To be angry with my aged parents

[TheoneandObi]

It's nearly 1am and I'm in a trolley queue with DF Who has fallen badly. We're going to be here all night. I told DM to stay home and get some sleep. No point two of us being knackered. DF is here because he fell. More specifically because he has refused to move or so any physio or exercise for years. Consequently no strength in legs and now disabled. Both parents have refused to hire carers and I'm losing count of the number of times I am called to help. I've tried so hard to patiently (then less patiently) tell them they need help. But oh no 'we don't want strangers in our house'. Now he's fallen and I think he'll have to be admitted because the ambulance crew remarked that there was no support at home. DM is strong and fit but 79.
Why won't they be sensible??? Arghhhh.
I know I'm being unreasonable. But I'm angry that they have refused to
Listen to sensible advice and ploughed on because they always know best. My life has been dominated by phone calls and falls and emergencies and breaking up horrible arguments between them and I'm fed up and tired and tied or not being listened to.

Ah dotti fortunately I'm not. There are other cryptic reasons for
My name! My sister is taking over
Today,making sure things are in place.
What I have learned: there is a useful phrase called 'off legs'. It means a patient can't walk. Once deemed 'off legs' then a variety of measures have to take place before patient can return home. Me and sister and mum are now working on these. It's somewhat mystifying that the GP hadn't clocked this weeks ago! But I have lived and learned. The ambulance crew last night were clear he was off legs, and so was the emergency doc in the wee small hours

Your parents sound quite similar to mine OP. My mother always kept herself quite fit and healthy, if anything more so as she got older. My dad was always overweight and did no exercise, then suddenly was diagnosed with a degenerative disease which caused him to fall a lot, be less mobile etc. Same as your father, he did as little as possible to help himself get stronger and I always think that the fact he was so unhealthy at the start made his decline come much quicker, and my poor mum was constantly complaining about pain in her shoulders etc from trying to haul him up off the floor so often. Luckily in the last year of his life, he was hospitalised with an infection and wasn't allowed home until a care plan was in place.

Like you, I've seen this and made the decision to be as strong and healthy as I possibly can as I age and live as full a life as possible. If there comes a time when I can't make it to the toilet on my own, or spend my days sitting miserably in an armchair waiting for the next batch of carers to come along, I'll be happy to punch out my card.

My mum had the same resistance from her mum. Eventually she put her foot down and said it was happening whether Grandma liked it or not. It isn’t pleasant but it is the right thing.

Hi, @TheoneandObi. You aren’t being unreasonable in being frustrated with your parents. I agree with PP saying now is your chance to get help put in place. I will be in a similar position with my mother in a few years. Her mobility is poor and she has deteriorating health thanks to long term smoking, heavy drinking and inactivity. She suffers with a heart condition, respiratory and circulatory problems. She is under 70 and is less mobile than many 80 year olds . I’m an ‘only child’ and she is on a low income with no savings or assets which means that financially things fall to me to support her as the state provision doesn’t go far. This will get worse as she gets less able.

We’ve talked over the years, before things got this bad, about changes she could be making to improve things but she has done nothing. Rightly or wrongly, I’m resentful and frustrated with her that she has got to this state, so young and it’s me that will be caring for her (or feeling guilty for not caring for her). Things are now irreversible. She could slow the progression and slightly improve her mobility if she did the physio exercises I showed her but she won’t. Giving up smoking would help too but I’m whistling in the wind with that one.

I feel you, OP.

Please take this opportunity to force the issue with them and with the agencies who can help you.

We had years of MIL demanding attention night and day from DH, including such idiocies as the 3am phone calls telling us she was awake and couldn't get back to sleep. She made our lives hell and refused all attempts at persuading her she needed help on a daily basis, not the 2 of us going over every weekend to tackle the mountain of pissy clothes and bedding left in the shit-coated bathroom and the bomb-site kitchen where she's left half eaten ready meals on the table every day.

She fell and was admitted to hospital. We dug our heels in and said she wasn't going home and we were refusing all further help so she would have to go into residential care. We kept quiet about being happy if she'd accept proper carers going in and we pretended to 'compromise' on that when she reluctantly said that would have to do.

We still got angry phone calls, but hung up on her if it was just a tirade of abuse - aimed squarely at me because her DS 'would never have been so selfish'. They stepped up when I retired and told her we weren't going to give up our home and move into the spare (single) bedroom at hers - the facts that I was 63 with severe osteoarthritis and being investigated for my 3rd recurrence of skin cancer didn't seem to matter.

She died 7 months ago and the damage done to our marriage by the years of stress hasn't yet started to heal and I don't think it ever will. We're both trying hard but I think the marriage is over, which isn't what either of us want.

Please take the chance to change things for yourself and don't let yourself get into the situation I'm now in.

You have my sympathies OP.My Dad is very much the same .Not yet 'off legs' but is heading there.Basically he retired at 59 and has sat in his armchair since then watching news and sport. Refused to listen to any of us that he should keep active .Now 84 years old and became increasingly frail after developing Heart Failure two years ago.Hospital Admission, Pneumonia etc. He is a shadow of the man he used to be.He was 6ft 2 and now 5ft 7.Thinks its all par for the course that he should end up this way.Barely able to walk or lift even a glass.But totally thought he should still be driving.He refused to do his physio or even take a rollator (what would people say) to keep even the little strength that he had.Meanwhile my mum who is still really active but sticks her head in the sand and refuses to take any responsibility.My mum always saying I shouldn't interfere and any interference will only cause offence on the DRs side! So I went to his GP without him knowing and got him intensive physio , an Age Care Specialist to monitor him and taken off the road .He is doing much better but still expects myself and my two siblings to there even though we live in different countries to them.He maintains that we have abandoned them.I am home every 6 weeks at this stage alternating with my siblings.My mum has gone into a deep depression and refused to eat around Christmas time and although she is active she is totally flummoxed when it comes to decision making.So frustrating and upsetting.I have also said to my mum that we would pay for someone to come in and clean the house every couple of weeks to take the pressure off her but she won't hear about it but complains constantly about all she has to do.I feel I am staring down the rabbit hole.

While everyone has the right to let themselves go completely, what I find infuriating is the blind selfishness that sometimes goes with it - the assumption that family or 'the NHS' will enable them to carry on living safely and comfortably and will deal with their shit (quite literally). And the number of people who dance around pandering to people and making excuses and being deferent because they are old. Drives me nuts!

OP,

I think the biggest thing to get is that eventually things progress to a critical state and the parent or parents that won't co-operate, take advice, help themselves are then overtaken with events and it all just ends up happening anyway...via carer's or a nursing home.

In the case of one of my friends who loved sport, she did permanent damage to her back by lifting her heavy father.

She is so unbelievably bitter, understandably, that her life long love of her sport has been taken from her and she is in low level constant pain.

Her children also resent the extremely stressful life that their demanding GP's caused too.

Wishing you well.💐

I feel your pain and anger. Elderly people can be stubborn and intransigent (I know and acknowledge it as I am 73!) - last year I had to bite the bullet (although I am reasonably fit and active) to admit I could no longer manage in my lovely rural home and de-camped to a nice house 10 minutes walk from my family. I am heartsick at leaving my old home but recognised that by moving sensibly now I could ward off the need for major action (a care home or worse) when I got older.
I still think I can do 'things' and mostly I can but sometimes find I need help. It is not an admission of weakness that some seem to think.
MY mother ended up in a care home for the last 5 years of her life because she could not cope on her own and thought she could.
Good luck - get a continuing care assessment of both your parents and be stubborn to get the best for them that you can even if you have to pay for carers to visit daily.

One of the pieces of advice I have had is to move to a more accessible property before you strictly need to

I agree with this. But on the other hand I've seen advice that it's not always good to move into a bungalow/one level living before you need to because if you get rid of stairs you will lose the fitness from going up them. However, it definitely makes sense to say move from a 4 bed house with a large garden to a two bed with a small garden.

You have all my sympathy OP.
I had all this with the elderly n-d-n. They had no children, the only relative was a niece in her 70's
They uses to ring us at all hours of the night because one of them had fallen. In the end I put a nighttime call block on the phone.

Oh OP

I feel for you. I watched my mum suffer similarly with my Nan, who also refused help but was happy to have my full time working mum who had kids come and bath her every other night and go to the doctors every week. She never did any exercise and would eat a McDonalds every day and her health deteriorated. She always said my Nan had a huge hand in raising us, and would look after me and my brothers every weekend when we were little so my mum could have a break or work, and she's returning the favour, which I get. But it infuriated me to watch my Nan knowingly lead an unhealthy lifestyle which impacted on my mum.

I have a similar issue. But with an old friend not a parent. He's got very frail, through his own laziness. Will not do anything to help himself. Won't get an OT assessment or anything else that would help
Him out. He's withdrawn form all his friends
His flat is a bomb site. He's got full capacity and is just stubborn. I think he's depressed but won't seek help. I dread the phone call to say he's fallen and will I come round and help him up. He has family who are 100 miles away. It's taken me years to realise that he's not my problem. But it doesn't stop me feeling responsible for him.

Try to be there for any assessments that are made. An elderly relative of mine was assessed and it consisted of asking her questions such as "Can you get yourself out of bed?" "Do you wash and dress yourself?" "Can you cook a meal?" and so on. She answered "Yes" to every question. Obviously it was determined that she didn't need any kind of care package. She couldn't do any of those things. They didn't ask her to demonstrate anything, just asked her whether she could do them and ticked the relevant box. Saves money, I suppose, but I was absolutely appalled.

You need to step back and breathe. Withdraw picking up the pieces and, by doing so, you are contributing to the problem.

With my mother, after one of her hospital stays (I forget which - they have been numerous), they refused to discharged her unless she accepted a care package. [Hospital finding elderly patients discharged without a care package coming back to hospital with significantly longer stays than their original admission]

Mother hated it - ie letting strangers into her home and the admission / acknowledgment of ill health and frailty meaning care was required. But she let people into her home - which was a huge achievement.

What you describe is very very common and getting angry helps no one, least of all you.

There is a lot of anger here at elderly people living unhealthy lifestyles. But a lot of elderly people, while not suicidal, don't feel they have anything to live for anymore. So if they enjoy a McDonalds or sitting about, they are going to do it. It is a slow suicide, and from what I can see not uncommon.

@TeaForTara

What you describe is common. Medical colleagues say they have to accept the answers at face value

I have also read research that elderly people are the most likely population to have untreated depression.
Also there is research that a surprisingly high proportion of elderly falls are actually caused by drinking too much alcohol.

You will find you need to push for help. When DM was taken to hospital I was told by her GP to say I couldn't/wouldn't care for her. When I told the hospital doctor that she looked at me as though I was something she'd trodden in and told me in that case she'd have to get social services involved. I stared straight back at her and said 'you do that, she needs help'. Mum was barely conscious at the time and I have no idea how she thought she was going to be able to discharge her. Mum died on the day the stupid cow said she'd be able to go home.

Good luck getting the help you and your family need. I felt awful saying I wouldn't be able to look after my Mum but I knew I was doing what was best for her.

Speaking from experience unfortunately parents can still refuse carers if they have capacity and then still expect you to be at their beck and call. Hospitals will discharge them if they want to go home without carers even if they need them.

Then you refuse to help your parents. I know it is tough though. FIL refused to have anyone in. We all rallied round helping him while trying to persuade him to change his mind. Then eventually we all said by this date we will no longer be helping. We had to follow through. After 2 weeks he had a carer and cleaner.

I agree it is tough but you now have to make sure everyone professional knows thst they need help and that expecting you to do it is not possible.

Oh dear this is an awful but frighteningly common situation.

Please involve all the agencies, making it clear what their needs are. Your parents will need to be given the choice between accepting care in the home or going into care ...

So easy for me to be dispassionate when it's not my own loved ones.

just whatever you do if they come to assess the home make it CLEAR there is nooe at home who can help.very clear, as they like to tick the box sometimes when they see you there.so possibly dont be at the home meeting and make sure your parents dont do the "oh yes my dughter comes in and helps us do it all"

I think along with peak wisdom there comes a peak time to make changes. And once you get past that it's too late. The changes are too hard, or the benefit you would get from them is too small.

My in-laws missed the point where they should have downsized and so are trapped in a house that's not suitable. But they couldn't face the upheaval of a move now and they are past the point where they would really benefit anyway. Mil is so immobile that she couldn't get out anyway even if they didn't have a flight of steps to their front door. If they had moved 5 years ago it would have been very different.

It's so easy to see from the outside but harder when you are living it. I often think I should write a letter to my 75 yr old self reminding myself what happens when you are too proud to accept help early on.

You think you are prolonging your independence by struggling on on your own but in fact you are limiting it by not making sensible changes at the right time.

Sending a hug op, I know how stressful and frustrating it is. Hope you can be strong and say what needs to be said so your dad won't be let home without help in place.