What was your breaking point, when you could not do it anymore?

[RoseMartha]

My sibling and I have reached the point where we can no longer maintain or increase the level of support my parents need.

They need help with taking medication, cleaning and household jobs, cooking, all admin and appointments, all shopping, all laundry, a degree of personal care and all gardening. They can not go out on their own.
Encouragement to change their outfits otherwise will wear the same thing for weeks. They also forget to drink.

We have done our best to support them and do a lot of the tasks ourselves. They constantly ring us day and night. But recently it has become overwhelming.

They attend a day centre and a carer comes in once a day but we are still drowning under the pressure of looking after them on top of our own lives which include SN kids, jobs, normal day to day stuff for ourselves.

We spent over 50 hours last week attempting to meet their needs including going to support groups and liaising with support agencies as well as actually being there for them and we just cant cope anymore. And our own lives are suffering as a result. I have had to take numerous emergency days off work when they have just gone to pieces over something small or have needed to be rushed to a and e or the doctor. I then have to make up the time, mainly in the evenings or weekends. Which then throws my SN child into continuous meltdowns .

Are we realistically looking at carers in their home for longer periods or care homes?

Sounds awful OP. Definitely arrange more carer visits. Meals on wheels, a laundry service and a regular cleaner too. Step back for the sake of your DC, who is your priority.

Even a live in carer doesn't do everything. We had this for my parents for three months. In the end they both went into a care home.

The carer required two hours off per day which we covered for a few weeks but then brought in another carer.
There was still shopping, home admin and repairs to organise.

The house became less and less suitable, electricity blew a couple of times and they had a stair lift and my mother was on a plug in oxygen machine 90% of the time.

And we were newly retired with adult children living away from home.

It was fine, as long as we didn't want a life.

I think you are looking at a care home.

Sorry.

Ask social services for an assessment. Tell them everything.

Residential care home asap! This situation is untenable.

Refer them to your local authority for a care assessment and say you can no longer provide care and support. If they have funds above £23,500 they will have to pay for their care

I think often people leave it too late and that doesn’t help anyone, but builds resentments and inappropriate dependency. Sometimes letting go is kinder, although rarely easy.

Has she had a comprehensive needs assessment? It’s a good starting point but you might want to begin the discussion about residential care. She sounds like she’s too needy for supported living, but probably not at a point of needing nursing care. It might be you could arrange a few visits having researched some that offer appropriate activities and outings rather than somewhere that only offers a blaring television.

There are some lovely places and they come in all sorts of sizes, degrees of homeliness or luxury, and the only way to find the right one is to go and see them.

She might dislike the idea at first, but might find she is happier and can have a whole new lease of life.

You will probably need to make it very clear to social services that you are unable to support them, it's not your parents fault they do not have enough insight to understand the pressure there they are putting you under, but that doesn't mean to say you should suffer!

When i started this elderly parents section on mn about ten years ago, when no one else had an old mum and i felt totally alone. And I'd give my right arm for an hour with her today.