So bloody exhausted waiting for someone to die 2

I think I've reached my limit.
Can't bring myself to leave the house, struggled to even take the dog for a walk. Eaten about 3 proper meals since Xmas day.
I'm hardly cooking, the house is a mess.

Contacted adult SS's & begged for help.
They are putting dad in respite for 2 weeks.

He thinks I'm kicking him out, his sister has been in contact saying he's unhappy with my decision & she wants me to delay the respite.

No one in the family is helping, yet I'm being made to feel guilty for needing a break.

I have a 6 year old who needs me, & a demanding job to return to on Tuesday.

I've totally fallen apart and it's only been 4 months. They want to bring him back after 2 weeks so I can continue care, I feel duty bound but i don't think I will cope. In fact I know I won't.

This is harder than the newborn stage, & that was fucking hard.
You choose to have a child, so it's your job to look after them.
I didn't choose this & I resent it. I'm angry, so fucking angry all the time.

I hate my life, absolutely hate it. I feel suffocated, Ill from stress.

@JellyWellyBoots 😚

I saw the words 'caring is therapeutic' in big letters on the side of a car parked outside on my road this morning.

I almost choked on my anti depressant.

Yes we could remove the big stone plaque although I'm not sure quite what to do with it. And you're probably right about not breaking the law, though I don't know where it stands if my father broke the law in the first place (which I bet he did). I'm wondering how many people have ever been charged with this particular offence. It's got tragi-comic potential.

Who knew?

But really, it's just more effing admin. That's all I do. It's so thankless and futile. Wasted hours with nothing to show for it. My mother once sniffily said 'well I suppose you visit' when we were trying to convey that we were looking after her and would continue to do so. Grrrr.

Personally I would rather just leave them than knowingly break the law myself by digging them up.

@Valleyofthedollymix can you not remove the stone plaque prior to any sale and just leave them buried? Are they likely to be discovered at any point? If the urn is just wood and ashes it will eventually decompose anyway.

Would anyone know if you just dug them.up?

From my limited research, you're fine if you scatter ashes. However if you bury them in an urn, as my parents did with my GFs, then in order to move them you have to apply for an exhumation licence.

They died almost 40 years ago! What would you do? None of us were close to them (v posh, born at the turn of the century, right wing, racist etc). I'm annoyed at my father's selfishness to know that he needed to do something and then do nothing. We're having to wade through the bureaucracy and it might end up costing ££££s. I mean deathmin for your parents is bad enough, but for your parents' parents who died last century...

At the risk of sounding like a terrible person, I'm tempted to get an extra strong bin bag and go to the big refuse centre. I doubt Dad did the correct exhumation order when he moved them in the first place.

At least ILs made their wishes clear. I'm sure mum and dad discussed what they wanted but mum doesn't have a scooby anymore. She couldn't even name a single piece of music dad liked when we were sorting his funeral.

@Valleyofthedollymix my dad has scattered my mum's ashes in the garden, she loved the garden but he is in his 90's the house most likely to be sold when the time comes. It will give him comfort for the time he has left but no one knows what his wishes are.

Stands up whopping and clapping for @Tara336 . It worked!

Note to future self: make all your wishes for end-of-life care, funerals, burials and headstones as clear and as pre-organised as possible. Currently trying to sort out my dad's interment. He was an artist who was obsessed with fonts - I knew what serif meant before I knew how to read. So I feel like I need to do well by him, but why didn't he leave any preferences? These decisions are so hard.

In tandem, we're having to work out where and how to bury our grandparents. My grandfather built his wife a totally vainglorious temple in my parents' then garden. When they moved house, my parents dumped the ashes and the stone plaque at the bottom of their new garden. For 20 years, Dad kept saying, oh I really should do something about that. Argggh.

Well done, @Tara336

@binkie163 had another call about it today and apparently DF can still have his full state pension as he's in care. Standing my ground obviously worked as DM sat on phone to DWP this morning to sort it. She complained how long the call wait was, how many options she had to ho through first etc and I just said well that's why I cant help anymore I have a job and your more then capable.

@binkie163 so sad. You can't do it because you don't have authority. What a pity. 😁

@Valleyofthedollymix similar here, mum died recently, she made siblings executor and poa but of course they hadn't called anyone or dealt with paperwork. So pension etc overpaid my dad was hysterical and obviously wanting me to deal with it.....errrr I wasn't good enough to be poa or executor so not actually my problem.
It does make me feel mean but I am always expected to sort shit out.

I took DM to an appointment with her consultant this week and the consultant asked us if we had DNR in place. They recommended it on the basis that mum is so frail that “it wouldn’t work” but by default it would be carried out unless we’d instructed otherwise.

DB and I are in agreement that if her heart stops or she stops breathing then that’s just nature taking its course on an elderly frail woman. DM won’t engage in a conversation about it and the consultant said her capacity wasn’t there for the conversation so I’ve been directed towards her GP to get the paperwork sorted. Another job to add to the list…

Great post. So true.

My DM had been a nurse latterly in a geriatric ward. She had also worked in a Care Home - so lots of experience of death and dying but when she went into a Care Home herself refused to sign a DNR form which the Care Home insisted on. She was mentally alert but physically very limited and frail. 88 years old.

And this -They went on to say that the affect on families should NEVER be a factor. They always then go on to talk about some fantasy world were care is perfect and plentiful.
I think family should be considered but much of the distress for families is the poor care the dying relative is receiving - not cruel but not kind. AND the patient is often distressed.

@Valleyofthedollymix I'm sticking with putting myself first. DM was on the phone fretting about DF pension today and how it may be taken away as he's in a care home now i wished her well with sorting it and changed the subject. Old me would have said give me the details I'll.sort it...

@StiffyByngsDogBartholomew start your sandwich book! We would all read it, and thousands of women across the country
And yes yes to the comment upthread about this being a feminist issue
We need a campaign. With articulate, connected spokeswomen.

@StiffyByngsDogBartholomew I got really good advice from a woman who'd gone to therapy to know how to deal with her demanding mother who had never been a great parent anyway. The therapist said, you have to treat it like a job - don't expect to enjoy it, take away the emotion and be ruthless about ringfencing. Say to yourself that the 'office' is only allowed to call you between 6-7pm in the evening and you're only on site one day a fortnight (or whatever works for you).

I have a friend who is constantly posting photos of her amazing 90-year-old mother doing amazing things (going in a balloon! Dancing at a gig! Drinking cocktails!) who also lives so frugally that she gifts her children excess income every month and has done all her tax planning in advance. There are four of us on this particular group chat - her, me, one whose mum died last year and wrote a vindicative will and one whose mum died of dementia a decade ago.

I felt mean but eventually I had to say, I know your mother's brilliance doesn't make my mother any worse and I should be able to celebrate it, but I'm not sure this is the appropriate forum.

So it's possible to have live-parent envy too.