The Cockroach Cafe Mark 2 (general coping with oldies)

[yolofish]

Morning all! regulars or newbies, coping with your oldies is a frustrating, exhausting and difficult business however much we love them. The Cockroach Cafe is open to all, a place to vent, rant, ask questions, get advice, and hopefully laugh too.

For newbies: why cockroach? My DM attended a 'small animal event' in a nursing home, and was presented with a "small animal with a hard back" the name of which species she couldn't remember. My ever helpful DB suggested cockroach, and it has become a toast on here. So cockroach mes amis/amies, and may you all live to fight another day.

Sinister oh dear. Who’s she arguing with?

So it was very simple, worryingly so! DH is having one of those days. He's already raged about two articles in a magazine he's reading. I've escaped and left him to it. I don't like having conversations before 11am, let alone someone raging in the same room as me.

Mere oh dear. I can't be in a room with an angry person either!

IIRC your father was a delight and will be much missed.
But your mother is not an easy person to deal with it, have I remembered correctly?

You just summed it up perfectly. wry smile

Thanks for the condolences (ditto @thesandwich)

It’s currently like having a Daily Mail columnist living with me. “Brexit is wonderful, the past was amazing and everything now (music, tv, books, the news etc is terrible). Young people are too dependent on debt and don’t know how to save. We should all make do and mend etc. In the old days everything was in black and white and you could leave your doors open all day. I’m not being racist or anything but.... #metoo has made it impossible for me to chat up women”
In the 80’s she was a lefty feminist!

Every day I’m not at work, whilst DS is at school I have devoted myself entirely to sorting out her admin, the mess my StepDad left behind AND doing up her house ready for her to move in. And she will still find something to have a panic attack about, today it’s her tax return for NEXT year, which can’t even be started until April. Not the fucking bills that need paying now. I think she hates me tbh.

oh sinister have a big and from me! Mine used to drive me insane, especially over #metoo - "back in my day we all knew who wasnt safe in a taxi and would stab them with our hatpins if the hanky panky got too much". My DDs were 22 and 19 when she died and been raised to believe that they take no shit from men.... there were fireworks.

And dont start me on the "your doctor used to be your doctor for a lifetime, they'd come out and visit whenever. Now we've got all these Indians". Although if they were clearly anglo-educated Indian with impeccable English she would give them a gracious nod of acceptance, and bring out some shit about her days in Singapore as a new bride when my dad was posted there. Show her a Nigerian thought and she'd be off on one!!

I'm sorry, it's not really funny, but perhaps bleakly so. Anyway, you are not alone.

Well, they all sound like interesting conversations 😱

I had a proper chat with mum today. Nothing changes really. I can see how much she missed me. I had to say I did too, whereas really it’s been great to have a break.

For any Fleabag fans, I think I have summed up my own elderly experience in this. I’m going to stop going to church now. It’s too weird, as an atheist, and while I have appreciated them, it’s time for me to move on and handle things more realistically and stoically.

Morning all

Just wanted to ask something

A couple of posters mentioned supporting charities like Dignity in Dying.

If you are involved at a local level, what actually happens, do they want help with lobbying etc?

Thanks.

I have taken a stand! Youngest daughter needs to go to Scotland to look around her chosen University and a parent is expected to accompany. Although my middle daughter is home and has already said that she will stay with mum for a couple of weekends we can't be sure she will not be needed in work. Although mum "will be fine on her own" and "doesn't need anyone checking on her" she has agreed to go and stay the weekend with my cousin. So my daughter will get her up and sorted, my cousin will collect her at lunch time on the Friday and bring her home on Sunday evening.

Cousin lives locally and invites mum to hers for lunch every week so mum is reasonably comfortable there although "she hates to be any bother to them". I am so looking forward to going away and having an evening on my own in a hotel room with a good book!

Well done hairbrush! 👏

Forewarn your cousin that you'll be incommunicado for the weekend except for emergencies and don't phone home. You need to have a completely free weekend and your DM needs to get used to the idea of not having you on tap.

Great news hairbrush! Use this as a chance to change the game.

And she will still find something to have a panic attack about, today it’s her tax return for NEXT year Don't whatever you do solve the problem, else she'll have to find something else to worry about

My dad wouldn't move fuel suppliers because "the new supplier would inspect my electricity supply and Condemn It and I will have No Heating and will Die". But his current supplier "deliberately sends out bills so late he has no chance of paying in time, and they will get a court judgement against him, and ask for the Court to enforce payment, and both he and I would be Bankrupted and he would be In Prison for Christmas". It's a scary world he's living in, and any attempt to sooth him fails because the only reason I'm not as scared as him is that I don't have the sources of knowledge that he does. "If you can keep your head when all about you. Are losing theirs ... it shows you haven't fully understood the situation".

hairbrush that’s good.

Mere that must be so hard. Ami right in thinking your father was quite old at the point he started to think like this?

I think I discovered why mum stopped being able to text last week. Her phone needs topping up. 🤷🏻‍♀️ She claims it hadn’t occurred to her but when I said she should do it before she goes out tomorrow, she said “I was hoping you’d do it when you come over”. This isn’t age, it’s learned helplessness.

She simply can’t accept that ordinary life involves chores. She now has to ring the bank on Monday and wanted to wait for me for that too. It’s very difficult to find sympathy for someone behaving that way.

Am I being harsh? I know dad did everything for her but she must realise that was a privileged way to live?

rose she no doubt thinks I should not have to do this but also lacks confidence in doing it.
Grit your teeth and encourage and praise her for sorting things.
You do sound really drained at the moment. Protect yourself.
cockroach all.

sandwich “ Grit your teeth and encourage and praise her for sorting things”

I don’t really want to praise an adult for adulting. But I’ll leave her to it now and stop with the little “favours” that I was doing because I thought it was a kindness to an elderly parent.

Its a very tricky one autumn. Because obviously you want her to be "ok" and she wants you to look after her.

I do kind of agree with sandwich (which I often do! hi sandwich) in that you might have to be a bit encouraging, a bit OTT in congratulating her on whatever tiny achievement. Which I know is hard, because after all it's what we all do... but if she has learned helplessness you can help her unlearn it by pushing her to do stuff herself.

I think I might be "tied up at work all week, here's what you need to do to achieve xyz (I know that's spoonfeeding), catch up with you on Friday mum"?

FWIW I am trying to extricate myself from a situation where I've done all the work, and using the same approach. Rather ignoring the pass-agg responses about how busy the person is and responding with bland messages about what I'm up to...

Ami right in thinking your father was quite old at the point he started to think like this? I suppose he was! It's developed over the last 5 -10 years and he is now 97. But I wasn't really thinking of him as old when it started - I took him caving in his mid 80s, and he was still taking part in community groups, and doing DIY in his house. So your question gave me a bit of jolt

I think your mum may be a mistake of learned helplessness from always having someone else to do things with her, combined with the lessening confidence and ability to make decisions which is a known feature of increasing age. You may not want to praise an adult, but you've now reached the stage in the relationship where you ae now the parent. So encourage her to do stuff for herself, be firm but kind, and remind her that it's important to keep doing things and learning new things else her mental faculties will decline more rapidly.

Mere, I’m well impressed your dad was caving at that age, he must have been very fit.

Yolo, is that your charity friend? She’s pushed you quite a bit if I recall correctly?

Re being the parent - no. The child I never wanted to have. I used to have nightmares about getting pregnant and finding out too late to abort.

I will step back more. It’s one thing to look after a parent who is ill, but a parent who just wants to behave like a child, no way.

An elderly lady in mum’s road used to have a helper come in from the church for paperwork and stuff. I will tell mum I’ll look into that and I bet it was galvanise her to sort her own stuff. If not, we get help in.

That phrase, your parents ruin the first half of your life and your children ruin the second...obviously I have no children and I’m not letting my parents ruin the second half!

The learned helplessness sounds like my Mum, my step dad used to do everything, the driving, the cooking, the admin. Now he’s dead it’s all passed to me, which was not my intention, she just didn’t do anything. She now blames my stepdad for the way she is saying he was controlling, which I know is absolute bollocks because she’s said to other people that I am controlling! But if I try and get her to do any of her own stuff she will say she got confused and couldn’t do it. However she absolutely refuses to give me POA. I really don’t know how people convince their parents to give them POA, my dad wouldn’t either and now he’s at a stage where witnesses make it impossible (he lives in a care home, doesn’t see anyone else outside, GP refuses to be a witness).

My Mum does have memory loss, so I don’t know if this helplessness is now part of that. Her personality has not changed so much as got worse, the anxiety, moodiness, selfishness was all there before but in much smaller doses. If I mention about her having asked a question before she will snap “I can’t remember everything.” We have been renovating her house and she was complaining about not being involved enough, so we took her over there yesterday and set her to work doing some cleaning. After a couple of hours she started complaining that she was bored so I had to call my Uncle who took her for a coffee and kept her away for a good few hours to give us some space. But it was like dealing with a sulky teenager. Me and DH are no longer doing her house up out of the goodness of hearts, but to get her out of our house!

yolo and dint have explained beautifully what I was trying to say- but I totally get what you mean. The church lady idea sounds ideal.
dint your dad sounds awesome. He’s certainly lived life fully.
yolo is it as rose says the charity thing? Sounds like a good plan. Create a void.

Hard to do when we are natural fixers......

Sinister that sounds very familiar. I am sorry your mum says those things though. Mine doesn't - she has the grace to be quite ashamed because dad used to ask her for help with things like banking and she said no.

two things I always remember - one was she came round to my flat when I was doing a full time job and evening study, and told me off for not putting the mop away. I yelled at her (vanishingly rare for me to do this) because she's never had to do anything for herself in her life.

Another time, she grumbled because dad - who worked long hours - had asked her to go to the bank and sort some kind of error on their joint account as he had no way of getting out of work at lunchtime.

I pointed out again how privileged she was, quite angrily.

I don't mind just saying "well done" if she sorts something but that's as far as I'm prepared to go. I know for example, that she is bored with her TV, that she wants a DVD player, that she wants to connect the TV online etc etc.

but these will all end up being jobs for me and she will then still moan that she is bored.

I was posting under a different name when dad died, so this might confuse some, but I can't believe I ever thought of moving in! I would have lost my mind.

I am not a natural fixer

sandwich how are you?

full fact fairness - message from mum who topped up her mobile and apologises for being a pain.

autumn and sandwich - yes it's the charity friend. Wont go into it here, but I've done all I can do (which was a fuck of a lot!). Getting a bit of pass-agg at the moment, but am rising above it!

good news for topping up mobile though autumn!

yolo yes I remember you worked very hard.

The old "give them an inch" thing is so true of some isn't it.

The learned helplessness Easy thing to get into. There's a job you don't much like doing, but your partner doesn't mind, so you leave him to it, and without realising you get out of touch with it and it begins to be a scary problem should you have to start doing it again. Add to that the natural increasing cautiousness of old age... You can avoid it only by perpetually challenging yourself to do new things, and there comes a time in life where you don't want to start challenging yourself. Life's hard work.

autumn Apply the standard parental technique "If you're bored, you can [insert most unattractive chore that currently needs doing]" Or if you're feeling cruel: "I always think that boredom is the sign of a dull mind. Intelligent people always find ways of amusing themselves"