The Cockroach Cafe Mark 2 (general coping with oldies)

sandwich “ Grit your teeth and encourage and praise her for sorting things”

I don’t really want to praise an adult for adulting. But I’ll leave her to it now and stop with the little “favours” that I was doing because I thought it was a kindness to an elderly parent.

rose she no doubt thinks I should not have to do this but also lacks confidence in doing it.
Grit your teeth and encourage and praise her for sorting things.
You do sound really drained at the moment. Protect yourself.
cockroach all.

hairbrush that’s good.

Mere that must be so hard. Ami right in thinking your father was quite old at the point he started to think like this?

I think I discovered why mum stopped being able to text last week. Her phone needs topping up. 🤷🏻‍♀️ She claims it hadn’t occurred to her but when I said she should do it before she goes out tomorrow, she said “I was hoping you’d do it when you come over”. This isn’t age, it’s learned helplessness.

She simply can’t accept that ordinary life involves chores. She now has to ring the bank on Monday and wanted to wait for me for that too. It’s very difficult to find sympathy for someone behaving that way.

Am I being harsh? I know dad did everything for her but she must realise that was a privileged way to live?

And she will still find something to have a panic attack about, today it’s her tax return for NEXT year Don't whatever you do solve the problem, else she'll have to find something else to worry about

My dad wouldn't move fuel suppliers because "the new supplier would inspect my electricity supply and Condemn It and I will have No Heating and will Die". But his current supplier "deliberately sends out bills so late he has no chance of paying in time, and they will get a court judgement against him, and ask for the Court to enforce payment, and both he and I would be Bankrupted and he would be In Prison for Christmas". It's a scary world he's living in, and any attempt to sooth him fails because the only reason I'm not as scared as him is that I don't have the sources of knowledge that he does. "If you can keep your head when all about you. Are losing theirs ... it shows you haven't fully understood the situation".

Great news hairbrush! Use this as a chance to change the game.

Well done hairbrush! 👏

Forewarn your cousin that you'll be incommunicado for the weekend except for emergencies and don't phone home. You need to have a completely free weekend and your DM needs to get used to the idea of not having you on tap.

I have taken a stand! Youngest daughter needs to go to Scotland to look around her chosen University and a parent is expected to accompany. Although my middle daughter is home and has already said that she will stay with mum for a couple of weekends we can't be sure she will not be needed in work. Although mum "will be fine on her own" and "doesn't need anyone checking on her" she has agreed to go and stay the weekend with my cousin. So my daughter will get her up and sorted, my cousin will collect her at lunch time on the Friday and bring her home on Sunday evening.

Cousin lives locally and invites mum to hers for lunch every week so mum is reasonably comfortable there although "she hates to be any bother to them". I am so looking forward to going away and having an evening on my own in a hotel room with a good book!

Morning all

Just wanted to ask something

A couple of posters mentioned supporting charities like Dignity in Dying.

If you are involved at a local level, what actually happens, do they want help with lobbying etc?

Thanks.

Well, they all sound like interesting conversations 😱

I had a proper chat with mum today. Nothing changes really. I can see how much she missed me. I had to say I did too, whereas really it’s been great to have a break.

For any Fleabag fans, I think I have summed up my own elderly experience in this. I’m going to stop going to church now. It’s too weird, as an atheist, and while I have appreciated them, it’s time for me to move on and handle things more realistically and stoically.

It’s currently like having a Daily Mail columnist living with me. “Brexit is wonderful, the past was amazing and everything now (music, tv, books, the news etc is terrible). Young people are too dependent on debt and don’t know how to save. We should all make do and mend etc. In the old days everything was in black and white and you could leave your doors open all day. I’m not being racist or anything but.... #metoo has made it impossible for me to chat up women”
In the 80’s she was a lefty feminist!

Every day I’m not at work, whilst DS is at school I have devoted myself entirely to sorting out her admin, the mess my StepDad left behind AND doing up her house ready for her to move in. And she will still find something to have a panic attack about, today it’s her tax return for NEXT year, which can’t even be started until April. Not the fucking bills that need paying now. I think she hates me tbh.

IIRC your father was a delight and will be much missed.
But your mother is not an easy person to deal with it, have I remembered correctly?

You just summed it up perfectly. wry smile

Thanks for the condolences (ditto @thesandwich)

Mere oh dear. I can't be in a room with an angry person either!

So it was very simple, worryingly so! DH is having one of those days. He's already raged about two articles in a magazine he's reading. I've escaped and left him to it. I don't like having conversations before 11am, let alone someone raging in the same room as me.

Sinister oh dear. Who’s she arguing with?

I’m currently hiding upstairs whilst my DM have a pointless argument about tax returns for... next year

Mere oh yes, I didn’t answer and she didn’t expect it, I just had so much rage yesterday!

Thank you re the birthday.

She didn’t manage to text so of course phoned while I was at work. "Mum - if I'm at work I won't be able to reply, and if I'm at home I may not hear my phone, but I can always tell who has rung me, so as long as I see that you've phoned, I'll know you're OK".

hairbrush I've kept a diary since 2017, major events in 2017-18, daily since Jan 2019, and it has been invaluable for talking to medics and carers, applying for attendance allowance. I summarise every meeting with Dad, and and every interaction with carers and GPs.

autumn I'm nearly 70! Don't panic - I think you'll be free well before then. Happy birthday for next week

bring good to see you... sorry you are going through this.
yolo you did what you could with what you knew- and how is dh now?
rose I understand what you are saying- and you do need to step back and protect yourself.
Your dm is working things through.... she’s ok so let her get on with stuff.

bringinsexyback - sorry to hear that.

IIRC your father was a delight and will be much missed.

But your mother is not an easy person to deal with it, have I remembered correctly?

Thought I'd reconnect, although I have limited time to post these days, because people have been very kind to me on here and I wanted to update. Those who have read my posts in the past may recall that my parents lived with me and DH. Sadly my dad passed at the end of August, of multiple organ failure. We are all sort-of coping and I'm giving my mum as much support as I can but my fears that she may have dementia are increasing and she is in total denial about it, either cries or turns nasty if the subject of her extremely unreliable memory is ever broached, however gently. No rest for the wicked, huh. wry smile

yolo "I think your dad would have known you were there, I dont think you need to worry whether it made things worse - you clearly both loved each other very much."

um, no and no! Bless him, but he wouldn't mind me telling the truth. There's loving a parent and there's REALLY loving a parent, do you know what I mean?

Good bloke - but er, no, certainly not the loss some people have.

sorry I'm thinking aloud....

perhaps my next step is to feign incompetence. It is going to confuse her. But one of the issues is getting rid of the moutain of shite dad accumulated. I would actually rather everything just went in a skip when mum either leaves the house or leaves the world, but because she wanted to sort it bit by bit, I said I'd help.

now, in proportional terms, I think we've cleared about 2 soup bowls out of a North Sea, I might start saying "I don't know what to do with this".

She gets very worked up about some of it going to charity, and goes through every tiny note he left in case it's important when it's literally a calculation of what he needed to pay back a car loan in 1963.

from now on she needs to do this alone.

tbh I liked chucking stuff out as to me it's chucking out a past that belongs to someone else, but of course she thinks, in the pile of crap, there might be something that means something to her. There might.

but if I keep looking at it, I'm going to lose my mind.