Cockroach Cafe - newly refurbished for the summer

[MereDintofPandiculation]

Welcome into our newly refurbished cafe. We've got rid of the Bad Daughters' bench - it was getting too small - and refitted the main room as a Bad Daughters' room, with comfy sofas, coffee, chocolates and drinks of your choice. (There is a good daughters' room - go down that corridor there and you'll find it tucked behind the stairs. It's not yet been fully furnished - we haven't had a visit from a Good Daughter in I don't know how long).

Anyway, come in when you want to share good news, or to rant, or to ask a small question that doesn't warrant its own thread. Or just to hang out with others who understand what you're going through.

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.

Absolutely @permanentTemporary. She often says she has lived too long. We are so missing a generation as my mum (her only child) died when she was 49. I know this has only made it more lonely for her

I know my Dad didn't expect to make it past his mid seventies - his mum died at 74, his dad in his forties when he was a toddler.

@Nodancingshoes

My mum has me on Thurs and Sunday, a friend on Tues, carer on Wed's. I phone her every day, another close but not local friend calls her 3x a week.

She is able to manage the Internet and is on social media...how much company does one person need?!

Minty the loneliness might be that of an empty house. She has to make her own choices on that one, move somewhere with a communal area, have a cat or wait out the transition period until an empty house feels normal.

@Minty if you saw your DM all day everyday, it would still be not enough. I have found this out with my DM, I take her out minimum 3 times a week but she tells everyone she stays in on her own all day, every day, never goes anywhere. I don't know if she genuinely forgets or just likes to play the victim? I hope you are feeling a little better

Unless you are one of those people who enjoys living on their own, and most of us aren't, it is difficult. OK, someone takes you out for 3 hours on a Thursday, but you still have another 21 hours (or 13 waking hours) when there's no-one there, no-one to share your pleasure at a flower that's come out today, to share a meal with, to laugh at a comedy programme with. And then, even if you're going to church on Sunday and seeing a friend on Monday, you're still got Friday and Saturday to get through.

It's not the daughter's problem to fill that hole, but the loneliness is still there.

And a care home isn't the answer. Most people are there because they can't cope at home, usually through dementia. They're not going to provide companionship.

I think that's the thing Dint, I am one of those rare people who loves being 'home alone'.

One of my friends jokingly said she'd come with on my holiday next year as DD isn't interested and our friend immediately said, "she'll be holed up with her laptop writing and happy as Larry" which sums it up.

It's just another example of how mum and I are polar opposites. My dad was lovely to be around and enjoyed socialising but was also very happy with his own company.

minty I’m sort of half way. On a conservation group, I’m the one working on my own at the far end of the site, and I have to force myself to remember that most of the volunteers are there for the sociability, and make sure that everyone who wants to has someone to work with. But at home, even though I’m doing my own thing, it’s important to me to be able to share nice things with DH, and I’m not at all looking forward to being on my own.

It's the sharing I miss, the little things that we'd discuss together. Friends are not the same because we don't have that thirty years of shared experience as a base.

There's no bringing them back, you just have to plod on the best you can. It's taken me four years to reach the stage where my life feels good, it takes time to build a new life even if you are able to get out and about.

I'm sorry you've experienced that Knot.

I suppose having not had the happiest marriage (spent most of it looking forward to the times ex wasn't around and getting a sinking feeling when I heard him pull up) I've not really had the experience of missing those things, other than very, very occasionally with something DD related.

My hobbies are all solo...mum doesn't really have any hobbies, doesn't read or particularly enjoy films so it's not easy for her to occupy herself or get out of her own head.

I feel guilty that I'm not more sympathetic but I've realised in the last few days that I'm burying a significant amount of anger towards her and can't rationalise in my head the mum that misses the man she was married to for just shy of 47 years, with the mum who was unkind when he was ill, obsessed over the carer and was signed up to online dating before he'd even passed away.

Old age certainly does not bring out the best in people. We have (still undiagnosed) dementia in the mix but it has turned MIL from someone who was okay, quite funny, but prone to harbour grudges into an absolute prize fucking bitch of the first order.

She says the most vile things how she has done so much for us (she has been generous over the last 20 years, but so have we) and we are so nasty, she wishes to god that she had never had DH (he is her only child) and we only want her money and want her to die (!) she says she has loads of friends in the village and no one likes us.

It’s just getting so hard to listen to this daily run down of hate, I know it’s her condition but you can’t help thinking that she has always thought this about us, it’s just now all social restraint had gone and she says what she thinks.

I can tell the stress is beginning to get to both of us now, I wake up every night with acid reflux and DH is reporting similar symptoms.

I can’t see an end to it and don’t know how we go on

Just peeping round the door, not quite sure if this is the right place because many of you seem to have far more significant problems than I do at the moment with my DF.

@TonTonMacoute, I really sympathise because MiL was like that for years. She was always suspicious of everything new and was convinced people were spying on her. She put brown parcel tape over all the screw holes on the TV remote and other gadgets. She thought someone was watching her through the VHS (it was a while ago). She also wrote long rambling letters to the chief constable of where she used to live, accusing him of spying on her and putting her under surveillance as a drug dealer. MiL wouldn't have recognised a drug if came with a large label saying "I'm a drug"! The Police were brilliant and not in the least bit bothered or accusatory towards her or us.

Thanks Malbecfan

MIL rang this morning to accuse me of using her bank card and is threatening to prosecute. We've got to the stage when we think 'Go right ahead!' It might bring things to a head in terms of moving to the next stage.

Bloody hell @TonTonMacoute There's a limit to what I'd tolerate. And I think that may well cross the line for me.

MIL hates us, really deeply despises and dislikes us (or so her condition makes her think).

I know that often Alzheimer's sufferers do become violent, and this a sort of emotional violence, and I was wondering if anyone else had experienced such a harsh rejection by a parent?

Hello @Malbecfan the wonderful thing about this place is that everyone else's issues put our own into perspective. And no one ever judges or says you are worrying about nothing.

I am writing with good news! I have had a phone call from the hospital and there is a place in a nursing home that is willing and able to receive mother should be agreeable. I have spoken to the home, looked on line and my friend insisted that we drove to look at it.

Everything is positive - they have Welsh speaking staff, pets are welcome by arrangement so she would be able to see her dog occasionally, the Care Inspection is wholly positive - except it is a 20 minute drive or an hour and 20 mins by bus - two buses and a half mile walk down a long narrow country lane which I am not completely at ease about. However visiting allows for two people at a time and I have wonderful friends and family who want to see her regularly and would be willing to take me.

My friend drove me out to look at the outside this afternoon and I would quite like to live there myself!

I have tentatively told the hospital that we would be happy for her to go there even though it isn't really where we wanted her to be. I think I would rather she was there with one visit from me a week and the option of family and friends being able to visit than to leave her in hospital and maybe in 6 weeks/6 months be forced to see her in a much less attractive environment. Fingers crossed.

Amazing news. It sounds spot on. Let's hope she goes for it

hairbrush the positive reaction you had from the nursing home drive past is very encouraging. Would they not let you over the threshold? But in the circumstances sometimes you just have to make a leap of faith. Lots of boxes ticked.
Ton Rapid escalation seems inevitable. Medication might return her more compliant. Before my DM was sectioned she threw a glass of water over my DF and was banging on windows and doors to get out. She slapped a doctor across his face. Violence appeared from nowhere in 48 hrs.

Wonderful news hairbrush, I hope it works out

Tonton it really sounds unbearable. No direct experience so I won't go on. Really feeling for you both.

Great news hairbrush go for it.
Welcome malbec
tonton sorry no answers but lots of sympathy.

When I phoned this morning to ask about visiting I was encouraged to make an appointment to look around which I will do before anything is confirmed but when I told my friend she insisted we went out for a drive to see the outside.

That sounds very positive hairbrush, fingers crossed for you.

I agree with PPs that your DMs day to day contentment is probably worth it even if it means you visiting her bit less often.

Hello !

Very new to this "elderly and infirm parents" thing, as despite DM being 81 and ill for ages my DF (79) as always managed to cope with a small amount of extra support. Not so now!

So hello to all....

Hello all, it’s a very long time since I’ve been on these threads, although I still recognise a few names.

My DM is relatively settled in that she’s been in a care home for over 2 years. She has dementia and is not happy - all she can talk about is wanting to go home, but we know from previous experience this will not work.

The reason I’ve popped my head into the Cafe is that we’re now selling her house ( we have todo this for various reasons) so I’m trying to clear it out, but I am finding it so, so hard. The house has been in the family for over 50 years, I spent every summer there for 20 years and considered it my “home” for 5 years (and I still think of it as home now).

My Dsis has helped for a couple of days, but finds it too difficult to help more ( we both live more than 5 hours away). I’ve been there again this week emptying her wardrobe and it was so sad - this was a woman who so loved clothes and being “smart”, and the wardrobes are full of these beautiful clothes, often still with their labels on. It made me realise how much I miss the woman DM used to be, and gave me a bit of an existential crisis of “what is it all for?”.

Sorry for the pity party but I just needed to get it out.

@TonTonMacoute - you sound to be somewhere very similar to where I was two and a half years ago, although I think you’re in a harder position because the accusations are being made against you. When DM had her first fall and was admitted to hospital, social services called me because DM said she’d fallen because her neighbour hit her. I knew that the neighbours had had to lift her and that (plus warfarin) was why she was heavily bruised.

A lovely A&E doctor explained to me about “confabulation” - patients with dementia make up stories to fill the gaps in their memories. They really believe they are true, but that doesn’t help the people they’re making up stories about. Unfortunately I’ve found that a crisis, a d being really firm with social services that you’re not going to pick up the pieces, is the only way to get things “fixed”

Welcome @sasparilla1, @Toofaroutallmylife and @Malbecfan, come and make yourself comfortable. You’ll be pleased to know I’ve got the planning permission for a big sunroom extension, so there’s plenty of room for all of us. I hope the building works won’t be too intrusive.

@Toofaroutallmylife, yes it’s almost unbearable when you bump into these little demonstrations that you’ve lost the person you loved.

My dad is great at confabulation. Fortunately the villains in his stories are British Gas and two local Councillors who are running mafia style organisation. The advice is always “don’t argue with them”. Much more difficult if you or even the neighbour has been cast as the villain.