Stubborn mother

[JellyNo15]

My mum was widowed at the start of the year. She is managing to look after herself even though she has many health issues and is eighty. She can't bath or leave the house alone. She is a very bossy and sometimes nasty with her words.

She has extremely painful knees and apparently can't take pain killers. We have asked and asked for her to let my sister, who works part time, take her to see the GP. I work Tuesday-Friday and my job is on the line so I can't easily take time off. She won't go on Monday as apparently it is emergencies only. Now my sister has booked a few days away next week and my mum is worse and I can't take time off.

My husband is also very cross that I have to spend every other evening with my mother and this has caused several rows. I am feeling very low. I help with childcare for my grandchildren too (which I love doing) and feel torn between everything. I can see my mum needing full time physical care soon and she will completely refuse professional care either in her own home or residential and my husband will be very cross if I have to sleep every other overnight at mums and I really don't want her to live here, not that my husband would allow it anyway.

When my mum was widowed she expected me to drive for half an hour and walk across the street with her to the doctors, literally across the street. She couldnt go herself as she has virtually no sight, she can see a bit but not enough. Anyway I said to her about getting home visits but she was adamant that was only for housebound folk and that wasnt her. Quite aggressive with it. I found her attitude quite offensive if I'm being honest,it was okay for me to spend my time running after her as I didnt matter. Anyway I phoned the doctors and told them her health issues and asked for home visits. They were very accommodating and she got home visits ever since. She now tells everyone that she does this as she can't expect me to drop everything for her! As regards not wanting help that's fine don't give any. Stop staying overnight. If she doesn't need help and won't accept help stop helping until she realises she does need help. My husband wouldnt want me to stay every other night away from home either but tbh I wouldn't dream of it. Nor would I accept him staying with his father-in-law on a permanent basis. Social workers suggested until we get my father-in-law into a nursing home we could all take turns staying overnight. Not one of my husbands family even gave that a seconds thought and refused to accept that as a possibility. If this has been going on since the beginning of the year if it was me I would get the GP to do home visits or send nurses over if they can't come and I would stop overnight visits,if she can manage she can manage. She needs to understand what not wanting help looks like. This could go on for a long time you need to only do what you can cope with long term. Get help in for everything else and if she refuses help she does without.

The best thing you can do is take a huge step back until she is forced to accept professional help.

She is choosing to burden you and do zero to help herself.

I agree with the others. It might sound harsh but I would take a huge step back as well. Sometimes things have to fail before they will accept help.

Are you going for the evening or staying the full night?

How's doing her cleaning/shopping/garden/food prep and laundry?

Is she getting Attendance Allowance and Pension Credit?

Has she given you POA as well.

You have my sympathy, my M can be bloody awful. Seeing her every other day would severely affect my MH, never mind my marriage...

I visit every other evening my sister and I alternate. I do her shopping, sister does prescription collection and blood test, GP visits. We do garden and cleaning between us. Mum can do her own food as she doesn't eat a varied diet due to health issues and basic personal hygiene but she needs help to get on the bath lift. She has a stair lift too.
Pharmacy won't deliver and GP won't do home visits as she has family local. She has no friends so only family visit. I feel very selfish moaning as I do love her but she seems to like having some control over our lives. She defiantly sees it as our duty as she cared full time for her parents despite having small children at the time. Massive impact on our childhood which I think makes me scared on how much her health can effect everyone else in the family.

You need to put limits. MIL had issues with her elderly mother not respecting her job and saying she shouldn't have a job (even thought she herself used to work!). That could happen as well. You need to be firm in some aspects. You also need time with your GC and your DH

I think when your DSis gets back it's time to have a chat about how much you are both prepared to do in the future, because this is only going to become more time consuming not less.

If it was me, I'd expect her to be paying for a cleaner and a gardener. Attendance Allowance would pay for this.

If she needs help having a bath but refusers Carers, again it sounds harsh but I would stop. She will probably accept Carers once she's had a couple of weeks of you both stepping back.

I'd also ask for a Carer's Assessment for yourself and get in touch with your local Carers Support Group.

My M is very controlling, I think for your own sanity you need to decide on what your boundaries are and stick to them. This could go on for many years.

I would ring the GP surgery and say that "family" are no longer helping her!

What about those that are NC with "family".

Wouldn't surprise me if your Mum has told the surgery that you are happy to do it.

Also surprised that no pharmacy does delivery. You could use an on line one?

Yes the doctors surgery will ask if anyone can take her and the answer is no they can't, you work full time and your employment is precarious and you can't get time off without making yourself first to be paid off. You can't afford to lose your job. Your mum is their patient not you. She's old and vulnerable and she can't get to the doctors herself. Dont let them palm you off and as others said I bet she's not even asked for home visits. As regards a pharmacy most round here have no vacancies for deliveries but it just takes phoning around to find one that will. See all of this as a sub contracting exercise.

You and your sister need to take a step back. Your husband is right to be cross.

Time to toughen up. Visit once a week. You could have ten more years of this.

Sometimes the best way to help someone is to not help them.

Time to toughen up. Visit once a week. You could have ten more years of this.

This is exactly what I do with my M and even then you might have to put a limit on how long you stay for.

The advice from all quarters here is excellent. My advice is to go through each of the replies you have and put them on a list and start to think how you can take them on board.

Arrange a key safe and get spare keys cut. Slightly change your tone with your mum. Try to be more business like and factual with her. Really hard but a united front with your sister to step back to force her to accept external help has to happen.

Thank you all. Pretty much been conditioned to behave in a better way. A controlling parent has life long effects. At least I have been completely different with my own children. Have already made my wishes know to them and I don't ever want to impact their lives in a negative way.

I was the same. Spent years doing what my parents wanted me to do, and only recently learnt to say no. The more you say no, the easier it gets.

Thank you all. Pretty much been conditioned to behave in a better way. A controlling parent has life long effects. At least I have been completely different with my own children. Have already made my wishes know to them and I don't ever want to impact their lives in a negative way.

That's so true abs well done for breaking the pattern with your own DC.

Just because you've been conditioned to behave in a certain way by your M doesn't mean that you can't put things in place now though to protect you, your health and your marriage

I could have written this post myself except that I am an only child and have no grandchildren!

Mum lived in a self contained granny flat in our garden and I took over all aspects of her care after dad died 9 years ago. Then just before March last year at my insistence she started to have two care visits a day. She resented it and complained daily but it meant I was able to get up at my own pace and spend a couple of hours with DH in the evening.

Unlike your mum my mum had never cared for an elderly relative and was always full of admiration for those who did. Although of course the things I did for her were not "care" as such, it was "just a little bit of help". A little bit of help that required me to dress her, wash her hair, take her to the toilet, prepare all her meals, do all her cleaning and provide company until 11 o'clock every night. Plus a dozen or so calls during the day to make her a drink, find her tv remote, change the channel, tell her the time etc!

All this changed at the beginning of the summer when mum had a fall and the carer thought she might have had a stroke. She was admitted to hospital for observation and 24 hours later I was in hospital myself having suffered an episode of amnesia with no memory beyond waving mum off in the ambulance! The morning I came home the hospital phoned to say mum was ready to be discharged but my husband told the OT that we were withdrawing all personal care and would not be available to assist overnight. This set off a further assessment and it became apparent that she was suffering from dementia.

What I had thought was her being stubborn, poor eyesight, poor mobility, inability to tell the time were actually all part of the decline of her cognitive functions. Three months on and she is still in rehab, waiting for a residential home. She still recognises me (and my daughter and cousin who are the other named visitors) but sometimes forgets that I am her daughter, thinking I am her daughter in law. She also forgets that I exist and thinks that my five children are actually hers!

I love my mum and my parents always did what they thought was best for me and my family but somewhere along the line the boundaries between us got blurred and I got lost as a wife and mother. It is very sad to see her so lost and confused now but it almost got to the point where it was her or me. Please, for your own sake, find a way to put boundaries in place so that you keep your sanity and your own life.

Re your fear that she won't accept professional carers when needed the way we dealt with it was to lay it out as a clear choice:

However much she may not like it, she already needs help and at something in the not too distant future thr decision will be taken out of her hands by doctors.

She has a choice, allow some help to start coming in now which gives her control over the timing and what help she receives and when, or ignore the situation until she has no control over it at all.

We also reiterated that in encouraging them to allow help now wasn't us trying to control them but to navigate the challenges and changes that would be coming up in the future. That by doing it this way we could be on hand to help check out the people coming in which will mean they feel safer.

By tackling the root of the resistance (wanting to retain independence and control, not wanting to be in a position where they get bullied etc), we got them to agree. They weren't happy about it, but they agreed.

We also pitched tone as helpful concern, encouragement, planning ahead, not wanting to pressure etc. It also allowed them to build up a relationship with carers so they weren't strangers coming into their home.

*somepoint

Visit less, perhaps you and your sister go every two days, so you monday, your sister wednesday, you Friday etc.

Why don’t you get her signed up to a pharmacy that will deliver? Lots are available and advertised

Tell the GP you are not local, can’t take time off work for visits so they need to do a home visit really push for it

By going less your mother will really see if she does need help, and if she does ask for carers to go in

I had this with my mother, it's awful (she was never easy anyway) and I believe it was the start of her dementia. Eventually it became so bad she couldn't pretend it wasn't happening anymore. My father couldn't cope on his own with her. Don't be afraid to say you can't help support her. Try and get POA whilst you can as it makes things easier further down the line if you haven't already got it. When she got really bad I was in the strangely fortunate (for them) position of having just lost my job. She fell (yet again) had to go to hospital where they formally diagnosed dementia. She left there and went to a nursing home where she lived quite happily until she died a year ago.

It's hard when they're difficult and demanding and expect you to stop everything to help them. It's not always possible for that to happen. Thankfully with my father who is 96, you can have sensible conversations about what happens when he can't cope on his own anymore. He's amazing for his age, but starting to slow down now.