Caring for elderly relatives? Pop in for support, a hand hold, advice, whatever you need.

[picklemepopcorn]

Carrying on from previous thread, IF I can work out how to link...

Come and offload your worries and frustration here, and share your experience and hard won wisdom with the rest of us!

🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷is all I can offer plus endless sympathy.

Endless and sympathy from me, too.

How's it going, Yolo?

Mum rang at 7.30am to say that she was feeling very unwell. Very dizzy, afraid to move in case she falls over. We had a chat, I suggested she get the doctor out- no, she says she'll never get through on the phone. I suggested she have a little rest and see if she feels better in an hour, and that is what she has decided to do. We agreed she'd ring me when she wakes up to let me know how she is.

So now I'm all twitchy.

She has had spells like this before. Usually when she is overtired and stressed. I think maybe she forgets to breathe or something. I've spoken to family in the area and have people lined up to go and scoop her up off the floor if necessary. DSis will pop over at lunch time if we haven't heard anything by then.

oh pickle that's a worry... hope she's ok. DM has been moved to a different ward in the same hospital, but nurse is on a break so cant find out what's going on yet. Need to make contact, and let them know that I cant come in today - too much work.

So of course she didn't ring me. I called her to see if she was lying in a heap on the floor. She wasn't.

pickle the worry is awful isn’t it? The adrenaline kicks in and you go into full alert mode.
And yolo you must be exhausted. 🍷🍷🌺🌺

god pickle I swear they are sent to drive us mad. DM been moved to isolation on diff ward as still has diarrhoea but no c.diff results as yet. From my POV this is no bad thing as cant arrange care until we know what is going on... can imagine she is ranting though esp as I cant go today and I deliberately didnt give her her phone yesterday.

That's good, Yolo.

It's the constant wearing down from petty drama interspersed with crises. When the phone rings, you don't know which is arriving.

I'm down there for a week from Saturday, hopefully finishing off my Dad's estate and doing some fun stuff too.

yy to the constant wearingness of it all. a week?!!! are you quite mad? or just terribly terribly brave? I couldnt do that, hats off and masses of teflon to you

Crikey pickle 😇😇🏅🏅for you! And yolo so sorry to hear- at least it’s keeping her there. Hope you are ok.
Buckets of Teflon and 🍷🍷to all!

On a completely different level but my mother pulled out of her house purchase AGAIN yesterday, which makes possibly 5 times in 3 months? I'm losing track. Then as of this morning it was apparently back on again, according to my sister. I get that she doesn't want to move from her house and that in some ways it is quite convenient - bungalow, nice view, reasonably near a shop - but in other ways it really isn't - hours from any of us, up a steep hill from the shop so she always drives even though her driving is very fragile, steep stone steps to get to the house itself. We've all now agreed that if she hates the (lovely, ground floor, pool on site, central, ten minutes from me) flat she is moving to, she can use it as a base to find somewhere else. Or at least we keep thinking it's agreed. Her estate agents are saintly, particularly as she is extremely rude to them - my lovely mum as was

I've seen a few people be absolutely saintly with mum. I start to worry that maybe I am harsh, and she is a frail little old lady in need of all the help she can get. Then I remember the tongue lashings she gives out!

oh I think they can switch on the behaviour. Mine is a dream if she thinks she is going to get what she wants, however bad the potential outcome could be. But she can also be absolutely poisonous; it's ok-ish when she does it to me, but when she does it to my DDs that's a completely different thing and I dont react well at all.

annandale that sounds incredibly stressful etc

Has anyone adopted the Grey Rock technique? I’m just beginning to read about it - it seems (more or less) like a different version of Teflon.

It's interesting seeing you all talking about how different they can be depending on who they are with. This is what I'm really struggling with as we prepare DM's funeral. I'm getting endless gushing messages from her friends saying what a beautifully kind and loving person she was and yet my teenage children are struggling to know how to react when they have witnessed a completely different side to her character.
I'm trying to explain ( and believe myself) that she was a good friend who did so many things to help others but that unfortunately, perhaps due to her own childhood, she found it hard to know how to be the Mum she wanted to be.

That is very difficult, whatever. And any Eulogy, when you know a less pleasant side, can be very trying.

And yes, Monica. I grey rock all the time. I avoid telling her what is going on in my life (not at all hard). I certainly rarely allow her to see my emotional life. It just makes me vulnerable. When she dismisses things that are important to me, changes the subject, belittles my experiences etc it hurts and I get tempted to hit back. So I just glide superficially through, thoroughly teflonned!

Not heard of grey rock, sounds interesting?

It's a way of dealing with narcissists. You make yourself very boring- no drama here, move along, nothing to see. Give them no information, no reaction, don't give them any material to work with.

It also means not holding them to account, not expecting anything from them, not engaging in anything beyond the necessary. Mum often doesn't notice that I do this. It's all about her, after all. Occasionally she'll complain 'no one ever tells her anything'. Telling her doesn't change anything though, it just leaves you more vulnerable to her. If you tell her you are really struggling, having a hard time etc, she says things like no one is as busy as her, you have no idea what it means to be really stressed. Elevenerife.

That's so interesting, kinda what I used to do without realising it!

Elevenerife! I shall be thinking that to myself from now on.

I shall also be trying to do more Grey Rock. I mostly do, but where I struggle most is with the lying (I’m not going to mince words here because the mindbogglingly false versions of events she gives are lies). I feel I ought to challenge them but, actually, there’s little point so I shall do even more eye-rolling and grey rocking.

rocking in a corner also helps

I learnt ages ago never to tell DM about anything bothering me because she's like a bloody dog with a bone...

Love the grey rock idea- brilliant. Dripping in Teflon maybe?
Hope things as as well as they can be....

I use grey rock as well. DM ocassionally gets narked with me over it if she notices as I give minimal responses to things and refused to get drawn when she is criticising (me or others). She will then say that I might as well go home, which is bliss, like being released early from school!

nota love the early release from school!

I have come to the conclusion today that nothing I do over the next few weeks will be right, so I am going to have to do the thing that causes me the least angst. She is desperate to come home but in isolation; cant get a carer because potential c.diff; not safe to come home as will fall over; 24 hour carer cannot cope alone on extended basis; cant come home over w/e as I will be away for work; cant come home to an empty house with no food etc.
So currently: waiting for c.diff result, will try and get 24 hour carer from Monday plus a service our trust provides called Hilton Nursing who come in 3-4 times a day. Then, I assume she will fall over again and we rinse and repeat!!!! FML