the white knights. (sorry, getting a bit ranty there!)

Went round to DM's house tonight, it's actually nice to be there, watch a bit of telly, have a glass of wine, remember the good times rather than the bad. It's quite peaceful.

thigh OMD how do you cope with that?
Sorry, I'm constantly wondering how people cope.

Mum isn't likely to join anything, I know I'll end up being her main source of social contact. Her two main close friends died in the last few years.

Re anxiety, I already have meds and I don't want to increase them so I'll just have to see how things go. I do feel as if mum is a bit better today though. The main thing is to get her used to living alone I think.

She is great though and we get on, which is a real bonus, I realise.

Like others I never had a good relationship with my DM, which is why I very much see the caring that I do for her now as obligation. If she starts on about how lonely she is, I just counter it with what a shame she didn't want to go to any of the many day centres etc that I set up for her to go to.

Perhaps the worst aspect of her character is that she is a bit of a racist. She still seems to remember through the mists of dementia not to say anything racist to me. Which is good. But I was in the next room last week while gummy's apprentice was telling her his tale of woe from college (not his fault, none of it) and could hear her asking him if it was because there are many 'coloureds' there. FFS. Have I mentioned my DCs are mixed race? I shout through from the next room - 'like him you mean mum'? While he sits there wondering wtf just happened. One of the many reasons that I try and minimise my DCs contact with my DM.

Been over to M&Ds and had coffee with them. Took Dad for a nice wee walk with the dogs, only about 100 metres today then we sat on a bench and held hands. He confided in me that he's worried Mum will find out about the white haired house keeper who's been sleeping in his bed. He's glad Mum stays downstairs and hopes she never comes upstairs and finds out because you know how jealous she gets.

everyday I like the idea of the game. My DF has various verbal tics to ensure no-one else can interrupt (years of holding his own in meetings) ... now he's speaking so very slowly it's excruciating, and I keep my sanity by all sorts of mental games, eg can he beat the record for the maximum number of "er's.

thigh your comment about seeing the man he really is struck a chord. Dad is at the moment doing a fact-based crossword in a magazine so he can photocopy it to his doctors to prove he still has all his marbles ... and is getting help with the answers from his grandson. I'd forgotten how devious he can be!

The more I hear of Gummy the more I like him - does he know he's an internet star?

I'm trying to file all DF's papers so we have room to move around and move furniture if necessary ... every time I think I'm getting there, I find another cache on a bookcase or in a shoebox. I can't just shove them all into a box somewhere because a) he'll want to be able to find them and b) I've already found one thing he needed to deal with and didn't.
It's not just the actual face to face care, it's all the background work you do. And the picking up the pieces because they didn't want to trouble you - like the day he refused to let someone call an ambulance because he didn't want me to be bothered by him being in A&E and instead turned up on my doorstep with blood pouring down his face. And I ended up having to take him to A&E myself because Minor Injuries wouldn't treat a head wound in an over-70. (DH reminds me he is 69 and will be until he dies ... unless it makes the difference of getting an air ambulance of course...)

Hi all, I have seen my psych on and off over the years so she is well aware of DM. Without having met DM herself, and based solely on my side of the story she feels that DM is how she is due to her upbringing and genetics (many family members are similar). Throw in ageing and ill health and there's no hope of change! So instead we need to focus on what we can change, which is how I react and deal with DM. For Christmas she suggested making a game of it. Instead of a swear jar, I have a DM jar, and every time DM is rude, disrespectful or lies, I put some money in the jar and treat myself with it after however long (not sure I could afford it with the way she is lately!). Or something along those lines, in order to lighten the mood and see some sort of positive.
DH has offered to go and speak with DM this weekend. He means well. He's wanting to tell her how badly her behaviour is affecting me, to the point that I'm getting anxious (which is just not me), but I know that she'll twist that and say that I have MH issues which is why I have a problem with her, rather than realising that she is the issue.
On the upside, I'm getting a great lesson in how not to treat your DCs as you age, so mine should be fine when I'm old!