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Elderly parents
Original poster

Just sat here crying

55 replies

Passthebubbly · 04/10/2019 19:40

Ahhh. Messaged mum to see how she was as I do morning and night. This is the response I got. I can’t cope with it anymore. Nothing I do is enough.
She won’t do anything - anything to help herself and everything as an only child is left to me.
Let’s just say I belong on the stately homes thread. My relationship with her is utterly toxic but she is sick so I am doing my best to look after her whilst raising 2 kids and working full time. She lives 65mile round trip which I do twice a week. She had said she was moving beside us but had now decided not to. Has told social service she no longer needs help so that has been revoked. She is housebound without me. I can’t cope anymore! I’m about to crack. She is only 63 but a lot of complex issues that are just too much for me to cope with alone but she refuses all other help.
Text tonight to see she was ok to get “have just sat here and cried all day” you and me both! Not wanting to drip feed and massive back story of her shocking treatment towards me but doesn’t even matter anymore.

OP posts:
Original poster
Passthebubbly · 04/10/2019 21:42

Tiger drove - thanks x

OP posts:
AutumnRose1 · 04/10/2019 21:43

OP how does she get to those hospital appointments?

Original poster
Passthebubbly · 04/10/2019 21:46

It’s almost like, well I looked after your dad and you loved him so you should do the same for me. However... dad was all she had (not 2 kids. A husbAnd and a business) dad was also in his 80’s not early 60’s

OP posts:
Original poster
Passthebubbly · 04/10/2019 21:48

Autumn rose - myself or my husband take her to all apps. For her standard 3 weekly apps she has to get hospital transport as I’m working and they can’t be missed
But for any app outwith the 3 standard weekly. (Dialysis) i take her

OP posts:
AutumnRose1 · 04/10/2019 21:55

She'll have to use hospital transport for all of it.

She isn't housebound without you, she has options.

MsAdorabelleDearheartVonLipwig · 04/10/2019 22:03

She has plenty of options but while you keep fulfilling all of them she doesn’t need to do anything.

Please, please find the strength to stop feeling obligated to this toxic leech just because you happen to be related.

thesandwich · 04/10/2019 23:14

Do not miss your holiday.

justilou1 · 04/10/2019 23:28

Sounds a bit familiar to me... my dad had motor neurone disease. She sat on the phone loving the attention and chain-smoking while he became sicker and more paralysed. She was also more hostile. I lived on the other side of the world with my husband and three little kids. I had to keep flying back to hear how wonderful my invisible parasitic brother was (only phoned when money was required) and I was a horrible, selfish bitch. When dad died, I had about two months of peace before she became sick, refusing to accept the obvious diagnoses (COPD & lung cancer) she was telling people that she had an “exotic form of TB I caught in Bulgaria” and I was still expected to fly 26hrs to keep sorting her out. Like your mum, she would cancel any assistance I put in place, etc. She lied and was caught out, used people to exhaustion, etc... I had long-term friends and family telling me not to come back until someone found her dead on the floor, but of course, my conscience wouldn’t allow it. Her lung cancer was a slow one. It took six years to finally kill her. I did at least thirty cross-hemisphere round trips thinking that she was dying. I think I still have PTSD, and half expect her to come back from the dead like bloody Dracula and she’s been gone 2.5 years now.

milliefiori · 04/10/2019 23:29

She's 63 not 83! Wow. That;s just a few years older than me. She needs to sort herself out. She's not an elderly person.

You have a life and your core fresponsibility is to your children. She;s an adult who can make her own arrangements. Your DC are not. I'd scale it down. If she starts with 'sat here crying all day' be honest and say, 'so have I.' Adult children of elderly parents on Stately Homes know all about parents' needs being crucial and central and their own needs being undermined, ignored and treated as non-existent. If you are used to this, it's hard to even the balance, but you will feel better when you do.
Give her firm boundaries. Use the grey rock technique when she tries to manipulate you. (Short, neutral answers with no trace of emotion in them.) Practise having the right to walk out of the room if she is bullying or manipulating you. The freedom you feel when you do is an energy surge right through your body. I feel for you.You've hit a wall today. You can't continue like this, so don;t. You will find some loving, kind support on Stately Homes.

Fortysix · 04/10/2019 23:56

Justilou1 - omg that’s as tough as I’ve ever heard on any elderly thread

IamEarthymama · 05/10/2019 00:21

I am older than your mother.
She has health issues, well, she can get help for those as you know.
You must step back
If you can't do it for yourself do it for your husband and your children..
This is your one life, live it to the best xx

justilou1 · 05/10/2019 05:56

Btw... she died at 70, so all this starting at similar age. She was never a nice woman. Maybe go with her to her GP and advise that she has isolated herself and is exhausting you. You will no longer be available to do appointments because of kids, and distance, you won’t be manipulated to drop everything anymore and if she chooses to cancel services that have been out in place to assist her and she starved to death or falls over, then you will respect her choice to do so. (See how quickly she backpedals.)

Original poster
Passthebubbly · 05/10/2019 13:29

Jeez some awful stories out there so sorry so many of you are going through similar.

She won’t go to the gp, says they are useless. Won’t use walking aids. Won’t consider a mobility scooter. Won’t deal with bills/ paper work. She will do an online shop herself so she can get her cigarettes.
I do block most of it out and keep things upbeat but sometimes it’s just bloody hard. It always ramps up when I am going away. At the moment she is claiming she has cancer she just knows it.

OP posts:
Original poster
Passthebubbly · 05/10/2019 13:32

And yes she is only 64 years old but health wise a lot older. I just can’t imagine being in her position and not doing anything to help myself.
If she moved beside us we would be on hand. Kids could pop in and out. It’s a great community she would make friends, she hates where she lives so makes sense. She was all for it I spent ages finding ground floor apartments for her to see then she decided to stay put.
Have just reached the end of my tether I really have. I have lived this for 14 years now as has she I know but when do I get a life. I have blinked and I am 44

OP posts:
MereDintofPandiculation · 05/10/2019 14:56

No matter how much I give whatever I do it’s not enough. Hold on to that thought. Whatever you do, it won't be enough. So you might as well ramp right back to whatever works for you.

There is absolutely no moral rightness in trying to fix her life if in doing so you sacrifice your own and make life worse for your kids.

You've given her lots of solutions, which she has refused. So keep blocking her - be sympathetic but firm "Yes, Mum, I'm sure you are fed up stuck at home. Why not get a taxi to go to... I've already sent you a list of phone numbers for taxis in your area". It's not your responsibility to make her decisions for her, or to put things right if she makes bad decisions.

And try not to let her know in advance that you are going away, then she won't be play acting to stop you going.

milliefiori · 05/10/2019 15:02

Whatever you do, it won't be enough. So you might as well ramp right back to whatever works for you.
This is brilliant advice from @MereDintofPandiculation. I really hope you follow it.

AdultFishcakes · 05/10/2019 15:04

fucking hell @justilou1

I know this is an awful awful thing to say and does the OP no help but it’s at times like this like this I’m glad my toxic mother died.

I too had years of shit, gaslighting and awful behaviour before having to go NC and she killed herself about 5 years later.

It was absolutely 100% the thing that I feared the very most in my whole life coming true and I was only 23.

But I don’t feel guilt. And I have the capacity for it (I have three young children and work of course I feel guilt).

What I’m saying in a roundabout way is sometimes you just HAVE TO bite that bullet. Take as objective a view as you can and just say “as of X that’s it in the event Y or Z doesn’t get better”.

And do it.

EvenPhilip · 05/10/2019 15:09

Apologies OP if I have you confused with someone else, have you previously posted about her? It sounds familiar.
You are obviously at the end of your tether, can you just bite the bullet and say No in order to force her to get help.
You are going to end up ill, ( more so than you already are)
I can't see how your life could be much more stressful just because she might declare "you are dead to me" it some other dramatic manipulative nonsense.

PlasticPatty · 05/10/2019 15:30

You will need to fight back, grab your life back, OP.

My dad is 87 and in good health. I stood by him, did errands and admin, saw him two hours almost every day.

Then, at the end of July, he decided he never wanted to see me again, and said a final 'goodbye'.

Come mid September, he needs my help with an admin task, so he's back. But I'm not giving him two hours of my day. I got my life back, his choice, and I'm not throwing it away again.

Your mum is only a couple of years older than me. I don't know her mental or physical condition, but most people our age can manage, after a fashion.

Ultimately, if you were 'dead to her', you'd be alive to you.

PlasticPatty · 05/10/2019 15:32

You can write to her gp, you don't have to go. I wrote to inform them about my mum, when my parents needed help and weren't getting any, and they took notice. Write to adult social services as well.

PlasticPatty · 05/10/2019 15:34

'When do I get a life'?

Today. Now. Have a shower, shake your head, brush her nonsense out of your life. She's had it all and from today she can only have 10% - if you can spare that much. You decide.

Grambler · 05/10/2019 15:43

So she can take hospital transport when she wants to and she can do her shopping online when she wants to.

Just because she'd prefer you to do X, it doesn't mean you have to do it.

Have a long think about what you are prepared to do- 1 x 4 hour visit a week, taking the kids once a month, two phone calls a week - whatever. The rest she is going to have to do herself. You can't live like this for the next week let alone 30 years.

cptartapp · 05/10/2019 16:15

Nothing will change until you make different choices. Consideration for others should work both ways. Her well being does not trump yours. Inform social services you will be stepping right back, do so and let a crisis develop. It's the only way.

Frankley · 05/10/2019 16:38

Is she getting Attendance Allowance? Tell her to spend that on taxis when she won't use hospital transport. I'm old but would never want my child to disrupt her family life like you are having to. Don't feel guilty, enjoy your holiday, just go and leave her to use the help she has previously had.

pumkinspicetime · 05/10/2019 16:40

OP this can change whenever you choose to change your responses to her behavior and it won't change until you do.
I would stop taking her to hospital. Give her the details of hospital transport.
If she sends emotive texts just delete and don't respond.
Take a long look at what you feel happy to give, not obligated and don't give anymore.
Your best will never be enough so accept that and work out you can give without damaging yourself and your family.