You need a good F***ing

[Searchingforananswer2023]

Background: Work full time 60+ hours a week and care for mother who is terminally ill. I have no existence other than work and care. No family support - totally isolated with parent.

I wanted to go to the cinema this week end, for various reasons relating to caring for her I cannot go. I commented that it was ridiculous that I have no time for myself. I find the last few years of care, cooking, cleaning, working mentally draining. I expressed the need for stimulation outside of what is becoming imprisonment. Her response 'you need a good f*ing.'

I am lost for words. I have had to walk away and come to bed.

Can someone please console me. I am trapped in this situation.

Please read the OP’s posts. I’m sure this is meant to be well meaning, but you keep repeating that there’s mental decline or dementia. OP surely knows the situation best.

Re: housing.

In my somewhat cynical experience, councils are more likely to try to keep people at home if they're living in council property and don't have a house to sell to pay for care.

OK.

No, the focus should be on the fact that the OP's mother is an abusive parent, even from her dying bed.
The focus should be on validating the OP in her acknowledgement that the mother was seriously linestepping , self absorbed, unempathetic and ungrateful.
To not have the abusive nature of the mother as the focus and instead to pick sense out of the nonsense of her coarseness is to actually validate the mother's abuse and in fact, neglect the fact that she is abusive and that the OP is being made to pay for her mother's complete failure to get a grip on her own childhood issues.

It's not a grind, spa or picture show that the OP needs. She needs to detach, permanently from the physical care of her mother with as little guilt as possible.

Only then she can " get a life".

Yet as an adult she has the power to choose to behave differently and didn't. You don't owe her a thing. Being her whipping boy/caregiver could cost you your health.

If she becomes abusive, tell her medical team you can no longer be her caregiver. You resign. She can pay for care but you don't have anything to do with that going forward.

To expect you to be a caregiver on top of a 60 hour work week is pretty wild. You have your own life and she chose to step on out of yours and she's abusive when you let her into your life by caregiving. You're only harming yourself here.

Respite is an option but I am worried she will get covid and before you say it's gone, it hasn't and she is medically the most vulnerable. If she got Covid she would die.

Hardly the time or the place for that really, is it?

Can't you leave the old witch and get carers in for her? Terminally ill or not, she's a nasty piece of work.

Joint ownership of home, this is why I am stuck

So sorry to hear you feel like this. Your DM is selfish as you need to live your life. You need a serious chat with her and insist you need to step back, you can't expect anyone to have children to have to carry out full time care for you.
Please do reach out for support of carers as you will only resent your DM if you continue.
Also be kind to yourself, you sound very caring and your DM is lucky to have you.

OP, I don’t have any wise words, so just wanted to say that I’m thinking of you. It sounds appallingly difficult for you and what she said to you is truly shocking. You are clearly doing all you can and for her to treat you this way, well, it’s beyond anything you should have to face.

I hope you can find a way to look after yourself, and one day get to the cinema

I think you need permission to put her in a nursing home. You have no kind of life. You know she wouldn't have done this for you. It doesn't sound as though she appreciates what you do for her. What stops you calling social services and saying she needs to go into a home?

You can’t hold your own life ransom to keep her alive.

Haha, I once had a slight medical query and google came up with a mumsnet link with the answer. I've been her ever since, the forums can be wild and helpful.

Thank you

This isn't helpful to the OP who doesn't want to do that

Consider yourself consoled. I could attempt to express empathy and sympathy, conjecture solutions or suggestions which might alleviate your dilemma. But I’d ramble on for hours. So I won’t. I’ll simply say this. You are beautiful - inside and out. Believe it. Keep going. Good times will come for you. For sure.

So they can't sell it from under you mother, then.

You do need to ask for a carer assessment. When I did - must have read about it on the Carers' Forum or perhaps Age UK - the social work department seemed astonished. (I'm guessing they don't advertise it...)

I was given training in moving and handling - which I hadn't had before - and was given a limited amount of respite for Mum. It made a big difference.

www.carersuk.org/help-and-advice/practical-support/carer-s-assessment/

Im just not the kind of person to put her in a home. In that respect I know I am a better person than her.

What’s her prognosis? If you’ve been doing this for ten years already and she’s terminally ill, how long is she likely to live for? Is she mobile at all? I know you said she has carers - does she need them to get her up and dressed and in a chair?

Which is obviously totally different from what the OP’s mother asked.

im sorry OP, she was completely out of order and I’d be upset too. Is she getting ill?

Do you know how long she has left? May help come up with a plan

I get that. I was the same...but I agreed to Mum going into a home for respite. (At one point, it was vital - I had an operation on my feet which meant that I couldn't do the evening care during my recovery period.)

The problem is that if you keep struggling on without complaint, Social Services will be very happy for you to continue to do so. You need to make it clear that you're drowning. Requesting a carer's assessment is the first step in getting help.

Thank you for this.
The house is joint ownership but I have paid for everything. I know there will come a time when a home will be inevitable and I worry about being tied financially - if they could sell the house from under me.

I know this is going to sound awful, but would that really be the worst thing?

And I say this as someone in my late 20s also dealing with an abusive mother who has lots of issues that require lots of care.