Need some help. Visiting my elderly father is excrutiating.

[needsomehelpwiththisone]

I've done a new account for this post but I've been here for a long time.

I am desperate for some advice about visiting my elderly father, because I feel like the world's biggest bitch and I don't know what to do.

Background: We have nothing in common. We did not get on well when I was growing up. I am an only child (relevant). My mother is dead (also relevant).

A few years ago, dad, by then in his mid 80s (now late 80s) moved into sheltered accommodation about a half hour drive from me having previously lived seven hours away at the other end of the country. There was really no other option as due to my own poor health I could not make the visit to see him any more and he was all alone and beginnig to struggle on his own. Until the point where he moved, we saw each other once a year, perhaps twice at the very most - I would go "home" to visit for a couple of days at a time and we'd both be climbing the walls after a day. Visits were only ever two days at the most. My father is very insular. Conversations consisted of "Do you watch this television programme?" and nothing more. He was never interested in anything I had to say, so I didn't bother to tell him what was going on in my life. It was painful.

Now he lives near me and is older and still on his own, I am expected to visit once a week. In principle I agree with this, he's on his own after all and I'm his only living relative. But I find the visits absolutely excrutiating and I'm beginning to put off going. We are not close, and we have nothing to talk about. He doesn't listen to anything I have to say, so there's no point telling him anything. I arrive, I take him to the shop, but this only takes half an hour at the most, and then I don't know what to do. We sit there in silence. He doesn't do anything except watch television, so I can't ask him about his day. He's also very deaf, so conversation is almost impossible, even if he was interested in anything I had to say.

He also insists on phoning me twice a day just to "hear my voice" (he can make out my voice on the phone, apparently, but nobody else's). I understand why, he's very lonely, but I don't know what to say to him then either and vice versa. I have no clue how to relate to him at all and never have done. Our relationship growing up was fractious and argumentative and unpleasant - he's mellowed with age - but there are no nice memories to sit and talk about. I sometimes take him out for lunch, but again, conversation is so difficult that we sit and eat lunch in the pub in silence and then I take him home again.

Please, what can I do to make these visits more bearable for both of us? Not going is not an option, since he will call me and beg me to go if I don't. I dread going. I put it off for as long as humanly possible. And I feel terrible.

This is one morning's missed calls.

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So many it took three separate screenshots.

Your initial position: In principle I agree with this, he's on his own after all and I'm his only living relative.
Your current position: Why won't he bloody leave me alone?

Are you saying that you don't mind visiting him once a week for a half day or so (although it is excruciating) but you do mind him phoning you?
Is that the main issue?

Both. I can't bear it. I've had it up to HERE. I don't want to visit him any more BECAUSE of his behaviour, it's making me hate him.

Then change your phone number so he can't reach you and stop visiting.

Needsome, we believe you. This sounds really stressful, everyone is sympathetic. The people offering suggestions are trying to help, they aren't saying "oh that's easy, just do this and problem solved".

How? How can I cut off my nearly 90-year old father? Could you honestly do that? Honestly?

My DF had to pretty much wash his hands of his own DM when she became like this because it was making him Ill. She became an emotional vampire who refused all help. He visited as much as he could cope with and stopped speaking on the phone.

You need to stop the phone calls. You can't make him stop so you need to stop. Nothing you do for him will ever be enough.

Sadly if he is going to get proper care you do need to wash your hands of him somewhat. My other DGF wasn't as difficult a man but it wasn't until the time he was hospitalised and my DM refused to do the 200 mile trip that social services took responsibility.

No I honestly couldn't.
But you are saying that you can't bear it and he's making you hate him.

I tried to help you separate the illness from the man in your own mind but you started shouting that I wasn't listening. You need to protect yourself so you can help him.

It's like on an aeroplane: you put your oxygen mask on before you put your children's on because you need the oxygen to be able to help them.

1. The crying when he can't speak to you isn't really him. It's dementia. Just like the repeat calls. Not him, dementia.

2.Change your mobile number. Transfer your current number to a PAYG phone with your voice on the answerphone saying hello and you'll call back later in a cheery voice.

1. Each evening at a similar time, call him from a withheld number. Take control.
2. Make sure that you visit when the carers are there so you can have some influence. He can refuse all he likes but if you are there to correct him he is more likely to back down.
3. Again. Get a journal/notebook to write down the 'agreed' decisions/compromises so he can be shown them again. He doesn't remember not to call. He just gets up and wants to talk to you.
4. He is bullying you like a child.

7.You are only giving in to the bullying because he's your Dad.

1. Understand that the bully is the dementia not your Dad and cut that from your reaction.

9.Again: do as much as you can/you want to and don't feel guilty about not doing any more. 10. If you really can't cope with it, do consider going NC for a while, for your own mental health. Then you can come back to the situation with a clearer eye. 11. Ask your GP for help/meds/counselling about this. You sound exhausted.

You asked for help. We've tried to help, offer support, offer things which have worked for us. Your situation is shit. We can't make him better. neither can you. You might be able to make the situation (a tiny bit) better for yourself though.

OP, you've said numerous times that you don't think he's going to change and I agree. That means changing your response to this situation because that is the one thing you can control here. I think it would be helpful to speak to someone about this, like a counsellor, who is unconnected to the situation. You need somewhere to vent.

As for the phone calls, they are going to be difficult to stop. I would say you will be unavailable one morning/evening per week (pick a day) but will speak to them in the evening/following morning instead (which would make one call on that day instead of two). Let the home know that you won't be ringing him on (say) Monday morning but will speak to him on Monday evening in the hope that they won't bother you either. He will probably ring. You can ignore this until the evening.

Do you have a partner, OP? Someone who could come along with your or take one of the phone calls for you?

To be honest, OP, I don't think there is much you can do. No matter how little your father deserves your care, it is clear you are incapable of cutting off a 90 year old man with no other support or relatives. I think many of us would be the same. I know I would. Your situation sucks and I am sorry you are in it.

So may I suggest that since you can't change the reality of your relationship and the level of contact you must have with him, you try to change how you deal with it. Sort of a radical acceptance - accept that this is your reality for the next couple of years (It probably won't be much more as he will either get ill and die or will get much worse with dementia which may provide some relief) and then figure our how to get yourself through this.

I suggest strongly that you see a therapist to talk about this. Even if it doesn't come up with any solution, having a safe space to vent to another person with no judgement will be helpful.

Stop the sitting in silence. Instead bring a book or a crossword puzzle or a newspaper and read it while sitting with him.

Personally, I would take control of the phone calls myself and call him but maybe you don't want to do this.

Ok, I haven’t read every post so if I’m repeating anything then I apologise. Firstly, I work for a carers organisation and you are most definitely a carer, you provide a high level of emotional, practical and financial support to your father. The support you are providing means that social services only have to put in one visit a day - believe me your input will have been considered when his care package was being decided on.

So, as a carer you have certain legal entitlements, I won’t go into them here as every situation is different but I would recommend very strongly that you contact your local carers support service who will be able to provide a whole range of support and advice - if you don’t know who your local support service is then please message me and I can find out for you. One of the things they can do is help you through the next stage, it does sound as if there is a high likelihood of your dad receiving some sort of dementia diagnosis and a Carers Support service can help you navigate the system and make sure that your voice gets heard and that your dad gets the support he needs.

Sorry, if this is a bit disjointed but I wanted to reply quickly. I can hear your desperation and with the best will in the world you can NOT go on like this so you must reach out for help and it is there believe me. Please message me if I can help.

You’re doing everything right, as a wise colleague once said to me. I have a dad in the same set up, but nowhere near as demanding as yours, I’m so sorry you are dealing with this. You ARE a carer, I know it’s hard to use that label, I resist it all the time myself. There are Carers Centres all over the country, they are there for you, if you want support, whether practical or emotional, someone to rant to when it’s too much, they will understand, it’s literally their job to care for carers.

I also think you absolutely can cut the calls down or out, get another phone and only use one for your dad. Tell (don’t ask, anyone) him and the carers you will call him x number of times a week (once or twice maybe?), and visit once a fortnight, or whatever you can handle. As someone else said, in a genuine emergency, he won’t be calling you. As long as the carers have your address, they can send someone round in a genuine emergency. Apart from that, just let him get on with it. Like your dad, mine relies on me for social contact and refuses many offers of help. If that means filthy bedding, fine, I no longer worry about it, I do what I can manage and no more. Best of luck, this too shall pass for us all…

Looking at those screenshots and reading your posts in which you are obviously frustrated and stressed out it is clear you have reached the end of your tether. Read the last few posts carefully particularly the ones from Andtheresaw in which there are some good ideas. It sounds cruel to cut him off but for your own health you need to do that as he has lost all reason and is making untenable demands. It is harassment. He has somewhere to live and is being fed. I would maybe stop the phone contact and change your number and do visits on your terms only. Is there a manager at the facility you could talk to about the best way of dealing with this?

It does not sound like you can do anything to stop him calling. You obviously are only helping him through guilt but his actions are pushing you further away. I am not sure if he could comprehend now if you gave him an ultimatum and told him if he did not stop you will stop visiting or speaking to him on the phone. So any actions have to come from you and you will need to find a way to deal with the guilt. I am so sorry for you as I know how awful it is.

To be clear when I say change your number I mean change it and don't give the new number to him. Damage limitation could be you transfer your current number to PAYG sim in a spare old phone and get a new sim with new number for everyone else. Don't tell your dad the new number and just leave an answer machine message on the PAYG phone. Drastic though. Phoning him on withheld number is a compromise on your terms. That way you can still check on him. Only you know how far you can tolerate going to limit his harrassment of you.

I'd have to get another phone and give him the number. My current one is so linked to my work (self-employed) that it would be a major pain to have to change it. Whether he'd remember to use a new number or not I don't know.

He is being fed yes but I'd still need to take him shopping for snacks and breakfast stuff - they only get two meals a day in the set up he's in - and his toiletries and stuff. Plus it's literally the only time he gets to leave the premises.

The memory nurse did say something about carer's support, but I don't remember what.

I've told him in the past, many times, that if he doesn't stop the repeated phone calls I'm going to change my number. That's when he says if I do that he might as well be dead.

Well, you could buy him a new phone and programme in the new number for him and present it as a fait accompli. No mention of changed number. Then he can press "needsomehelp..." when he wants to call and he would never see the number.

I think it would help if you spoke to someone in real life about this. If you are on your own (which I am guessing you are?!) then I know problems swirl round and round in your head and there seems no solution.

As I said earlier, perhaps there is just one tiny thing you could employ from this thread that would make things just a bit better. Obviously a load of anonymous MNetters can't solve the situation, but people have tried to offer some tips and I think several of us have hit on the new phone idea as being a possible reprieve for you.

If he starts the may as well be dead stuff then that's a matter for social services as it's a mental health issue. It's not fair for you to be emotionally blackmailed like that.

Try to get some support from the local Carers Support Service. This will at least provide you with some info I don’t think you have at the moment. Plus some real life support.

He is at the really shitty stage and although you can’t see it now it will change. He’ll have a fall, or catch a big and hospital will be involved. Then a lot of decisions will be made for him and you.

I'm so sorry you are in this situation Op.

This isn't helpful to the situation, but I wonder whether he's autistic? The lack of empathy, difficulty interacting with others, difficulty with new things, obsessive behaviour and anxiety. I had an elderly person in my life who was similar, who had autism.

TBH, I think the only thing you can do about the calls is say you will only answer them at certain times. Or say you will ring him twice a day, at 9am and 5pm or whatever, and just ignore the missed calls. It'll be difficult for him at first, but at least it will break the habit eventually.

As for what to talk about, I'd just ask him questions about his childhood, where he met your Mum etc that are about him, are reasonably interesting for you, and there's enough of them to keep you going a while

Oh. And if you end up in hospital yourself, I can promise you he’ll manage.

Don’t wait until that happens. Please get some support for you as an unpaid carer. For that is what you are. Social Services are very stretched and they look for anyone to do what they should until that person simply can’t anymore. But it sadly often has to reach a crisis point before they will.

Is there a type of phone that wouldn't show missed calls, though?

Even if I do give him another phone number to call, I'd still know he was repetitively calling because of the number of missed calls that show on the screen. That stresses me out so much.

I don't want to give him my landline number as I can't turn the ringer off and that would drive me insane to have that constantly ringing. So he only has a mobile number for me and it shows how many times he's rang.

I've just spent the last few hours asleep trying to sleep off this migraine and I've woken up to a notifcation saying I've had 22 missed calls. I just lost my shit at him on the phone and told him to go away and stop phoning me. It doesn't sink in. He doesn't understand I want him to go away. He just says "Alright. I'll speak to you tomorrow" and then tomorrow he'll do exactly the same.

As others have said, if you had a new number (and programmed that into your dads phone and he was the only one who had this new number) surely you could turn this phone off so you wouldn’t have it ringing constantly, and then if there was an emergency the staff at his home would ring on your current number. You could switch on the phone for your dad only when you wanted to, ie once a day to check in with your father. If the phone line was only for your dad then the answer phone message could be specifically tailored to him ie-“ hi dad, I’m absolutely fine, as discussed before I’m not available on the phone until I call you at xx o’clock”. Would this not go some way to alleviating at least some of your stress?

But surely a different phone would still show me how many times he's rang on the notifications?

His phone is just a push button one, I don't even know how to programme that. It's one of the ones with the big number buttons so he can see it. He doesn't have a mobile and wouldn't know how to work one.

Short of acutally blocking him I dont know what to do.

He's got one of these: static1.squarespace.com/static/52c1e3d0e4b0cf91c449771f/52f536c8e4b069d0ed747cd8/530b846ee4b041f34593cc05/1393263727839/fc-1507.jpg?format=500w

Can you even programe something like that to dial a specific number?

He wouldn't be able to work a more complicated phone.