The Cockroach cafe -new look for spring 2021

@MrsRussell are you actually me from 10 years ago? I am 60 and only just coming to the realisation that my 84 year old mother is making unreasonable demands on me and has done for ever. I have always had to contact her a couple of times a day - it was one thing if she was looking after my children but totally unnecessary otherwise.

With lectures and nagging from friends I am trying to change my mindset but it is so hard to stop doing something that is expected.

Mum is still in hospital, I am returning to planet earth and preparing for another "new normal" when mum gets home. She rang me this morning and said she wanted some of those books "you know the ones. You like them and so does Dave [my uncle]" We established that she wants audio books. So we did a quick run into town and found a second hand cd player and then dashed to the library to find some books.

I'm not seeing her today because it would have meant a three hour trip by bus and no way could I have done that and sorted out the cd player etc. My cousin is coming to collect the stuff to take to her and the round trip will take less than an hour.

Aaaaand I claim my prize!!!
Just had the paramedic phone call.

Cross-posted with you yesterday Exexpat I’m sorry to hear your Dad has died and I hope that later on you’ll be able to remember back to the best times. I understand your concerns over your Mum, best as you say not to make any big changes right now but I would have a Very Firm Plan in your own mind.

Knot my DM currently doesn’t have her own phone at the home so I’ve had brief weekly calls – absolutely all I can stand after the recent rollercoaster. But I’m sending her a mobile, cunningly set up so it’s for me to phone her. Also I daren’t turn mine off when she was at risk in her own home but she’s safe now so I won’t feel at all bothered only turning it on when I want now and not responding til the next time to chat – any urgent comms would come from the home.

Minty I think it’s Mrs. R who maybe needs the burner phone (everything I know about these I learned from Line of Duty and The Shadow Line ). I hope you’re getting some down time. I agree about being an only child – on the one hand it is a big and lonely task but I couldn’t cope with fractious siblings too, it would be great if they were all united and supportive but IME that’s often not the case.

Mrs R You have lots of my sympathy. My experience is entirely that no-one will stop drinking until they decide to and they can’t stop for anyone else and equally that anyone involved with someone still drinking needs to make their own plans. I don’t judge drinkers at all for actually drinking and will support with no conditions but drinkers should make decisions, such as e.g. not to own a car, to remove themselves from situations where they are causing harm and to mitigate damage, if they don’t you must make your own decisions to mitgate their effects on you.

Dint I can see both aspects: I don’t want to travel hundreds of miles each time to see DM but it’s do-able on a monthly basis by train. It would probably be better for her and maybe (or maybe not) less stressful for me if I could see her every week.

But I will be leaving where I live in approximately 2.5 years and my house will need to be sold before then. I will be moving back to the area my DM already lives in. My DM has no health conditions apart from Parkinson’s and general frailty of being 90, she’s on no other meds and gets good health reports apart from the Parkinson’s, so she could be in a care home and maybe later a nursing home longer than average.

Because she has cognitive decline, I’m also trying to weigh the disorientation and upset of moves – where I live is a very different sort of place to where she lives (and has always lived), plus it is very expensive, so she’d go through her money at nearly twice the rate. Plus, Covid restrictions are unpredictable. I won’t be making any decisions in a hurry. She seems happy at the moment being taken care of.

Yes - to be honest (I sound incredibly uncharitable here but I'm trying to be matter of fact about it, rather than emotive) I think it's about coercive control - I am out of her sphere of control for that space of time and she doesn't like it.
I notice I might add that it's now 10.45 and she's not rung up, so clearly not panicking enough not to get sh*tfaced again last night.

It's not normal you know, having to check in. I had this with a mid fifties friend who had to check in when she arrived at work in the morning and again when she got home. It was all to do with her mother's anxiety. I pointed out that I didn't do that with my just twenties son and she had a talk with her mother and stopped doing it. I notice that the world hasn't ended as a result. It wasn't making her mother any less anxious but more anxious. She was waiting for the text, ooh she's late (obviously abducted by aliens/ on fire rather than stuck in traffic) and the routine of living with her phone in her hand, edgy, waiting, was making her feel worse. My friend told her she was being silly and this wasn't going to be happening any more and that was that.

I had an over the fence discussion with one of my mum's neighbours many daughters last week. I think they are a five woman tag team but some of them have had enough and think mum/granny is being unreasonable. One of them has just booked a holiday without consulting the rest of the family (shock, horror). There is falling out as a result of them not all agreeing on what neighbour needs. It's the first time I've been glad that it's just me.

Just a 50 year old woman who's supposed to ring mummy and let her know she's home safe every time she goes out.

I know...it's infuriating. Actually it's one area where FB is helpful. If we go away or on a day out further afield, I'll check in regularly so she can see I'm still alive without me having to deal with her personally.

We all have a code 'AP&C' (all present and correct) that I'll text when I get home late so it's not disruptive but she can check and see I'm home.

It's still totally bloody unnecessary.

@MrsRussell I increasingly feel the same about being an only child. It's a fuckton of work but barely anyone I know with siblings has found them helpful in this scenario.

Brothers her a particularly bad rap, but I have a friend who is one of 5 sisters and it was nightmare when her dad was diagnosed with terminal cancer at the same time as her mum started going downhill with cognitive decline. 2 lived overseas so had to be accommodated when they came over, the eldest (who was least involved as she lives on the other side of the world) tried to take over everything, one was completely in denial about what was happening, 2 of them weren't speaking to each other already.

The only time it's got to me was when dad was in hospital after his fall. There was a gent on the ward having a hip replacement after a fall and he had two sons and two daughters in their late 30s/early 40s who tag-teamed visiting him and looking after their mum for the duration he was in there.

Seeing them all together sorting stuff out and supporting each other after weeks of battling with doctors and visiting dad on lunchbreaks and after work to make sure he was fed and watered absolutely broke me on one occasion. I remember making it to the lift and just sobbing all the way out to the car.

These days, like you, I think thank God that's another complication I don't have to contend with.

Exactly! We all work ft, even Dc has a summer job but we change the lightbulbs and mow the lawn whilst the others have tea. Also, she will never phone me as she says I’m too busy but if I don’t phone as expected I get the snippy treatment and the list of chores before a how are you…..she freely phones my sibling.
It really isn’t healthy when I see it written down.
For the full picture, my in laws live closer to me and she seems to think I do everything for them, I really don’t as they pay for a cleaner and gardening help etc. and although I do help, it is an equal share with my husband’s family and we are dealing with dementia in this case. Their house is suitable for elderly living, we are more open about things and it is not so draining.
I bet that didn’t make any sense, just venting and I’ll be nice and calm for work this morning.
Have a good week all.

Bloody hell I'm lucky I'm an only child - at least I don't have THAT power dynamic to add into the mix!
Just a 50 year old woman who's supposed to ring mummy and let her know she's home safe every time she goes out. Think mummy can do one, actually, but am waiting for the hysterical "oh thank God you're safe" conversation later.
Yup, I was not burned to death in some freak exploding-engine accident, mowed down by a runaway little grey Fergie, or abducted by aliens, ten miles away from my house.

DM helpfully suggests to me that I get my DCs to do some of the tasks she sets, anything to avoid her getting my DB to do anything, given that 'he works' (as do I, btw).

Hi knot, I can identify with that. It made me smile as that is exactly how it works!

@exexpat I'm so sorry for your loss...do take care of yourself...it's a very surreal and exhausting time

At the moment she seems to think that she works there and if she's happy with that then it works for me.

@Knotaknitter my dad was the opposite...he went through phases when he was at home when he though he was in the care home and that mum and I were the nurse/cook!

@BinaryDot that must be so frustrating...could you get a cheap 'burner phone' and give that number to your mum?

Alas mine is au fait with social media, so I tend to get a lengthy diatribe on FB Messenger when I 'abandon' her for the day .

Baroness It's because yours are seen as safe and reliable? I am seen as capable of anything whereas The Family are delicate flowers. Once I was just on my way out of the door - could I change the sheets? Her brother and SIL had been the day before and her daughter was due the next day so I suggested that dear daughter could do it. MIL was shocked that I would suggest it, would daughter be able to manage it? I had to point out that daughter was in possession of a double bed of her own and had been changing the sheets on that for the last thirty years. I don't know whether I'm the char woman and the others are upstairs servants but there are certain jobs that are definitely mine. They are there for tea and sympathy and I'm there to work. No tea for me.

MrsRussell I'm loving mum not having access to a phone. I'd go out and have 11 messages on the landline and I'd have to listen to them in case one of them was not mum. In the last two weeks I've had one call on it, I'm now considering ditching it all together.

PS, my DC not complaining but it just seems it is always my side that at expected to do so.

Hugs to you all so sorry for your loss expat.

I know it’s trivial but I’m so pissed off, my dc been asked to help my parents as I’m away for the weekend, but siblings dc are in the same town, also visited today but not asked to help as they have busy lives, whereas my visiting DC obviously doesn’t. Why oh why am I, and DC seen as the help?

I know I said I wouldn't but I had to share this somewhere - I saw the bloody woman on Friday, pissed as a fart, I said we had plans for the weekend - food festival on Saturday and a steam rally today.
And so today - while the phone was set to Do Not Disturb, thank God - she has left SEVEN messages.
Tomorrow I shall delete the whole boiling lot unheard but WTAF??? And it'll all be whiny "I'm panicking now, I need you to ring me back" crap even though she knows we were going out for the day,, which is exactly why I'm not going to listen to them till tomorrow.

She moans when her neighbour does it to her, mind you, and says it's stalking.

Exexpat I am sorry that the end has come for your dad. I hope that you have many happy memories to sustain you and that you forget quickly about the grim bits.

BinaryDot I'm in the same position with mum, self funding and officially there until she recovers enough to go home but that's not going to happen. I don't believe she has the capacity to take a decision on her care but I'm hoping that it won't come to that. At the moment she seems to think that she works there and if she's happy with that then it works for me. I am in the fortunate position of having a joint bank account with mum so haven't had to wave the LPA yet. That was something she did years ago, we were in the bank for something else and she did her little old lady impression (think Joan Hickson as Miss Marple) and created a joint account without an appointment or me having anything like id.

Sorry for your loss expat

@exepat I am sorry 🌺🌺

@BinaryDot then you have my utmost respect, because I know how hard she has found it - and even at so much cost, with DM it's STILL every other bugger's fault. And yes, absolutely it is my life and she has no right to it, but very specifically she has no right to demand to play out the same scenarios that saw me a neglected and to a degree abused, child, with my son. As they say in Norfolk, her can bugger off with that.

@exexpat sorry for your loss. Take care of yourself x

Knot I imagine the Bad Daughters' Bench like the tiered rows of seats spreading out to infinity in the heaven scenes in A Matter of Life and Death. I am very glad you are stepping back and taking some of your life back.

Hairbrush the situation you are in is unsustainable, as others have said you (and other people on your behalf) have to imprint this on the health and care agencies - they have the statutory duty of care and cannot force that duty on you against what you are willing and able to do. That you are stressed enough to have experienced amnesia is serious and I would be getting my own GP etc on side asap.

Mrs R - I have had alcohol addiction in my past and have been alcohol-free for many years - I know from experience that alcoholics can very much make choices, regardless of whether it feels like a choice. We make them all the time and sometimes we make a choice not to stop drinking. You have no obligation to cope with that decision on her behalf. Your life is important, it does not come second to hers.

Minty I hope you are feeling OK, well done for blanking that voice.

I have had a bit of a whirlwind of going up and down the country. The short version is that all the efforts to put posh carer agency in place for DM were soon overtaken by it being clear that she wasn't coping, even with 4 visits a day, due to her physical disability and - frankly - her cognitive decline. So she is now in a posh care home, officially for a fixed period but it needs to be permanent. I am wrestling with her banks / building societies despite having full PoA I have been put through hoops and needless delays. I won't support any professional who attempts to send her home, given how she was in her last couple of weeks there but I don't think that will arise, and one magic is that she is self-funding, which removes some obstacles as in all unequal systems. In a few weeks I may have to make some decisions about whether she ought to come to a home near me, one big problem with that being that I only temporarily live here and will be leaving for good in just over 2 years. Hmm.

DF died yesterday morning, after a couple of days of gradually fading away on palliative care. It was a relief all round, to be honest - after withstanding at least twenty years of disability and serious health problems, the last six months were horrible even by those standards, and he had definitely had enough of hospitals and pain and indignity and not being able to go home.

I now have all the funeral planning and probate bureaucracy to deal with, but I can cope with that. More of a worry is almost equally frail and disabled DM, alone in a huge and unsuitable house, already prone to falls even without the almost a bottle of wine a night she seems to be drinking at the moment, judging by the speed at which her recycling bin fills up. I am hoping that within a few months I can persuade her into some kind of sheltered flat, but now is probably not the moment.

Knot your mum sounds so similar to mine it's uncanny...I have no idea how you cope with both her and MIL that needs attention.

MrsR don't feel bad...I've turned off my mobile and unplugged the house phone before now. And when mum starts one of her self-pitying/emotional blackmailing/obsessing about the carer rants these days I general make one attempt to steer the convo in a different direction, and if that fails I leave.

I called her when we got home yesterday and she was okay, but she was very down and tearful at gone 10pm last night. I blanked the voice in my head saying 'you must rush round there immediately' and did my best over the phone, then went back to me gin and Netflix.

Have had a long chat with her best mate this morning...we're so lucky that both our closest friends are absolute legends.