The second new shiny 2019 thread ...

[MereDintofPandiculation]

... for anyone caring for elderly parents. Come and join us to ask for, or to give, sympathy, ask for advice, or have a good rant.

I'll tell you what it's like - hell, that's what grace. After my DF died, I made a huge effort with DM, trying to include her in my family. We went away for a week to the coast with DM, and we had the row to end all rows. Never again.

Take care of yourself and your own health. Your mum is young enough to be able to get on with things without you needing to be so hands on for everything. Maybe give her space to get used to being on her own?

holiday with my parents? (both now deceased) Or DP's parents, who will be next on the mouldy oldies list? ABSOLUTELY NO FUCKING WAY. I would be in prison after about two hours. Anyone who says they do that is either a) a saint; b) has not personal boundaries; or c) completely delusional and submissive; or see 'a'. Over an hour was enough with my DM, getting close to two hours and I was starting to climb the walls and scratch incessantly... and I did actually love her.

yes, I think I have hit the point where I need to worry about my health

mum has even taken on finance and stuff. I think what's happened is I didnt look after myself at all the last six months.

I do think of 80 as being old tbh. She's got older widowed friends who are still fine, I mean some of the usual health stuff, but generally if their DC left them to it, they would be okay.

It's been quite shocking to see the decline in her health and appearance since dad died but I think that might be more the appearance, and the fact that I spent lots of time there which I didn't before, so I don't know what her normal is.

re the locking up the house, to be fair, she says to feel free to wander and to lock up myself when I'm ready to go to sleep, but I'm very conscious that she sleeps as badly as I do, so always feel I'm going to wake her up. Plus when it's not your house, you don't have your own things etc

yolo cross post

yes, I think one thing with my cousin is that having been ill since he was very young, he had a very different relationship with his parents. I've mentioned on other threads, he never had a pension because he wasn't supposed to live this long (50s) so that's a different starting point.

amongst my own social circle, there's people who still do take their olds on holiday and two friends who had widowed parents move to be nearer to them. I suspect they would be freer to talk on an online forum (!) but certainly on a day to day basis, they seem to cope.

I guess I don't have the relationship with my parents that they do, but I thought I did. It was an eye opener when someone said to me "you will miss going to your dad for advice" and I thought, jeez, I haven't asked a parent for advice in 20 years!

Evening all. So sorry you are struggling grace here’s another hand, and totally agree with everyone else.
Sounds like your mum is doing well, you must look after yourself, whatever that means for you. Other people are other people- there are different stories and different relationships.
I think it is sometimes when the storm or crisis passes it takes a while to see the toll it has taken.
minty do make time for you- it’s vital.

Thanks for your response, Toofar. I suppose one odd advantage of my mother's decision that she can't walk is that the issue of anti-depressants making her wobbly won't arise. I'll talk to her doctors about it - if it would improve her quality of life it can only be helpful.

Things are complicated with my mum because she was never the most maternal of women. For instance, I went to boarding school, and for some reason my mother thought the journey to come and take me out or attend school events was outrageously long, though it was only about 50 miles. My father just went along with anything she said, and as a consequence I went out less than virtually anyone else other than those whose parents lived abroad, and my parents regularly missed school events or turned up late. So there's a bit of me that can't forget that I'm taking more trouble with her than she did with me, and indeed than she did with her own mother. But basically I'd feel impossibly guilty if I didn't, so this will just carry on.

oh venting another boarding school brat here... and yes, I remember several threads back saying what you said - I provided far more care in the last decade of my mother's life than she did in the second decade of mine. Being sent away hurts, whatever the reasons for it (and my parents had justifiable reasons - services family) and what it teaches you about resilience probably is good for you - but when its turned around then it becomes very difficult.

My parents didn't even have that excuse to not turn up to parents evenings. They were just constantly disappointed in me, my grades, my lifestyle, my appearance. I went NC for 3 years over their racism towards DH, because even though I let them get away with so much towards me, I drew the line at that. Now DM and I have an uneasy truce, but she has tested me and knows what a hard faced bitch I am.

Grace It sounds to me that you have been holding everything together for a long while, and now the pressure is easing slightly your body is telling you it's time to care for yourself as well as others. It reminds me of when I had a long absence of work through depression - I was holding everything together, deputy head of dept, supporting head of dept through his own stress-related problems - but once I went off sick, I collapsed in a heap and spent quite a lot of the day sitting on the floor snivelling.

So I'd say, try and look at it that way, it's not that you've actually got worse, it's that your body knows that now is the time to turn attention to yourself and your needs.

As to everyone else - remember that people don't usually say everything that they're feeling, often they daren't in the fear of being overwhelmed by their feelings. So they talk about practical problems that can be solved, or they put a humorous gloss on it, or they do as you have done, they go and hide themselves in a hole and stop talking to people altogether.

You're dead right that you shouldn't compare yourself to other people. Some people positively enjoy the company of the elderly (I have a friend like that). Some people aren't battling their own MH issues. Some people aren't the daughter of the elderly person - even being one step away - a nephew or granddaughter - means that the elderly person doesn't put such a load on you. You have gone above and beyond, putting yourself in a position which is way outside your comfort zone.

Bit of a tough couple of weeks, just catching up on the thread and will post later. x

dint speaks sense, as always.
zany hang on in there, we are always here for ranting/black humour etc.

I was thinking about death today - as one does - and I reckon you are not really dead until no one remembers you anymore. Does that make sense?

No one remembers me already Yolo, does that mean....?

yolo makes perfect sense re being remembered..... leaving a legacy in some way- family, friends, etc.
noton you are not forgotten here..... how could we??😂😂
cockroach all.

I was thinking about death today - as one does - and I reckon you are not really dead until no one remembers you anymore. I look at people who are remembered for a long time (kings, emperors, dictators, popes, most of whom are remembered for the bad things they do, not the good) and think that maybe death would be a good thing ...

Someone was trying to get me to take on an onerous job and commented "... if you're thinking about your legacy ..." and I thought, no, I'm not. In the context of an infinity of time, does it matter whether I'm remembered for 5 years or 500?

Dint thank you so much for your perspective, I think that's true, I haven't gone backwards. I think I have just spent so much time outside my comfort zone I can't cope any more.

I was never one of those people who thought it was good to be pushed out of a comfort zone either.

I need to learn to ignore my mum. That feels terrible, but in spite of her amazing efforts to get her life back together, she still just absolutely radiates pain. And I hate that she is so pleased to see me - does anyone else have that?

the people I know who seem to manage better - they also take calls from their parents whenever they ring! Can be several times a day. I find it extraordinary, how do they do that without yelling at them?

btw not sure I expressed myself well, I'm not hiding from people at all - I really want to because I feel horrendously over involved with people at the mo.

also none of them seem to be surprised to have parents living into 80s and 90s. I think we were overwarned, as a family, about my parents' health problems. Possibly overscreened, as the original things my dad had were discovered during a private company health screening and probably no one needed to know actually.

ugh.

re death, yes yolo I sort of see that. I tend to think of people like George Michael as having left a legacy. I am not at all bothered about leaving one myself.

PS another thing that stressed me out this week....

dad left a mountain of crap behind. It's getting more alarming by the minute - you can't open a drawer without finding it brim full of crap.

if mum would just throw it away, fine, but she thinks it's important to go through it. She has found about £50 in old notes, I admit, but I'm ready to pay someone to take it all away.

I don't mind if she keeps it. What I mind is that for her it's like a project, which she wants me to be involved it. She found a theatre group who wanted stuff for props. Great, I admire the recycling spirit etc etc.

but when I get told "oh you must advise me on what to do with this" and it's a broken suitcase from the 1960s, I just want to scream "give someone all our savings to just MAKE IT GO AWAY".

her idea is that I won't have to deal with it en masse if she goes into a retirement home, or dies, but really, I would rather just pay for skip hire and get rid of that way.

if she wants to sit and go through it for memories, fine. but I don't want to hear about it.

that's another thing some friends have asked - "have you found anything interesting/sentimental from your dad?"

perhaps we weren't that close, but, er no. I have his watch, the photos are all organised in albums and that's it really. There's one other item I'd like to find but it's not important.

re the smell

it might be fabric conditioner. Turns out mum puts certain things in with fabric conditioner but not others.

posters talking about parents who were not kind to them - how do you square that with caring now? It's another reason I feel bizarre finding my mum stressful, she is a lovely person.

I posted before about how I was seeing stuff on social media about crime in the area and wasn't sure about telling her. Turns out she hears it all from the neighbours anyway. She told me because she wants me to hold tight to my bag!! And I was fretting about someone knocking her down for her bag! (I didn't say that to her).

So Dad and I put Mum in a nursing home today. 2 weeks respite for him as he is exhausted caring for her. I shudder to think what she has been like.

That was so hard.

oh mrsbert lots of and for you. I hope she settles and all goes well and that your dad gets some breathing space.

Thanks yolo. It felt so harsh. If my dad had a broken leg it would feel so different.

Rosa, my mum was a rubbish mum. No emotional warmth, the queen of perma-deferred approval. Violent, and big on degrading, humiliating punishments. It is an accident of geography that I am the daughter dealing, but caring for her has unexpectedly meant I feel that I have overcome her and all she did. I suspect my sisters who live at a distance will not feel the same.

Grace the house-clearing project - I get that too! An old printer, dating from the 1970s - there must be a technology museum wants it. etc. "We must decide what we do about ....". I love going through heaps of old stuff, but I draw the line at trying to find a home for all of it.

Though I have some sympathy - I was hit the other day that the bits and pieces I've accumulated during my life - I just don't have anyone to pass them to who won't simply see them as old junk. Felt so sad.

mrs bert 🌺🌺hope your dad gets a break. grace you sound exhausted.... your dm seems to be doing ok, step back, protect yourself.
dint awww... it’s making us think about decluttering our stuff. So much of it.
cockroach all......
dm’s Neighbour was wondering if the mobility aid chap was delivering a stairlift to my dm...... they both live in small bungalows!!
yolo how are things?

not sure I can type straight: but brilliant news tonight: 6.30pm call from cancer care nurse: surgeon has seen all scans, all polyps and lymph nodes clear, tumour has reduced considerably. So meeting on Mon is to agree next steps and poss surgery date of June 4. so we went out and got pissed with friends!

Oh yolo! How wonderful!