🪳 Cockroach Cafe 🪳 Autumn 2023

[MereDintofPandiculation]

I’ve just done the autumn deepclean, brought in a load of logs, and made sure we have plenty of rugs and throws, and toasting forks and marshmallows. I’ve even brought in extra rugs from the Good Daughters’ room under the stairs - they’re not needed there, no-one ever uses it.

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 🪳 mes amis/amies, and may you all live to fight another day.

Chatted to my dm’s cleaner today- apparently this week is known at our hospital whee she works ( and probably others😉) as ““ drop a granny “ week where relatives deposit an elderly saying the elderly is ill and then scarper….”

Ha, that was us spending hours in A&E this time last year as DM was obviously not right and her GP wanted to rule out stroke etc. Was certainly not so we could fly out to the Bahamas for 10 days - I spent three weeks up and down the motorway, sitting in hospital wards for hours and hours, hunting down staff etc etc. Missed a lovely day DH and I had planned out at Chatsworth. Very weird Christmas Day leaving her eating her lunch in the respite centre lounge, DH at his mum's and me and DB at mum's house trying to make the best of it. And then she came down with Covid on discharge and gave it to me and I gave it to DH (we'd all avoided it up to then).

The silver lining was that she had a full health work up that she'd been waiting for for over 6 months as an outpatient, got to the bottom of her health issues and got assessed for (and she accepted) 4x daily carers. But it nearly broke me as I'd planned a lovely 3 week break and got the opposite. I think I'm still paying for it now tbh.

Absolutely @MereDintofPandiculation and I’m so sorry to read that @funnelfan The frustration at trying to get issues resolved for elderlies, especially approaching Christmas where everything shuts down.

Yes, I think any other time of year mum would have been out within a week but it seems her local council social assessment unit shut down between Christmas and new year. 2nd January everything suddenly swung into action.

We haven't hot a Morrison's near us 😢

Today - couldn’t play my song loud enough (through my headphones) 🤦🏻‍♀️
My ma was upset I went upstairs to do work calls today whilst my daughter was with her for 2 hours - she asked if I’m going to do it again as she only knows all is ok if I’m in the room with her - also got a shopping break this weekend- and both times she’s been ill when I was back. As a special treat she told carers she was too ill to have pad checked - then 10 mins after they’d gone said she needed pad changing - reader I did that 💩- very very badly as can’t roll her enough solo - but she’s happy I did - I am so on the edge tonight 🤦🏻‍♀️
Sorry I’m always moaning - but please save my sanity 🤦🏻‍♀️
To add I tried social care re sit ins but they sent me to continuing care - they’ve sent me to nurse team - who have already told me it wasn’t needed and no more care available - 😭😭

Oh @MsJinks I am so sorry to read this. Sounds like you are putting yourself at risk too doing two person actions on your own- and your dm sounds v manipulative- does she have capacity? Is she aware what she’s doing?
I would tell ss that carer breakdown is imminent unless more help is provided. So, so hard when resources are so scarce.
but please try and protect yourself in any way you can.

You can get them online

(But you have to buy another £23 of groceries to go with them, and pay for delivery)

So my mum had her own way for 70 years with my dad 🤦🏻‍♀️ - he lived to make her happy bless him - I also think she’s a bit ND now I’m sorta meeting her again as an adult and seeing stuff close up - but she is like a generally kind person etc but equally self focussed, transactional in relationships and keen that all she likes are successful- and always has been this way. Still I think she’s very anxious and needs that attention to feel ok - I guess she knew she had it with my dad and isn’t fully confident of it now, sadly.
She told my daughter she’s glad no one has had to change their life to look after her 🤔🤔 so she must see it that way ..

@MsJinks I'm currently having Compassion Focused Therapy and one of the things my psychologist keeps emphasising is that to be compassionate to ourselves & others is to make choices that sometimes make us and other people uncomfortable, that being compassionate is to sometimes to accept that & not run away from it.

For example, with my DM, she might say something that makes me feel guilty when it's time for me to go home. I feel guilty but I try to remember to take notice of my psychologist and "accept" those uncomfortable feelings. So, instead of thinking "I feel really bad going home now, even though Ive been here a long time and you're getting upset cos Im leaving and I don't want to upset you so Im going to stay here another couple of hours even though im very tired " I think "Although I feel guilty and that's not a nice feeling, I know I have to accept those feelings because I need to have some rest in order that Im not ill. Thats not selfish, its necessary. I need downtime so i have energy to do xyz and can come and see DM tomorrow feeling refreshed not resentful. DM won't like it but sometimes she has to sit & deal with her own uncomfortable feelings too"

From what I've learned, I'd say that to be compassionate to myself (to protect my mental & physical health) and be compassionate also to my DM (so I can be there for her in the future, not angry or impatient) I have to be tougher with my DM but also with myself. So, for example, DM says she feels ill when you've been out - presumably she's not "ill ill", more "upset ill" so Id now be sympathetic but matter of fact. With my DM I now say something like "I know you feel lonely when I'm not here but I wanted/needed/had to go to do ...., but I'm here now so let's sit and have a cup of tea & a biscuit." Then I busy myself making the tea, finding a biscuit etc. I've always been a "rescuer" so in the past I'd have been overcompensating, making promises about the future and running myself ragged to try and make DM feel ok even though it would be like pouring stuff into a black hole. It sounds daft to say but I am learning that I have to be tough with myself to stop myself doing that.

If you constantly wear yourself out
by being at her constant call you will be ill and she will end up totally dependent on carers and you will be unable to give her even a small amount of care or attention. Not a good situation for either of you.

You can still be kind and compassionate to her without giving her everything. I've been learning that selfishness-unselfishness is a wide spectrum and it's not good to be at either end of it - totally selfish or totally unselfish, I need to try and bounce around somewhere in the middle. It sounds to me like you're stuck down the totally unselfish end - which is where I gravitate to if I'm not careful and if I don't take special care. In the end it gets you and makes you ill - ill enough to need help to get better. A hard lesson I've learned is that one person's happiness shouldn't come at the expense of another's - there's a balance. I think what I'm saying is you don't always have to dance to her tune and even though sometimes it will feel uncomfortable to both of you, it's better in the long term for both of you that you don't.

Thank you @MissMarplesNiece that’s such a good ‘thing’? (Can’t think of right word 🤦🏻‍♀️) And explanation of what you’ve been doing and how/why and how it translates to your mother care.
It does resonate- I am now up at 1am with her watching pie in the bloody sky - as it s easier basically 🤦🏻‍♀️- I always think it’s ‘mean’ not to, or too hard a habit to break after my dad did exactly that for 70 years.
She is pushing my buttons and sometimes not sure if it’s deliberate or just her anxiety. As a hands off carer I learned not to do too much in visiting as she’d want and expect more, so it was a careful balance. Was working on balance here as in not always sitting/sleeping in here, but failed tonight as you can tell 🤦🏻‍♀️
It’s so hard not knowing how long to expect this - which belongs on that different thread really, but I will attempt to do less - my back isn’t happy with the pad change so I will definitely do that - or not! It’s like not pandering to a toddler really, but so ingrained to please! And often just immediately’easier’!
Im not particularly unselfish as in some ways I feel so much it is right for me in my situation to do this it’s not pure altruism at all - I also enjoy that I have to sit out her eyeline as how room is set up and read/surf/rant! Lol
Thank you again this therapy makes sense and thank you for sharing it.

@MissMarplesNiece
thank you for that excellent post. Very helpful. I think we all need to have that pinned up somewhere and to keep reminding ourselves of it.

That was really useful @MissMarplesNiece - I think I've bounced to the totally selfish end at the moment, though I'm normally a rescuer and I was very ill, possibly through being too unselfish. Psychiatrist Dr Gabor Mate who wrote When The Body Says No says that for your own health if you have to choose between guilt and resentment, choose guilt! He has a chapter on the cancer personality, which I reread after I had cancer and found I fell right into, putting someone else's needs first, doing very little to give myself enjoyment, and feeling exhausted and resentful.

Thank you for that post @MissMarplesNiece , it’s very helpful for more than one situation in my life.

@MissMarplesNiece thank you for your excellent post- I wish I’d known that a few years back. 🌺🌺

@SierraSapphire wrote: "Psychiatrist Dr Gabor Mate who wrote When The Body Says No says that for your own health if you have to choose between guilt and resentment, choose guilt! He has a chapter on the cancer personality, which I reread after I had cancer and found I fell right into" I'm going to get a copy of that book.

The psychologist leading the therapy has told me a couple of times about how our bodies "keep the score". Over the weeks she's made me realise & understand how much anger, resentment and sadness I've pushed down inside myself. Not just from the situation now but for nearly 60 years of swallowing my needs and putting myself last because I was bought up to believe it's what nice/good/dutiful people do. To believe that I had to be stronger than those round me even when i was a child and really needed protecting. I used to feel guilty because I had anger/sadness/resentment but I'm starting to think that in the circumstances those were/are rational feelings, that no one should feel obliged to take on so much. Having had cancer myself I did wonder if all this pushed down emotion was part of the cause. Im sure also internalising anger and resentment has helped cause the depression that has blighted my teenage and adult life. The psychologist's words to me so often are "what about you in this Miss Marple's Niece? Didnt you matter? Don't you matter?".

Sometimes I get scared that I will end up the opposite way - down at the selfish end of the spectrum (where Boris Johnson dwells (lol)). But she says if that was going to happen I would have been there a long long time ago. I'm more aware now of how a balance has to be struck.

I could have written pretty much all of that @MissMarplesNiece, including the childhood stuff - my DM often tells me "You're a coper," which makes me really cross as I think yes, my own needs are completely ignored and I've pushed my body to override clear signals that I'm exhausted and overwhelmed. I feel terrible the times that I feel I have to ignore my mum, but I again have to listen to what my body's telling me as it could literally be a matter of life and death.

@SierraSapphire Yes, I've heard the "you're a coper", along with the "you're the one we can rely on", "you're the sensible one" "you don't let me down" so many times. Eventually my body said "enough of this". I've needed professional help to start getting out of that mindset, it's so ingrained.

If I hear you are the reliable/sensible one much more I think I'll scream. I getit at work as well.

I’m just wonderful - can take care of everything- as I work for gov’t so am capable and responsible (should tell my ma that’s not quite the popular view really 🤣)

Been searching for sit ins and respite- for like hospital appointments and work - CHC may provide one/week for 8 weeks but only if they have capacity…

@MsJinks if you catch flu or break your leg they'll suddenly miraculously find some support to fill the gap.

Oh God, me too. DM and DB have also both said they trust me absolutely and implicitly about everything and that sounds nice but is actually another bloody burden.

I mean I am sensible but maybe I’d quite like to be irresponsible like every other bugger sometimes.

I mean I am sensible but maybe I’d quite like to be irresponsible like every other bugger sometimes.

Me too. My brother turns his phone off for big chunks of time, whereas I feel I have to be glued to mine. Sometimes there's been some sort of life threatening episode where DM has spent the night in A&E, I think she's about to die, and go home expecting The Call, to find she's made a miraculous recovery and is back home before my brother even knew anything was wrong.

For all those ‘above’ giving up so much to be kind and sensible and everyone expecting it - you deserve your time to be, as funnelfan says, irresponsible. And it isn’t even that, it us just having time to reset. I only had this for a few months really and it was exhausting and frustrating and at times lonely. Having a cater shoot in my face because I hadn’t realised that I was supposed to sort and buy adult pads for example. I didn’t know where to turn. One night staying with a dear old friend gave me a chance to catch my breath and also have a moan. I recommend some distance for perspective and to renew energy levels.

MiL in nursing home and having periods of aggression and being verbally abusive to staff and family - who had to leave after very short visit. She is confused and upset…. Like a toddler who can’t make themselves understood but feels something isn’t right. New drugs been prescribed. 🤞 they provide some calm.

Typos…. Carer shout