So bloody exhausted waiting for someone to die 2

Just googled and yes, it definitely appears to be a thing. Caregiver shortens your own life.

Was thinking about this thread and patterns within my own family.
Mum's side
Great grandmother lived into her 90s with dementia and other health conditions. Lived alone with my nan visiting, then moved in with my nan. This was early 1980s. My nan died about five/six years after her mum. No carers really needed.
My mum (who was a shit mother to me) is in her 80s, multiple health conditions, no dementia though. I'd be very surprised if she didn't live at least another decade with carers.

My dads side.
I only ever remember his mum/my other nan being bed/chair bound and being looked after for years by my dad's sister who lived with her mum. Dad's sister didn't work, never married, and was a full time carer to their mum. When their mum died, my dad became his sisters carer as by now she had all kinds of health conditions as well. She also died about five/six years after her mum.

I never had a grandad, they all died before I was born. There's only me and my mum left in my family and thankfully she lives at the opposite end of the country to be so my caring duties are limited. My husband has two elderly women (his mum and her sister) he will be responsible for. They are also at the opposite end of the country though. All three of these women are in there 80s with very poor health.

I think there is a pattern of carers dying early.

@popularinthe80s I haven't spoken to my gp about this, but I am on 2 types of anti depressants, one is to help me stay asleep (insomniac)
This has triggered my issue with food, to the point I've dropped at least 2 dress sizes.
My boss asked me if IM ok as every time she asks how things are I assume she's asking about DF.
I practice yoga and write in a journal each day.
I've noticed I've become really obsessive about cleaning, I keep nagging at him to tidy up after himself as I'm fed up of clearing up after not only DD but now DF.
I'm sick to death of people telling me how well I'm doing and to 'keep going'. These are generally the people who haven't got a fucking clue what it's really like.

I also find a lot of people like to offer advice but when it comes to physically helping, they aren't available.
I wasn't able to visit my relatives this Christmas like I'd planned because no one would come and dad-sit. He said he would be fine on his own but the man nearly burnt the house down the other day, ok it was just a mince pie left in the microwave that he had put on for half an hour and 'forgot about'. The house was full of smoke.
When I told him I wasn't going away, he said he was looking forward to some time to himself......charming eh?

If I ever try and explain to him that X is annoying me and can he please do Y, he will deny or argue the point. It's more effort that it's worth so I just get on with it.

I want to be happy and remember these last few months in a good light, but it feels never ending & im slowly crumbling away.

This post is a life line.

A year on from our nightmare Christmas things were so much better this year. Boxing day last year DM walked out leaving DF alone as she couldn't take the physical threats, sundowning and shadowing anymore. She phoned every family member telling us all she wanted to die. DF in her absence wandered out the house into an elderly neighbours looking for DM and searched her house. Christmas day had been miserable and DM began asking us to not visit as it sent DF into a rage.

Today was calm but strange as you can't help but remember what we all went through last year.

I'm taking DM home tomorrow as she's been visiting with us and my DD is taking her to visit DF in the care home, I don't want too see him over Christmas I can't explain why but I'm just going with how I'm feeling.

@JellyWellyBoots , that sounds hellish. I'm so sorry. I want to offer solutions, but I know that all of us here feel bombarded by solutions from 'fixers' who have no idea of how complex things are.
So I am asking a few questions but I fully appreciate that you will have probably been through these options already:
Have you spoken to your GP about how you're feeling? What you're feeling is completely understandable. I don't mean a pill will take it all away. But it might open up a conversation.
Are you registered with your dad's GP as his carer? I don't know if this is universal, but I found that when I had that piece of the jigsaw sorted, the surgery was more interested in my wellbeing, if only to ensure I would be there for my mum.
Last (possibly annoying) question - are you doing anything at all to look after yourself? When people blithely say, look after yourself, I often respond by punching them in the face
In my mind.
However I have a tiny routine that helps: I set an alarm and I have 10 minutes alone with a podcast. If mum needs me in that ten minutes, then it gets rescheduled but it happens.
I'm sure other people will be along with more concretely helpful suggestions later but in the meantime, we hear you.

Can I ask why?

I care for my father, not by choice. I was kind of tricked into it.
My sister was meant to be his full time carer as I have a job & a young daughter to focus on. She let me down in a big way & im doing it all on my own with no support.

I'm extremely depressed and exhausted.
I'm doing everything for someone who I spent years trying to get away from. I built a life of my own and he's here with his feet under the table, taking up all my space. He has his dog at mine too, the hair makes me so low because I have to hoover every single day, it gets everywhere! He's dying so I wasn't going to deny him his animal but at the same time I regret it.
Had I known the impact this would have had on myself and my child, I would have said absolutely no in the first place.

He's not like my dad anymore, he's turned into a miserable old man. Even his breathing gets under my skin, he's always in the way. It's so cramped in my house now.

I've reached out for help but he isn't considered ill enough to be eligible.

I've asked family and friends for help, or to have him stay a couple of nights to give me a break, no one wants to help.

I know it's not forever, but it's hard to stay positive when your in the thick of it.

I've become isolated from friends, I've lost weight, I've started self medicating.

I just don't know how to keep going

Have you actually bothered to read any of this thread or the previous one, or have you just jumped in with your judgmental comment?

And yet you love commenting on these threads particularly 🤔

Hi, we had a care agency involved for quite a while (since 2019) providing regular daily visits, and they also offer live-in care. When it became clear that it was that or a care home MIL agreed to have someone live in. This is all self-funded: fortunately MIL is comfortably off, because I don’t think we would’ve had a prayer of getting the present package through the local authority.

Sorry, it was @NefretForth who I meant to tag 😳

@ADCisntme no live in carers.

How did you get the live in cater? Is it privately funded?

DM is here for Christmas. She has deteriorate mentally and physically since the end of No ember. She finds it hard to walk unaided. Etc etc. you k kw the drill.

We will go into 2024 thankful that we are now only being pulled in one direction. I don't think we could have coped much longer with 4 parents between us all with severe and increasing care needs, 2 an hour away in one direction and 2 an hour away in the opposite direction. Now it's just mum with her alzheimers who could go on for years yet (we are already 9 years into the care journey).

Just packing up to go and do Christmas at MIL’s. One day I will get to cook Christmas dinner in my own kitchen, but that day is not yet. We can’t stay with her any more- she’s moved downstairs and has a live-in carer - so will head over there with all the stuff, prep the veg and leave it all ready in her kitchen, and then spend the night in a hotel and go over there and cook lunch on Christmas morning. I was up till 12.30 wrapping stocking presents for DD and decorating the cake: some Christmases I manage to be more organised, but not this one!

@MereDintofPandiculation I understand.
It's hard for all of us. It's still hard for you.

Not keeping people alive against their wishes would be a help

Or giving them antibiotics for infections when they're dying of dementia.

There's a reason why pneumonia was dubbed "the old man's friend".

Read the thread before making ill thought-out comments.

More technology (wearable health monitors, sensors to see if elderly person is moving around), robots, maybe not for washing but for company, may help. Not keeping people alive against their wishes would be a help. And at the other end, prioritising stuff that keeps people active and not an undue burden - it’s short-sighted that the first operations to be ditched are hip replacements and cataract ops. Shifting medicine from preservation of life to preservation of quality of life. The “unhealthy” portion of life has increased along with the increase in life expectancy.

@SierraSapphire It’s not just the big things. Never being able to sit down with DH watching the tv and just relax. Thank goodness for nursing homes. Now I only get the big calls “we’re waiting for the ambulance” not “I cannot receive or send emails and we’re Completely Out Of Communication “.

With demographic changes coming, unfortunately, elderly care is all going to get worse. We have a rapidly aging world and even if every penny is thrown at the elderly, there just aren't going to be the people to do the care. Predictions are that in Italy (for example) if current trends continue, by 2050 there will be one worker for one retired person.

@popularinthe80s I’m not sure where my feelings are at the moment. I’m off the hook to a large part, DF is coming up 5 years in a nursing home. So someone else is doing the heavy lifting. So it’s not so difficult for me

What a pity you haven’t read the thread and understood what it is about. Or, apparently, anything else on the board.

What a horrible thread title

Yeah, it's the unpredictability of it all that gets me it's impossible to look forward to anything because you're just waiting for something to happen that is going to spoil it. DD and I have a holiday planned to New York, it's supposed to be a post-cancer celebration, but I'm just not convinced it's going to happen because of my DM's emergencies, so I've got none of the usual excitement that you'd have, I'm not going to believe it until we're actually on the plane! Trying to get my business thriving again feels the same, when we're in a crisis phase, I just become so flaky, I feel terrible about letting people down and I'm scared about taking on work because I'm not convinced it's going to happen.

I told DD that I was happy to sign something now to say she could put me into a care home whenever she wanted! She said she wasn't worried because she felt confident that I would move into appropriate accommodation before we got to crisis point. I have always been happy about reaching out for help whereas my mother is very private. My relationship with DD is very different to from my relationship with my own mum, who I never had a great relationship with.