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Elderly parents
Original poster

Struggling to cope with personality changes and parental dynamic

34 replies

rookiemere · 08/02/2026 11:21

Apologies in advance if this is long but I want to give as much detail as I can.

DPs are very elderly- DF92 and DM87. I am an only DC and live an hour away. Until 10 months ago they were doing “ok”. We would visit fortnightly and do things like change light bulbs and I would do a bit of light cleaning. DM has full attendance allowance because of macular degeneration and osteoporosis. DF has diabetes, crohns disease and memory loss. They steadfastly refused to get much in the way of adaptations such as walk in shower or a much needed cleaner.

10 months ago DM had a fall and has been more or less bedridden since. Her speech has become very poor - it was getting worse previously and I assume she has had a number of mini strokes. As we are in Scotland she gets free home carers 4 times a day. She uses a catheter now. I took her to the neurologist twice and he assumes she has some form of dementia. She is still fairly cognisant in lots of ways but now gets fixated over tiny things and has mostly lost her previously kindly personality and is very demanding and exacting about all the paperwork and things round the house she expects me to do.

DF is losing his memory but is absolutely adamant he wants to stay at home. Thankfully no longer driving so has a list of places he wants to go to when we come up. Not sure on his capacity to carry out daily tasks if DM or carers weren’t there to remind him. He has a district nurse giving him his insulin each day because he was forgetting to take it.

They shout at each other a lot now because DF struggles to understand DM and DF is effectively her carer. I have spoken to social services and the carers are meant to prepare the meals not DF but he won’t let them. I managed to persuade them to get a cleaner once a week so the house is not dreadful although neither she nor the carers appear to be on top of the out of date food in the fridge.

They have absolutely pots of money but fiercely resistant to spending it on care, although personally generous with us. I think they would be better off getting rid of the council carers and paying for longer sessions with a more consistent level of personnel or indeed a live in carer, but they won’t hear of it.

Anyway so far, so standard and I am a frequent visitor to the cockroach cafe where there are people dealing with much harder situations than me.

The issue is I have been having panic attacks around the visits. They need to be visited at least weekly to keep on top of things like paperwork and the fridge.DH has been amazing and has started doing most of them, but obviously I can’t abandon my DPs and DM likes to save up all her paperwork for when I come and then thrust it at me along with everything else that she wants done. There are no other friends or relatives who can help in any way. Yesterday I had just escaped but for various reasons DS had come up too and left the car I was returning with an oil light warning. Nothing terrible but I just have no emotional reserves at all and I absolutely lost it in the car to the point I frightened myself.

I have been to the GP and they gave me a choice of HRT or antidepressants. I went for the HRT as this is entirely situational. Basically I feel traumatised every time I see them - they decline slightly, DM is less like my actual DM, DM and DF shout more aggressively at each other and expect me to referee, I worry that they should be in a care home but won’t go - I just really struggle with it. I thought by now some sort of definitive crisis would have happened to force the issue, but no on they go. I feel like a horrible person for not coping with seeing them and wanting things to get worse.

I guess my question is what can I do about it? DH is adamant he will do most of the visits- he is worried about me and dare I say it a bit annoyed by my ongoing emotional distress. But as I say I can’t not go, they were ok DPs, DM especially but she is the one I find hardest now I think.

OP posts:
Original poster
rookiemere · 08/02/2026 13:29

Thankfully I do have POA both financial and health.

I have set the majority of their bills up on the app so I can check their finances and sort things out, that’s not an issue. For their myriad of savings prod, I set up POA before they became really befuddled so what I need to do is go back to all of them and ask for any correspondence to come directly to me, to avoid any unnecessary discussions about them.

Its ridiculous things like she gets a large print out of their current account statement and she insists on going through it line by line to spot anything she doesn’t recognise- one time we had a 10 minute discussion about a £2.50 charity donation that we think DF made. They have five figures in their current account. We put their shopping and our petrol for coming up on their card, so there is an inquisition about every line of that. As I said they used to be financially generous so I think it’s more a form of control rather than anything else.

Small jobs seem to take forever as she insists on them being done exactly how she wants them to be, which is difficult for her to communicate so she writes things down slowly.

If I try to reassure her - obviously I keep an eye on their current account for anything genuinely unusual- she would just get angry so it takes less time to just try to play along and reassure her.

The thing that tipped me over the edge on the last visit was she had been trying to get DH to make a hearing appointment for DF. There is nothing wrong with DFs hearing except he cannot understand DM whose speech is now very poor. He doesn’t have the patience or cognitive functioning to work it out and she doesn’t realise how bad her speech really is. DH phoned the department, but they said he had refused an appointment before so they didn’t want to schedule one unless he was prepared to go and DF said he wouldn’t wear hearing aids even if given them ( due to his memory he would lose them in a day anyway so completely pointless). DM brought this up with me twice and I said I couldn’t force DF to go to an appointment ( plus there are a myriad of more pressing medical issues that could actually do with some input) in the end I got angry about it. I thought I had made my point, but she badgered DH about it when he popped in afterwards. Every medical appointment involves us taking them and in DMs case organising an ambulance so we’re keen to avoid non essential ones.

They do ask quite a lot of DH, but differently.They say thank you to him and he is not emotionally involved so doesn’t get upset by it.

I won’t visit for a bit. Yesterday surprised me as I thought I was getting a bit better at coping with it.

OP posts:
catofglory · 08/02/2026 12:44

I’ve been through this with my mother as she had dementia for ten years (she died a year ago). I was however able to organise care for her as I had LPA, and things improved when I moved her to a care home as I knew she was safe. I hated all the decision making and financial organisation, but I’m an only child and there was no one else to do it.

I’m sorry to tell you that it is unlikely a diagnosis will make any difference to your father. People with dementia tend either deny or forget the diagnosis. They will probably continue to muddle on at home, and there will at some point be a crisis like a fall or illness which may result in a care home placement.

They are very elderly, they are very unwell, they have carers, they are not prepared to pay for more. It’s too late to get LPA, they don’t have the capacity to grant it. You have support from your husband who sounds like a real gem. I hated all the paperwork and admin too, what sort of paperwork are you dealing with for your mum?

Holesintheground · 08/02/2026 12:41

You can refuse to do this, you know. Is it genuinely paperwork that needs doing? What actually is it? Are they one of those couples who won't have direct debits set up so there are bills coming in that need paying?

I think you should give yourself a few weeks off from going at all. Your DH has offered -let him go instead and see if they behave the same way and make the same demands.I suspect they won't.

ginasevern · 08/02/2026 12:35

OP, what sort of paperwork is she asking you to do? Can you get Power of Attorney so you can sort any admin out online. Surely they can't have that much in the way of admin?

Original poster
rookiemere · 08/02/2026 12:21

@thedevilinablackdress the issue is I know what would make me feel better is to have no contact with them, or for them both to move into a care home so I could visit as their DD rather than administrator, referee, problem solver etc. I can’t make either of those things happen and this situation appears to be going on for much longer than I imagined it would in this state.
Minimising visits is good, but as I say DM is waiting for me and saving things up so each visit is particularly awful.

OP posts:
thedevilinablackdress · 08/02/2026 12:16

You are not a horrible person and what other people are dealing (or not dealing) with is irrelevant. This is extremely difficult and it's making you ill. You'll be no help to anyone if you have a health crisis as a result of this. You can and should look after yourself first.

Seeingadistance · 08/02/2026 12:09

I’m glad you got a holiday and one with minimal disruption. Don’t underestimate what you are doing, and the impact on you. My situation is easier because DF is in a nursing home - miserable existence with extremely advanced Alzheimer’s, and after a long complicated process my DM moved to a flat from their big rural home. She’s now unable to drive after a stroke which affected her eyesight and now has heart problems. Her biggest issue though is her denial of reality!

I do find that it’s just constantly on my mind, even when not visiting or in contact with them, and that mental and emotional load is a hard one to carry, and seems just as hard to put down.

Original poster
rookiemere · 08/02/2026 11:58

@Seeingadistance that is so kind of you, I have tears in my eyes.
Outside of my DPs life is or should be good. DH and I actually were on holiday last week, it was lovely and a nice break only punctuated by a few non urgent telephone calls and of course the worry beforehand that something might happen to stop us going away.

In all other respects we are terribly fortunate and DHs stepping up has made me appreciate his good qualities even more.

Neither DP would have the capacity to understand such a letter any more. In their right minds DM would be horrified at the impact of this on me, DF perhaps less so as he has always been pretty selfish. I can’t force them into a care home and I can’t really see them any less than I do currently. DF is waiting on a memory clinic assessment and I hope that will point to dementia and make him accept his memory issues.

DH feels - and I tend to agree with him - that getting more people in their house would make things more complicated and cause additional admin for me.

I also feel guilty as people are dealing with much, much more than me.

OP posts:
Seeingadistance · 08/02/2026 11:43

I’m so sorry that things have got so bad.

in my opinion, you need to step right back and take a good long time to look after yourself. Your DH is an angel, btw!

i also think it needs to be made explicitly and unambiguously clear to your parents that this situation is unsustainable and is making you ill. You could write a letter telling them how much you love and respect them but their failure to take account of the impact of aging and ill health is no good for any of you. Then let your DH keep reinforcing that message and emphasising the need for urgent change.

i really feel for you. You need to take care of yourself. I’ve been reading your posts for a while now.

if you feel you’d benefit from a change of scene, I have a wee flat in Largs where you could stay for a break. It’s not a rental, it’s my wee bolthole! Send me a message if that appeals to you.

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