And so it begins...

[Missfelipe]

Posting for some much needed advice.

My parents are not elderly by any stretch (early 60s) but my father is not in the best health (not severely ill but a myriad of milder health issues that will no doubt culminate in worsening health - think diabetes, obesity etc) and my mother is old before her time.

My mother is the main issue here. She still works part time but if you never knew this you’d think she was a vulnerable old lady the way she goes on. She has a helplessness, probably wilful as opposed to learned and is totally reliant on my father for pretty much everything - organising life admin, cooking, sorting things like cars etc). When not at work she sits at home watching made for TV movies that I think affect how she thinks the real world actually is. As a result everything is over dramatised in her head and in some cases I think she actually invents stories for attention. She has no friends and no hobbies. Suggestions are met with excuse after excuse about why she can’t do something. She will say things like, ‘when your dad goes’ 🧐 and outlines her plans for when she assumes she will outlive him. I am not joking.

Recently my father has had to have surgery on his knee. Despite her being a fully capable adult, this somehow resulted in us (her adult children who all live a minimum 1.5hrs away) being manipulated into doing things for her she was more than capable of doing herself whilst he was in hospital. It gave me a very real look into the future and it filled me with dread. My siblings both have children and as the one who doesn’t, I can see the burden of this falling to me and it is not sustainable. The weeks before my father was up and more mobile and back to his old self where some of the most mentally draining of my life and this was a non-life threatening medical issue.

For those of you who have been there what should we be doing now to better prep her for the possibility future? Especially given that I don’t think she will take it on board and she is the sort of person that views any constructive criticism as a personal attack.

What sort of things was she asking you to do for her?

Learn how to deflect/push back.

If she is telling you things in the hope you'll fix them, say 'oh dear, that sound tricky/how annoying/what a nuidance'. Don't get caught up in making suggestions, that just prolongs the conversation as she explains all the reasons your ideas are no good.

Work out ways you are happy to support her and stick to them- perhaps schedule a weekly phone call where you'll really pay attention, or a monthly visit where you can do little things like changing lightbulbs. Perhaps you can do online utilities/insurance jobs for her.

A lot of fear and anxiety on your mum's part will lead her exaggerate and demand attention for fear you won't step up when she's in need. Having regular check in times will reassure her she won't be abandoned unable to cope.

It's important not to allow your anxiety about being left with a big caring role to make you see problems where they aren't. I often hear criticism from my mum when she has an issue I haven't foreseen and resolved for her. I don't think it's actually criticism, I think she's just off loading! I have to take a breath and tell myself to be less defensive.

It’s not so much that she asks...it’s that she sort of creates situations where we feel backed into a corner to sort things out or risk being made to feel like the worst people on the planet. For example, pre-COVID my father needed to have surgery for another issue and needed to go to a specialist unit a hour and a half away in a larger city (they live in a small town). She was to stay with a relative nearby whilst he was in. She won’t drive on the motorway and said she would take the train, but in saying she would take the train she kept making a fuss saying she didn’t know how (couple of changes) and making out like it was the equivalent of asking her to build a rocket. This went on and on until my brother gave in and ended up doing a 5hr round trip from his home to get her there. If he hadn’t not done so she would have spun quite the sob story about how we’d abandoned her in her hour of need. That’s generally how it goes....

I dont think that's a particularly unreasonable imposition if there were multiple changes

At the time she was 58 years old...we aren’t talking about someone who needs assistance. She has her full faculties and is physically able. This wasn’t navigating the tube station, a couple of changes at rural two platform stations. I don’t think it warranted a days annual leave and a 5hr round trip on my brothers part....

Hmm. A train with a suitcase and several changes may have felt daunting. How did your dad get to hospital?
I think I'd have talked her through some other options- maybe driving to a different station with a direct train route, or staying somewhere between the two. It's hard, driving and hour and a half each way to help her make a journey and then presumably needing help to get back again is a big deal.

It is hard to find the balance. It's important to avoid getting in the habit of assuming everything she asks is unreasonable, just because she often is unreasonable.

I think when there's a lot of emotional manipulation going on, it's hard to be clear sighted.

People who have parents who are considerate and sensitive to other people's needs may not recognise the dynamic of 'I'll scream and scream and scream until I'm sick!', that I'm picking up here.

It's equally important not to infantilise older people, and encourage dependence before its time!

58 is only a little older than me, but I'm the one ferrying mum's enormous suitcases around the station because she can't pack sensibly. I won't go on holiday with her because I'm the packhorse and I simply can't manage her stuff and my own very stripped down case!

During your DFs most recent hospital stay it sounds more like she was maybe lonely and worried so wanted the reassurance of having people around? I don't think you can prepare her for the future as such but possibly you can push back a bit on her requests and be more robust with her?

Does your DF recognise there is a problem with some of her behaviours? Would he help you and your sisters future proof their joint and individual affairs and living arrangements. Are your sisters equally concerned- and aware that it is a 3-way problem looming?

@Missfelipe

At the time she was 58 years old...we aren’t talking about someone who needs assistance. She has her full faculties and is physically able. This wasn’t navigating the tube station, a couple of changes at rural two platform stations. I don’t think it warranted a days annual leave and a 5hr round trip on my brothers part....

Goodness me. I am 58 and would be able to travel to the other side of the world alone if I had to. She is not old at all!

Did she 'have' to go to the relatives to be looked after as your dad wasn't there to do it?

Blimey, 58 and she "can't" handle a train journey with a couple of changes? You need to push back against this, she's acting like someone in their 80s

My siblings are all very aware of what is brewing...we are all thinking about how to handle when we all live a distance away. She’s always acted like this to some extent. When they were in their mid fifties she wanted to sell their home and buy a bungalow as it wouldn’t be long before they ‘couldn’t manage the stairs’. My Dad also recognises this but I think also knows there’s no changing her.

No she probably didn’t have to go to the relatives but it would have meant not being able to visit in the hospital. He was in for a few days so it saved the daily trips for visiting hours.

Your father needs to go through the life administration with her so she can cope if she is left. Make sure utilities in joint names etc or all that will fall to you or siblings.
What work does she do?

When they were in their mid fifties she wanted to sell their home and buy a bungalow as it wouldn’t be long before they ‘couldn’t manage the stairs’.

This is not a crazy idea tbf. My mum wanted to do this and kept dithering because my dad wasn't on board. Eventually at nearly 81, my dad fell down the entire flight of stairs in their house and broke his back in 4 places. He made a brief recovery of sorts but has spent the last year bedridden which has been really hard work physically.

As someone who has spent the last year caring for them both my honest advice to you would be to get them settled in a nice retirement village and move even further away.

It's entirely possible you could be looking at another 20 years or more of this getting steadily harder to manage and frankly it's a fucking nightmare.

In her early sixties my mum was an overweight, lifelong smoker, with SVT and type 2 diabetes...she's still trucking at nearly 82 and even more bloody stubborn (she did give up the fags tbf).

Do not go making assumptions that any of this will be shortlived. State your boundaries now and stick to them like glue.

Hmm. A train with a suitcase and several changes may have felt daunting.. At 58? Really? with a pension age of about 67 now where plenty of people manage to hold down a full time job, commute, look after their grandchildren, climb Kilimanjaro for charity? Absolutely not.

Pickle gave some excellent advice above but whatever you do you all need to agree to it - no caving in from one of the kids. And she won't like it if you push back, and may well never learn how to manage stuff for herself so I'd consider getting POA in place asap so at least if you do have to take over you've got the legal backup to make it a bit easier.

Oh, and when I say 'still trucking'...this is after a heart attack and 2 angioplasties, and now insulin dependent diabetes and kidney failure in the mix.

Dad was declared end of life last April, with a suspected prognosis of 1 - 3 months.

I have been off work (initially sick leave, now unpaid sabbatical) since last November as it was impossible to provide the support they want/need.

I anticipated Dad having passed by now and that I'd be looking at getting mum into a nice little warden assisted flat where she had hot and cold running company before I went back to work in September.

As it stands he's recently gone into a home but she's talking about bringing him back home which will ultimately be a complete car crash. His prognosis now (6.5 st, bedridden, doubly incontinent, partially sighted, eating, drinking and speech difficulties, intermittent severe pain, delirium and confusion) ranges from 'we've never seen anyone in such a state still going' to 'you do realise this could go on for months or even years'?

The lack of meaningful support from health and social care services (not helped by covid and my mum being difficult) has been astonishing.

...I'm an only child and single parent and it's completely impossible to make any plans for my own future.

It sounds like anxiety to me. If she's never done something like take a complicated train journey on her own I imagine the the thought of it makes her very anxious.

You can't control what your mum wants, says, or does. You can control your reaction to it.
I would say the more you or your siblings do now will just pave the way for more demands on your time, it will become the norm.

It starts off "Can you just...?" and before you know it you've landed yourself a full-time job with an unreasonable manager and no wages.

Thanks folks. I think this is more about how I prepare than her. For those asking, she’s actually a nurse. I know. So someone holding down a very responsible job can’t function in the outside world apparently. She has anxiety or at least ‘self diagnosed’ anxiety. I know this because she will tell anyone who listens this. I don’t mean to be disparaging but she is the mother who cried wolf, it’s hard to know when she’s telling the truth, exaggerating or just plain story telling at times.

This sounds mean but I think you will have to practice being happily unavailable.
I don’t mean for the important things but when something unreasonable starts to brew you will have to learn to be blunt for your future self.
So “sorry mum I can’t take time off work for that they have very strict policies around short notice leave but I’m confident you can deal with that” or just say to her “ mum you are more than capable, how silly that you want me to help you do something simple like X I’m afraid I’ve got so much on”
You could make up excuses but you have a lot of years left to be doing that so it’s probably better to be blunt and honest but fair, otherwise unless you move far away you will just be taking over from your DF as her crutch.
If you have a few kind but refusing stock phrases as armour she will get the message, and then be very helpful if something genuinely urgent needs doing like when you praise a child for the good and ignore the bad.

OP, you deserve huge amounts of credit for working this all out now and not 20 years down the road with huge amounts of hindsight.

I have a helpless victim in the family. Nothing can ever be done to improve anything in her life, every possible solution is shot down. It helped me to look at the drama triangle and the solutions to being dragged into one. I have been raised to be a rescuer and it's hard to step away from a victim but doing things for them is not helping at all in the long term.

The other thing you will need is a united front. There's no point coaching mum in life skills if one of the siblings is going to put on their SuperSib pants and leap in to save her.

@Mum5net I’ve always known this has been coming. As siblings we’ve often commented on what she would be like if anything happened to my father but it’s only in recent years we have actually started to have to ‘parent’ her. The reality that it’s now beginning is starting to sink in.

I think we need a bit of a sibling discussion so we’re all singing from same hymn sheet. She can’t attempt to play us off each other if we all do the same thing.

The menopause can cause anxiety. Perhaps she isn’t as confident as you think, perhaps she is concerned about being left alone.