Informal caregiver burnout

[neveroutofthekitchen]

My Dad was discharged to a care home after a planned operation. He caught Covid and has declined cognitively. I'm waiting for another assessment as to whether he has capacity or not. Some days he seems fine and others, confused. he does not have a dementia diagnosis.
He thinks he is coming home soonish albeit with 4 care visits a day.
The Social Worker was great and told me I have informal caregiver burnout. She's booked him into the care home for another month.
I've supported him and my Mum (no longer with us) for the past 15 years and I am so done. I don't want to be called at 3am any more because he has fallen or do the lunches or deal with incontinence issues. I'm tired of having to arrange everything and it's all my problem. I am an only child.
I need him to stay in the care home now but how to persuade him? If they consider he has capacity, he can insist on coming home when the 4 weeks are up (or sooner).

[IthinkIsawahairbrushbackthere]

I understand - I'm an only child too. I had two wonderful parents who helped me as much as I helped them and when my dad died I slowly slipped from doing the things I had always done to help them to taking on everything my dad did and more. Mum is disabled with severe mobility issues and I was caring for her 24 hours a day until a crisis when she was admitted to hospital and twenty four hours later I lost my memory from the stress of it all.

Capacity is a bit elastic and someone can have capacity for some things but not for others. I remember the social worker asking mum what would happen if I became ill and couldn't look after her. Her reply was that we would muddle through and she didn't need a lot of help anyway. But that was enough for the social worker to see that she had no insight into the support she needed to live at home - I had to help her to and from the toilet every time, prepare all her meals and drinks, the washing, cleaning etc etc. But she thought she could live independently.

This is going to sound so cruel but you have to make it clear to Social Services that you are unable to continue to provide care for him. You are his daughter and want to continue to love him and relate to him as such but you are no longer able to provide any care. Your responsibility is to do the best for him and that is not always what our parents think it is.

[neveroutofthekitchen]

@IthinkIsawahairbrushbackthere thank you for your support. Sometimes we just need someone to say we are doing the right thing both for our parents and for ourselves.

[Mum5net]

@neveroutofthekitchen It's not that you don't care, but eventually a line gets crossed when you just haven't got any band width left. Your social worker sounds like she is listening.
I also echo what @IthinkIsawahairbrushbackthere says. Fingers crossed the social worker has you back and it works put the way you hope. I would change the subject if your DF wants to talk about coming home. I'd also take full advantage of him being in respite and be popping in to see him once or twice a week at most right now. You need to catch up on being you.