The Cockroach cafe -new look for spring 2021

[MereDintofPandiculation]

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, with a refurbishment to celebrate the coming of Spring, a place to vent, rant, ask questions, get advice, and hopefully laugh too.

If your question is big, it's best to start a new thread, and get all the advice together in one place. But for everything else, the cafe is the right place.

For newbies: why cockroach? Previous long term resident of "Elderly Parents" Yolo's 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. Her 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.

I hope it doesn't!
Dad wouldn't want that I'm sure.

Mum is still a pile of tears and snot and insisting that she's not coming for Easter lunch...she seems depressed rather than PA.

I have my best mate coming, I can't just cancel. Have said to mum I'll check on her in a couple of hours and see if she's changed her mind and if not will pop dinner round for her to eat at home later.

Feel so, so guilty for not dropping everything and leaving her to it. I should, shouldn't I?

@AcornAutumn

Mere "I'm not a particularly family minded person, nor an unselfish one, so I must have felt at some level it was normal."

But you had children so you must be more family oriented than I am?

With respect, Acorn, that’s quite a low bar

I have family, and I enjoy seeing them. But when my mother was alive I’d see them only half a dozen times a year, and I see DS2 not much more often.

Long term lurker/occasional poster here. Minty, yes you absolutely should leave her to it. It is what she says she wants, and you can’t keep second-guessing her. There will, of course, be fallout, of the ‘you abandoned me’ variety, but if you do her the courtesy of believing that what she tells you she wants is what she actually wants, you have nothing to reproach yourself with.
Have a lovely time with your friend.

Apparently I treat her like a child, try to control everything (because she constantly says she can't cope), everyone else is more understanding/patient/sympathetic and all her friends are baffled as to why I haven't gone to stay with her for at least a fortnight while dad settles in at the home

That’s very like what my ex said the nun said to him after I left. They don’t know, do they?

NDN not nun. Spellchecker obviously has unrealistic expectations of my ex’s associates

Minty, no of course you shouldn’t drop everything and go to your mother. She’s made her choice , you have to respect it.

@MereDintofPandiculation

NDN not nun. Spellchecker obviously has unrealistic expectations of my ex’s associates

She doesn't seem PA tbf just down and not well and missing dad.

The thing that drives me up the wall is her comolete inability to take any ownership of her issues.

Dint I was enjoying puzzling out the appearance of the nun when suddenly it all became more mundane.

Minty If your mum wants a day to cry and work through her feelings then give her the space to do that. Listen to her words rather than what you think it is that she means, it's hard when you've been raised to do the opposite. "Just leave me alone, I'll be fine" may mean "Come and drag me to the dinner table because I don't want to look as if I want to go" or it may not. You are in the bad books whatever you do so you might as well do what you want to do.

Her friends may not be saying anything at all, MIL (the perpetual victim of circumstance) tells me what the near neighbour has said. If MIL was mean about family members I would pull her up on it but if she reports that someone else has said it then she thinks that she has a free pass to saying something nasty.

Oh I take what mum says with a pinch of salt but if lying if I said I didn't have some concerns about how she's portraying me to other people.

That said I looked at some of her fb posts the other night, one saying how hard it was to cope with it all on her own...and several people came back with 'yes but at least you have Minty and Mini Minty...'

I guess it's a bit like my XH, I always thought people couldn't see through his bad behaviour but found out after I left him that they absolutely could, but didn't say anything for fear of offending/upsetting me!

Minty if your mum is down, she had the option of coming for lunch, which might have helped. It's her choice not to do that. I think your offer to take some round later sounds entirely reasonable and shows that you still care. Try and enjoy having some time with your friend.

Mere "With respect, Acorn, that’s quite a low bar"

Is it? I just think if you have children, you have some interest in family and family life...or why would someone have them?

Minty I once told mum it was high time she grew up. She actually really did after that. I'm not saying it was all me, I think she is honestly a bit embarrassed that she let dad take responsibility for so much and ignored his requests for help.

Just been round and we were at each others throats within about 3 minutes.

She's coming round later, but I'll have to pick her up. Also picking.ky mate up so we can have a drink but doesn't look like that's going to be happening.

I just can't see any end to this. She could go on for years...I'm just never going to be free.

Which Minty is why you have to work out where your line is, and draw it. Whatever you do will never be enough, so there is no harm in drawing a line that works for you.

Ultimately you are not responsible for your DM's happiness.

One of DM's friends was trying to phone me to tell me what a bad daughter I was recently, but I have changed my landline and so she was phoning DM's house to get DM or the carer to give my number to her. Good try. I don't actually care that everyone thinks I am a Bad Daughter for not doing more.

@notaflyingmonkey

Which Minty is why you have to work out where your line is, and draw it. Whatever you do will never be enough, so there is no harm in drawing a line that works for you.

Ultimately you are not responsible for your DM's happiness.

One of DM's friends was trying to phone me to tell me what a bad daughter I was recently, but I have changed my landline and so she was phoning DM's house to get DM or the carer to give my number to her. Good try. I don't actually care that everyone thinks I am a Bad Daughter for not doing more.

Wise words. I agree, Minty. You have to draw a line.

I'd start with "mum, if you have no love to show your daughter, i'll come back when you do".

nota someone is trying to phone you to tell you that? My flabber is ghasted! 😱😱😱

@MintyCedric

Just been round and we were at each others throats within about 3 minutes.

She's coming round later, but I'll have to pick her up. Also picking.ky mate up so we can have a drink but doesn't look like that's going to be happening.

Minty can you not tell mum you are having a drink so she will need a taxi back home? You will arrange it for her but you can't drive her. Have the night with your friend as you planned. Don't postpone what makes you happy

Minty Today is not necessarily what your future looks like. Your mum is ill, possibly in pain and all over the place emotionally because of your dad. She's not always going to be like this. All that stress of the yes/no/yes placement, will he /won't he settle has been hard on both of you. Why don't you fix up another evening with bestie revolving round trashy tv, a takeaway and whatever else you need for a good night in.

This has all been made harder by the restrictions on socialising. Come mid May (or whenever it is) your mum can join the WI/a lunch group/tea dance/knitting group and start having some social interaction that isn't restricted to you, your dad and the carers. It's not going to be all you all of the time.

I am fully accepting that mum will go on for years. She's not in bad shape physically which is why it's a shame that her brain is checking out. I can't go on being tied for that long, I want to enjoy life while I still have the knees for it. I am too old to put everything on hold for ten years. In some ways it's easier for me, there are days where she thinks she's living in a home (she rings me to complain that no-one has brought her dinner and that she's been left on her own, the indignation is amazing) and other days where she thinks I'm an unrelated carer. If that's the reality she's living in now then she might as well be living in it for real, she's be better looked after and better fed.

I probably sound ridiculous whinging when I'm one of the youngest people of this thread (I think). The thing is, I know an inordinate number of people who have died young, and even though I'm only 45 I don't take it for granted that I have a reasonable amount of time length.

I have spent my whole life revolving around other people's needs and I really thought by now I would be almost free.

It wouldn't be so bad if I felt it was appreciated and I could take a break and do things for myself without being abused and emotionally blackmailed, which just makes it so stressful ots not worth bothering.

Mum came for dinner which started well but she has now been talking at my best mate for about an hour and a half (she's a bit like a surrogate daughter to her tbf as she and friends mum were close and we were constantly in and out of each others houses growing up).

There was a lengthy monologue about the fecking carer, during which I shut myself in the kitchen with music on and washed up...and she wonders why dad frequently deckines to talk to her when she calls the home

On the upside, I did manage to get his attention when I dropped some stuff off for him earlier and managed to wave and blow him a kiss through the window.

I think BM may stay later and get a taxi back but otherwise we'll sort out something else...still trying though.

Minty I'm the same age as you, there's nothing ridiculous about it.

Parents are such a nightmare.

My mum has managed to upset me after we had a nice day yesterday.

🌺🌺and🍫🍫to minty and acorn
Sorry you are having tough times with your elderlies. Today with dm wasn’t bad- dd was a star but dm cannot bring herself to acknowledge it’s me who did all the catering/ graft.
Told me to thank dh(not here all day) for letting her sit in his garden.....
It’s sunny, I have chocolate.... cockroach all.....

@MintyCedric you are fifteen years younger than me. I think it gives you more reason to be pee'd off, not less. Realistically I probably have no more than 10 years of caring (mum is 84) and we have three dogs so spontaneous breaks are unlikely anyway.

When I was 45 my youngest was only 5. If I had had to care for mum as well I would have fallen apart.

I feel so guilty when I come here and whinge because other people have it so much harder.

Sometimes - like just now - I am partly bursting into tears because she won't shut up.

I don't care about the bad daughter thing, I just think "a stronger person would cope." My cousin speaks to his parents twice a day and they are even more incapable. He is only scared of them dying.

I'm so sorry Acorn....& I totally get the tearfulness just because they won't bloody stop.

Mum took her leave about an hour before last bus was due so I dropped her home then came back for a chat with bestie but didn't drink and dropped her home.

Now in the bath with CBD bubble bath & gin and a supper of crisps, hot cross bun & chocolate pending.

Bestie is coming over on Friday for a sesh.