The second new shiny 2019 thread ...

Grace212

I feel I should be grieving longer for a good dad.

There is something important I want to say but am not sure how to express it. It sounds to me as if your mother wants company in her grief rather than being glad that you can get on and live your best life.

By all means get on with your life: I would think that if your father had a choice he would want you to enjoy your life rather than spend it grieving for him. What a waste that would be.

Living a good life is the best way to honour your father, who in a way gave you that life and would not be expected to want you to waste it

How to get your mother to see that is the tricky bit. It sounds selfish for her to try and impose her way of being on you. Resist !

That must've been really rough Grace.

I don't know what to suggest beyond trying to tell your mum how you fèel, but I know how hard that can be.

Mornings...I'm naturally more of a night person, although admittedly less so these days.

Tbh I don't love my job...it's a very straight admin role, my background is more creative and I've been able to bring that in to previous jobs but it's just turned out that there's no scope for that, or for any career progression where I am, which is immensely frustrating. It's not all bad, but I don't really feel like I 'fit' at work, in any way really.

I don't like that feeling that between working f/t and my other commitments I'm constantly clock watching.

Bottom line is, I just wish I could be self-employed doing something creative/artistic from home, but that's not going to pay my mortgage.

Minty what's happening in the morning? Just wondering if there are things we can suggest to make it easier.

btw I should add - mum isn't trying to do big memorial things for dad at all. It's just I feel we've had the funeral, the ashes ceremony, a thing for what would have been their anniversary, an obituary for a professional mag which has now prompted her to doing another thing that relates to his work....then I was thinking she will want something on Father's Day, then she's already mentioned his birthday, then there will be the anniversary of his death.

I haven't said this to her, but his death is by no means the worst experience I've had with bereavement - lost a couple of friends in my 20s. It took me about a year to recover from those. I do understand it but frankly I kept my feelings to myself. With the mutual friends, I didn't even call them when I wanted to talk about it, because you could be interrupting someone having a perfectly nice day and just bringing them down.

that thought doesn't occur to mum. Also she probably thought I would spend much longer in that kind of state of grief for my father than my friends. Afraid that's not the case - my friends were a feature of my daily life, plus the shock of losing 20 something friends, one of whom I was due to start flatsharing with, took a few months just to get past that bit. I barely ate food for 3 months, mostly just drank tea with sugar to get through the working day!

I'm still doing the commute a fair bit as DD is at the school I work at!

I'm not good at all in the morning when I have it all going on...3/5 days a week I'm probably in tears before I get to work.

It's just a case of getting in the right headspace I guess...good coffee, good tunes in the car...and it's only a week part time and then Easter.

It's more the post Easter bit I'm worried about but it is what it is.

Minty good that the consultant sees everything on track.

I might have missed some posts - so they decided to look at retirement flats after all?

re going back to work, I hope your colleagues are understanding. I've only ever had phased return to work after illness and injury. It was hard to know what would happen. Is it possible you have anxiety about the change of scene? I went out a couple of times before returning to work - appreciate it's a different thing but I just thought that doing the commute a couple of times would be a good trial run, rather than doing the commute + being back in the office.

I told the managers involved what I was doing so no one would be surprised if they bumped into me while out and about.

Grace I'm (mercifully) not in your shoes but I can totally understand how you feel.

For me, the funeral would be a kind of closure. Obviously it's not concrete when you lose someone close, and on a personal level I would probably do something low key on birthdays, father's day etc, but I absolutely wouldn't want to keep doing full scale events at all.

We saw the neuro consultant today who is happy that dad's physical recovery is where it should be and we now need to focus on his mental health, strength and physio.

Mum and I looked at a fantastic warden assisted flat yesterday. There is someone else interested but they've only just gone on the market. Mum and Dad are having a valuation on their property tomorrow so looks like it'll be a bit of a race to the finish line, but estate agent has tipped us off that there is another one going through probate currently that should be on the market soon. It would be such a positive move for them and a weight off my mind too, so fingers crossed.

I'm back to work on Monday after a month off with stress. Have had a consultation with occupation health who have suggested a phased return over 4-5 weeks. Work are offering phased return over 2 weeks and have refused to meet my request of doing it over 3 instead. I will have to cope as have no choice but to go back, but am feeling considerably more anxious about it than I'd like.

sorry sandwich hit post too soon!

I think carpet is the safest thing tbh. I find the whole kitchen and bathroom carpet thing a bit grim but it is safer.

cross post with sandwich

"I suppose mourning defines your dm."

yes, it does. I am not stopping her doing anything but I don't want to hear about it endlessly and I would rather not be part of it actually.

Dint "But she has no right to make you a role player in her grieving."

that's it exactly.

I think I only said yesterday on here about being over it, and tbh I feel guilty about that too. I feel I should be grieving longer for a good dad. But I had a full life - for me! - apart from my parents - before this happened. One friend said to me "I know it's hard that you can never turn to your dad for advice again". I was puzzled - I think the last time I asked him for advice was mid-20s.

so it's more accurate to say that her wanting company in grief is just - well, today it's actually just made me feel angry.

the "stopping moving on" is because she won't organise anything herself, she wants me to do it! When I said that, she said "oh okay, well I'll do most of it but can you just help with xyz at the weekend."

and I think, hang on, I'm helping with all the stuff that dad did for you, now you want to add another thing to my to-do list?

Second dints advice Rosa.
Grace. I get what you are saying- but I suppose mourning defines your dm. Let her get on with it. And do what is right for you.
Still feeling rough here- but call to say dm had fallen so had to take her to a and e to have her head injury checked out- she seemed ok but wit( a cut and huge bruise. Flirted outrageously with the doctor so cant have been too bad.....

Advice oh wise ones- floor covering for kitchen/ bathroom for dm? Currently a sort of laminate.
cockroach all......

Thanks Dint

I feel mega evil this evening.

I've had mum on the phone talking about a memorial service for dad....I am over it. My brain is full of work, looking after mum stuff, looking after my own mental health....I got annoyed with her and said I was feeling it very unfair that I can't get on with my life without planning more stuff in his memory.

she's already talking about family only memorial on his birthday as well.

Perhaps it makes me a terrible person but I don't want to do all this. I just want to get on with my life. I told her bluntly, perhaps it means I didn't love him enough, I don't know. But I just feel ...I am a mid 40s woman. I lost my dad, it was shit. Now I'm ready to move on. I understand her life will never be the same but does that have to impact on me so much?

I'm not saying this just for me. My parents had friends for whom there was a funeral, a memorial, another memorial later....I don't get it. Fine if it makes people feel better but is it terrible that I don't want to do this?

Mere thank you

no, no car. Burglar alarm and good strong door.

I thought that too about young men and about elderly being low risk but she doesn't believe it. Sometimes she needs to walk with a stick but she thinks it makes her a target so doesn't take it or doesn't go out on those days.

she sometimes goes to the high street with another elderly friend so she won't be totally limited to weekends if she waits for me, but I'm also thinking there's no point worrying her with things. She does read the local paper so has some knowledge.

hello everyone

this is more of a "What Would You Do" so apologies if not in the right section, but I thought more people here would have experience.

My elderly mother lives alone. Doesn't go out much. Doesn't do any social media or anything, is very conscious of security and very anxious about it.

There seems to be a spate of thefts - mostly car thefts - going on in the area. I know because I'm on social media. I don't know whether to tell her or not. It would make her more anxious and I'm not sure she can do any more to keep safe. Also, she does need to walk to shops and so on and of course in theory something could happen to her then, and she and I need to stop worrying more than we do!

should I tell her? being brutally honest, I don't want her to get to that point where she never goes out alone. I have a couple of friends who are taking their elderly parents to the shops every weekend etc and I don't want to get in that cycle of dependence. So my fear is partly selfish

Dint "I've learned to look out for me making really good practical reasons why I can't possibly go out and meet these people today,"

do you mean meeting people connected with elderly parent stuff, or just people generally?

Venting I really feel for you. these nurses with their coffee are so lovely.

when dad was in the hospital and didn't want to eat, they even started trying to find stuff like differently cooked potato etc. It was weird, because it was at the point where dad knew he was dying, I knew he was dying, but none of the medics would consider it, nor would mum.

So I wasn't going to hassle him to eat, but sometimes the nurses would come by and say "oh, hmm, maybe he will like something else, that can't be all he eats for this meal" and then bring it along. Such kind people. And they must have extraordinary mental strength too.

Thanks for your kind words people, looking back I don't know why I felt it was necessary to write a novel-length post detailing my Mum's ailments, so apologies for that! I didn't go and see her yesterday, but got a call from the care home at 10.30 saying she'd had a fall - not injured, but it will upset and enrage her further, understandably. I think that's part of the problem, all her anger and desperation is completely understandable, although people are doing everything they can to help.

nota and venting I know exactly what you mean about 'pulling you in', but I'm the only person she's got in this town - apart from all the people who work in the care home, of course. Two weeks ago she quite liked a few of them! And Grace I know what you mean about suddenly having another human being featuring frequently in your life - I do actually have quite a lot of human beings in my life (although none dependent on me), but my mother wasn't a frequent feature until recently so I'm struggling with that. And she is in a care home - we lasted 6 months with mum having carers coming in to her home in a different city, but it never looked like being a long term solution. Hats of to those of you having the same issues plus having to organise all the stuff the care home does yourselves shudder.

Yes, she is trying to pull people in, but she has least chance of succeeding with me. By being pretty robust I'm the one who can get her to eat and drink (a bit) or to take her medicine. Although her dementia seems noticeably worse, she seems quite clever about asking for things she thinks can't be supplied, or making out that everything's awful and nothing can be done about it. When I bring in a book she proclaims she doesn't want to read it because she knows it off by heart: so I asked her who was the murderer in a detective novel I brought in, she went strangely deaf but stopped that particular moan.

For all that, and for all the fact that I've always had a complicated relationship with her, when it looked as if she might die imminently I was unexpectedly upset. I guess that ultimately 90 years of having her as my mother overcomes the last few years.

VentingDaughter our mothers sound like the same person. Doesn't want to drink as doesn't want to wee, therefore gets ill through dehydration. Each of the eleventy billion times I have tried to persuade her to drink water especially in the hot weather she tells me she doesn't like the taste. The amount of times I have been with her when doctors tell her she needs to drink more, and she does this 'oh really, well that's easily fixed' and then complains to me when they walk away.

Personally because I am a hard faced bitch I wouldn't sit and try and coax her to do anything as it sounds like she is pulling you in, dementia or no.