🪳 Cockroach Café Spring 2024 🪳 🪳

We’re pootling here. FIL is claiming to be all but immobile (selective competence is the phrase I saw on here, always seems able to get to the biscuit tin), has an infection from refusing to (be) wash(ed) that could well lead to amputation. MIL’s Alzheimer’s is cruelly pressing on, she’s convinced FIL is a nun from a childhood hospital stay and desperately tries to escape back to her mum. The wandering is our main concern, so DH is fitting a new fence and gate this week as she seems to have a keyless means of getting out of the house.

Suggestions for how I should reorganise my house so that she can stay for periods of time (basically she's trying to turf my child out of their bedroom so she can have it). NO.
Ha, I feel your pain. My eldest is about to go to uni so naturally his room is free for the taking…

@funnelfan sadly you’re in good company. If you haven’t already please don’t mention your reduced hours. If she thinks you’re at work you can get that break. I hope the sertraline works for you.

@funnelfan oh goodness it is such an easy trap to fall into isn’t it. Do you have any support or options to het in help so your visits are more about having time together as opposed to doing tasks?

Todays weekly visit was ok - no floods to mop up but she had a bloody nose which she says she got when she got up to go to the toilet last night and fell over. Of course she wasn’t using her walker.

I’m one week into taking sertraline for anxiety after exhausting all other non-medication options. And this week I start working reduced hours to try and reclaim some kind of work-life balance. I’m trying hard to fight against the cliche of the middle aged woman giving up her life, career and health to caring reproducibilities, but I seem to be falling into the trap we all know is there anyway.

Just sending a general hug to everyone on here coping with so many difficulties and so much heartache. I’ve made the journey and am on the other side now but I feel for you. It’s unbelievably hard.

@NefretForth oh please have a hug. It’s awful hearing lovely people explain how stretched they are. I’m unable to help but utterly understand

I’m sorry everyone is going through so much (particularly those with manipulative relatives- my DGM was like that and it was exhausting and enraging, and I wasn’t even the main target).

A colleague of mine (with whom I have had a few long chats about caring for our respective elderly relatives) reckons the collective nouns are ‘a duty of daughters’ and ‘a shirk of sons’. She has a goldenballs brother and is carrying the load along with a full-time demanding job, and I can really see the toll it’s taking on her.

I haven’t posted for a while as there’s nothing to tell and it’s all too grim. MIL no longer recognises me or DD, and is begging to be allowed to die. It’s horrible (especially for DH and BIL) and I see no reason why it won’t go on for years. Honestly, if I didn’t have DD I’d probably top myself now to be sure of not ending up like that.

Ah, Elevenerife syndrome. If you've been to Tenerife, they have to go one better.

@BlueLegume I recognise that bit about the blacker cat except it would be my goldenballs brother she tells me has the blackest cat.

Sorry to hear you’re quietly steaming, @EmotionalBlackmail , and no wonder - that sounds so frustrating. I’ve often seen ‘grey rock’ recommended on here as a good technique to aim for, but I can’t claim I’m very good at it!

I didn’t have this particular problem with my DM, thankfully, but I do have a sibling who was pretty oblivious to the amount of ‘looking after’ I did. There was rarely any acknowledgment. He once did take two days off work when DM was unexpectedly ill and I literally could not drop everything and rush up there until the end of the week - then he told me his boss had had ‘the talk’ with him to say it was OK just this once but if it happened again he’d have to think about some other solution for his mother to be looked after 🤔 After 2 days! At this point I’d spent over 10 years using more or less all my free time travelling up and down to be with DM. I also lived 4 hours away and he lived, erm, 20 minutes. Sigh.

(I should say that DM was always very grateful to me for being there. So there is that).

@EmotionalBlackmail goodness sounds so familiar. Yes to the bingo - I do that. Usually, I haven’t left the house or seen anyone since you last came. Usually the day after I have visited - also a lie as I have one of her neighbours keep an eye on her and regularly the minute I have left I will get a message from neighbour checking I am ok as she knows my mother is toxic and also telling me she has just gone out. Unfortunately mother has alienated everyone friends and family with her attitude - always ‘I just tell it as it is’ has worn people down as it is just rudeness. It is obvious that people stuck around for our Dad’s sake but now he is in nursing care they clearly don’t feel they need to/want to. It is exhausting. Absolutely resonate with ‘so and sos son visits every day and takes Mrs X out shopping/for lunch ‘etc etc. Passive aggressive digs at me. It is really taking its toll on me at the minute. Nothing is ever right, but then it never has been. A wise person told me recently about black catting. As in if you tell my mother you had a black cat hers would be blacker!!

@BlueLegume well that sounds extremely manipulative for a start! It doesn't sound like getting some shopping in is a problem for her...

Mine does theatrical moaning and groaning when moving around. Getting up from a chair is made to sound like a major endeavour. Trouble is, I've realised she only does this when I'm around. If she has friends (or Goldenballs) around she's able to get up and about without much effort and definitely no sound effects!

"Well I can't walk far/do much/see people these days". When I know she's had friends to stay and they've spent the day out and about exploring on foot and by car. She doesn't understand social media so has no idea I can see from her friends' feeds evidence of this!

"I'm finding it hard to do the cooking". Again, she managed to feed friends meals for several days.

Suggestions for how I should reorganise my house so that she can stay for periods of time (basically she's trying to turf my child out of their bedroom so she can have it). NO.

Many many comments about how maternal a female relative of similar age to me is, what a wonderful job she does parenting. This is because I work FT and has nothing to do with my child, it's about not being available all day everyday to run around after her.

"Next door neighbour's daughter visits every weekend to take her shopping!"

Somebody on here a while ago suggested observing them like a lab rat to help with not getting overwrought by these situations. Since I started doing that I've noticed all sorts. I also have a game of "bingo" running in my head which helps too!

@EmotionalBlackmail sorry to read your recent post. Can I ask how does the manipulation play out? My mother does manipulate but at times I worry I am imagining it and it is me reading between the lines of the language she uses. An example being I filled her freezer with a good selection of things but she then told me she didn’t trust the freezer anymore so I ended up going to her place every other day with fresh stuff. A relative then told me they had seen her in the supermarket buying food. She tells me she cannot go shopping anymore.

Just back from a visit to my more annoying relative and feeling riled. I was hoping it would be some
breathing space for a while!

Yet more manipulation, more guilt tripping. Goldenballs sibling still shining brightly and still useless.

Striking, I said on your other thread, what you are doing is too much and not sustainable. You are providing everything your family member wants. Provide only what they need. Did you pursue any of the suggested avenues for support?

Of course it's not unreasonable, @Strikingthebalance .Is this likely to go on for long? You seem to be talking pretty extensive care, really.

Need a little moan. Currently helping a family member recover from surgery. This currently involves all personal care, meals, changing the commode, general household jobs and everything else in between! I am sharing parts of it with another family member.
I’ve asked for 2 morning a week off from the 6am get up (another family member will do these 2 mornings). This has not been well received and I’ve been informed that if I went to bed earlier then I would be able to manage the 6am get ups no problem. It’s an emotional break as much as physical one. I have tried to explain it’s not about what time I go to bed, it’s that I want to lay in till 7/8am once in a while which I don’t think is unreasonable but maybe it is. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Thank you everyone. I'm out of the UK at the moment but think I can get a flight sorted.
We had the siblings talk yesterday, this is it etc, feeling OK this morning.

@obelism I understand...what @bluelegume said is true...im sure you did enough at the time that felt right for you and your DM. I am in this dilemma now. I'm trying to hang on to some kind of normality for my own mental wellbeing whilst sorting stuff for my elderly parents so I have to say No sometimes and have reduced visits as a consequence. I know, when the time comes and they die, I'll say that I didn't do enough but right now, it feels I do too much as my mental health is starting to suffer. Its so hard. Sending you a hug 🫂

So sorry @ofcourseyes...hope you make it to see him.

@ofcourseyes as others have said thinking about you and please come back if you need to.

@ofcourseyes Such a hard time for you. We're all here if you need that hand hold.

@ofcourseyes also holding your hand here. It must be a shock for you. I hope you can get there to be with him xx

@BestIsWest @Obelism thank you xx

Sending a quiet handhold @ofcourseyes