So bloody exhausted waiting for someone to die 2

[StiffyByngsDogBartholomew]

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/elderly_parents/4866628-so-bloody-exhausted-waiting-for-someone-to-die?page=1
Carrying on from our original discussion

I think it’s all going to get worse. My parents lived their whole lives in the town they were born in about 1 mile from one set of grandparents and 4 from the others. By the time they needed care my parents were 54 and 58. One was retired and the other worked very part time. My aunt has said about my mum living with me. I live 100 miles away and have to work I have no choice

It'll be interesting to see how the new carers' leave pans out. I've found there is a total mismatch between what elderly person/SS/hospital etc think you can do and what is actually feasible with working.

Rather like the point after one of the lockdowns when schools were asking employers to be flexible with parents of school-age children. Employer was telling us not to worry if our child interrupted a meeting needing help eg opening a snack, meanwhile school thought employers should enable two hours out of the work day to do staggered pickups!

www.carersuk.org/news-and-campaigns/our-campaigns/right-to-carers-leave/

@Wineisnottheanswer you are so right, a typical life now is so different to previous generations. I am fortunate to have siblings who all want to work together around DF (my heart goes out to those of you alone or with unhelpful relatives - my siblings keep my head above water).
But we all have to work, we have school age children who need us, and none of us live in the same council or the same NHS catchment areas as DF (or as each other). It makes working with services difficult and it makes emergencies extremely difficult. DF is attached emotionally to a place we’ve all moved away from but when you don’t step outside your front door, what does it matter where you are?! Of course owning a (completely unsuitable for his needs) house also makes everything harder.

@EmotionalBlackmail thanks for sharing this - I agree the reality of using this with employers will be very different from the intention. The whole return to office mandate coming from many employers is already starting to remove flexibility that had been useful. I doubt employers are on board with this.

I was so angry as I had a feeling something would happen Anger is a useful emotion. It helps you stand your ground, and achieve things you thought weren’t possible. No wonder children, girls in particular, are trained not to be angry.

But we all have to work. Some of us are retired. I wouldn’t say being in your 70s makes it much easier. What you gain in time you lose in energy.

Actually another aspect of caring responsibilities is the effect on plans for retirement. I’m in my early 50s in quite a demanding job. All else being equal, I might have thought about going part time and starting to wind down towards retirement in about 10 years when DD is launched (even if she’s still living with us) and the mortgage is paid off. In fact I don’t think I can do that if MIL or my own DM are still alive: the pressure to take on care would be too great, and frankly I’d rather keep working, where I’m valued and contributing worthwhile things, than wreck my health and future by taking on more care.

You can refuse to take on caring responsibilities.

Yes, of course you can, but this thread and others show how hard that can be. (I know it can go the other way too - some people end up retiring or cutting back work earlier than they want to because the juggling gets unmanageable. I know my situation isn’t universal.)

Some of us are retired. I wouldn’t say being in your 70s makes it much easier. What you gain in time you lose in energy

100% this.

DH and I collected our new Motability car last week and just driving 100 miles there and back exhausted us so much that we had to get fish and chips instead of cooking a proper meal, and we went to bed at 8pm.

I would have had trouble imagining such a state of affairs when I was a young woman.

I used to climb many flights of stairs when I was a community midwife, carrying all my equipment, if the lift in the block I was visiting was out of order.

Yep I agree the age thing is a real problem. Not only is my mum 92, i’m late 60s but my DC have primary school age children, so trying to help everyone is exhausting !
It was much easier when I was 27 with young children myself, when my Dad became disabled through a stroke, than it is now that I’m older and retired.
The last ten years before retirement I only worked part time, because it’s all I could manage. Holidays and luxury’s went by the wayside, now mums in a care home I’m too tired to be bothered.

I was on this thread just over a week ago to say that I would be in your position in about 6 months. Well, no. DM had a major stroke last weekend. She is in hospital and it’s now a waiting game to see what sort of care plan she needs. ATM it’s 24 hour live in care, probably with nursing. I doubt she’ll be capable of living on her own ever again.

Did you only work part time also because of caring for your elderly mother?

If anyone feels able to add their signature to this please do. I doubt if it will make any difference to people living with dementia unless they’d made an advanced directive.
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/653593

TheShellBeach. Partly because of mum and partly because I wanted to care for my DGC one day a week. I found that from my late 50s it was enough to work part time.

@TheShellBeach I work part-time (although for the last two years this has equalled being paid part time but still working a lot of unpaid hours to deliver things my job required). I went part time years ago so I wasn’t on a treadmill of just getting my children out of the door to childcare in the morning and taking them home to put them to bed in the evening every day. They are delightful and I enjoy their company when they deign to spend time with me - my DCs are in secondary.
DH wants me to go full time - but I am absolutely sticking with part time just now because of DF. DH is frustrated (and is probably right that I’m a fool) because I’ve worked extra hours and won’t get the pay (or pension) I deserve - but I don’t trust I’ll get the flexibility when I do need it if I commit to that. December involved too many drop everything days and I don’t know how many miles I drove running around. I probably have 15+ years until I’ll be able to retire but I already feel pretty exhausted and traumatised, plus I feel so guilty about how little time I have for my DCs and fear they’ll leave home before that changes.

We all have different challenges at our different life stages but the expectation that we’ll sacrifice our lives to prolong the life of someone with very little quality of life is why I’m here and feel solidarity with you. The sharing of information and experiences is very much appreciated, particularly feeling able to refuse the authorities and being forewarned.

If you haven’t already, I’d recommend reading Victoria Smith’s book Hags - women of all ages need to listen to each other and learn from each other.

Was coming on to say Hags. Made me so angry

It was 99p on the Kindle store last week and I’m really annoyed I forgot to buy it.

Thanks for the recommendation of 'Hags'. Must get a copy. Sounds in the vein of Germaine Greer's 'The Change', which isn't just about menopause, but the erasure of older women and the way in which the ageing woman is caricatured and demonised. Just as relevant today even though it was written in the 1990s.

A small update - I went to visit him today.
I wanted to cry when I left. Most of those poor elderly people have no quality of life.

I feel so guilty for putting him there, but deep down I know I need this break & he's being looked after.

It turned out his DS didn't tell him about the message I had sent her the day before he was due in, that there was a deadline. She also told him I was aggressive toward her via text....

I wanted to cry when I left. Most of those poor elderly people have no quality of life. It’s hard to understand quality of life. My father is bedbound, and does nothing but eat, sleep and watch tv programmes that he doesn’t understand. But he says “I’m warm, I’m well fed, I’m comfortable, I’m happy” and “I’m extremely well looked after”. He’s a lot happier than when he apparently had greater quality of life and was trying to solve the evils of the world

I don't want to derail the thread and maybe I should start a new one, but...

How does all that we are doing to help our parents and the pressure to do more square with those who don't have children running around taking on all this stress. I read that over 40% of graduate women don't have children - what happens to them?

It's a live issue for me because my brother and his wife don't have children although they very much wanted to. He's getting freaked out wondering what's going to happen to them when they get old. I keep saying that I wouldn't want my children having to take all this on for me so we should all be working on the assumption that we are responsible for our own dotage.

I'm one of those women @Valleyofthedollymix. No children (or current partner) and a job I can do remotely if needed. The last six years spent helping my parents who live 200 miles from me through diagnoses for heart failure, dementia x 2 parents, Covid lockdowns (as a single person I was in a support bubble with them although it was no support for me), the decline of dad's health and subsequent death and placing mum in a care home.

They both started showing signs of dementia around 80. They knew it was happening. I am trying to stay healthy so I can have a long life and active retirement but I fully intend to claim sleeping issues and get a stockpile of sleeping tablets from the doctor and then end my life before I become a burden on my younger sister in law or my nephew. I am not going to end my days as incapacitated as my parents.

I also don’t have any biological children. I will plan to the best of my abilities, write instructions, downsize and Swedish death clean, make sure that I keep my affairs in order as long as I can. I am accepting now that if I decline the same way as my mum that I will have very little choice and control over my care and will be depending on the goodwill of others to make decisions that are in my interests. No doubt I will feel very sorry for myself in my last few years, should I be fortunate to live that long.

I am hoping that there is a breakthrough in the next couple of decades re dementia treatment/prevention, so at least if not us, our children can live without this fear. The history of medicine shows us that things people thought were impossible to cure or treat are now routinely preventable. Can't do much about physical frailty, but the diseases of the brain are particularly cruel and incapacitating.

The impression I got from the ones I've been involved with - distant relatives who hadn't had children or elderly family friends who had been denied permission to marry so they could care for their own parents and therefore never had their own children - was that they were much more organised and on the ball about it as they didn't expect someone else to do it for them.

So decluttered, got wills and POA in place, had set up accounts with taxi companies and/or moved somewhere sensible near amenities before they had to stop driving, researched care homes and chose to move into one before they deteriorated too much type stuff.

Although the key thing there is 'professional' women, they'd usually been teachers or similar, had inherited from the parents they'd cared for, had decent final salary pensions and could afford to make choices about where they lived and care homes.