When your caring responsibilities finally end... a lottery winning style fantasy thread

[StiffyByngsDogBartholomew]

when my parents have gone and I no longer have to spend half my time off driving around to their house and at their house looking after them and responding to various crises
if DD is still living at home (I hope so because otherwise I still have a bloody long time left of this) I am going to pay for DH and DD to go on holiday for 2 weeks. I shall stay at home, doing absolutely nothing for anyone else at all for the first time in decades.
I shall spend the time planning the extension I will be purchasing if there is any money left; purchasing the harp and harpsichord I intend to fill it with. And I will eat cheese and bread for every single meal for the entire fortnight.

Poignant thread. DM passed just over a year ago, and I agree with a PP that the experience of being a press ganged carer left me a different person than I was going into it. I may be able to unclench enough in time to do some of the things I used to enjoy, but it has probably taken me a year not to jump when the phone goes, not to be constantly running a list through my head of all the essentials I have to do, and finally sorting all the paperwork.

I would consider myself to be reasonably bright, working in a senior manager role, and yet I became completely overwhelmed/broken by trying to do so much myself. The cycle of guilt, exhaustion, etc takes a very long time to pass.

My DM is late 80s but currently doesn't need much looking after. My caring responsibility is for my husband who has metastatic cancer and considered palliative care only now (though no timeline as such). It's hard work and stressful. When he eventually passes I shall spend time - probably months actually - decluttering, as husband is a bit of a hoarder in that all his adult life he has bought stuff but hates throwing anything away. Also, when he has a hobby he buys much more equipment/clothing etc than he actually needs. As a result our house is packed full of 'stuff' and I daydream of getting rid of it all and living a much more minimalist lifestyle.

I have recently had the "fantasy" week. Mum is in a decent care home now and well looked after. I'm a single parent so the juggling with high stress job, DD with ADHD and constant phone calls was very draining. I never did the physical care as I live a long way away but oh, the phone calls!!

Anyway I was made redundant before Christmas. DD was away with her DF for nine days and I was home alone, no responsibility, no work.

I stayed in bed reading, did not cook (lived off scraps/leftovers). Met a friend for a walk around Green Park, had coffee. Met another friend for dinner where she gave me great job hunting tips. Interspersed with sleep, reading, swimming, more sleep.

I’m in a similar position, except it’s my Dad not my DM, and he’s 101, in a nursing home. I reckon at least a couple of years for the decluttering, but then I’ll be trying to find homes for everything. I’ve never really registered DH’s medical stuff but even that’s taking up a lot of space now.

I can't wait to be able to come straight home after my early shifts. I get up at 4.30am and usually don't get back til 6.15pm then have to start doing dinner etc. I cannot wait to just come straight home like normal people

@OhamIreally I wish I only had to deal with phone calls that's the most trivial part for me.

After seeing my mum die weeks after my grandma from all the stress of looking after her and worrying about her health I'm sorry, but I really think that putting your life on hold to care for elderly parents is not the best thing to do.

It is perhaps fortunate for you that you probably won't be put in the unenviable position of having to decide whether you will help or not

I don't like old people.

There I said it.

And given what you've been dealing with @JellyWellyBoots I'm not surprised you're feeling sore and bruised.
how are things going with sorting a break

@StiffyByngsDogBartholomew He leaves tomorrow, it couldn't have come at a better time to be honest. As much as I love him & want to take care of him, I have a DD who's behaviour has become awful. I need to focus on her right now.

I have this horrible feeling in my stomach that he will end up not going, he hasn't packed and is leaving first thing tomorrow.

keep strong and keep her as your reason. Does he empathise ? Understand you need to prioritise your 6yo ?
if I need a break I just say I need time with Dd and at least dad understands that. And if your dad can't understand you need to prioritise your little girl then fuck him, he doesn't deserve you both. No doubt his presence is probably having a significant impact on her behaviour x

@StiffyByngsDogBartholomew
I don't think he accepts her behaviour is at all related to him being here.

He's made it clear he would happily stay knowing what it's doing to us, that made me change my perspective on the whole situation.

@popularinthe80s thanks for that perspective. I try to hold on to the thought this isn’t forever and I am still in there somewhere

You're welcome, @Horsesoncourses . We won't lose faith in you.
@JellyWellyBoots we are all rooting for you tomorrow. I'm glad that you're changing perspective on the whole situation (if that's what you meant)- seeing things clearly will help you to stand firm.
@henrysugar12 I understand the kind intent behind your post and appreciate it. But what you may not realise is that very often, caring isn't a choice. You rarely' sit down with a glass of wine and draw up a list of pros and cons. It creeps up on you, day by day. For example, my mum stated she was dying at home back in August, when she was given two weeks. So I tried to honour it. It's now January (& I am lucky; many of us are years into caring). I am exhausted. I'm barely grieving because tender compassion has been squashed out by daily wrangles for clinical visits and prescriptions and reapplications for CHC funding (which we were fortunate to get in the first place) and rushing back to mum's to scoop.her up from another fall because she (entirely understandably) refuses to piss into a pad and stakeholder management between carers and nurses and and and and fuck it all.
I am currently lecturing my poor mum because if I let her continue to exercise her dignity (so appropriate on paper) she will end up in hospital and probably die on a ward. As I am point blank telling her.
I hate what I have become.

My mum stated her wish to die at home back in August. Apologies

Ahhh OP. Sorry to hear it is so hard.

Ignore the fuckwits with comprehension issues, your post made perfect sense.

Sauna/morgue! 🤣🤣🤣

💐to everyone going through this. It's fucking relentless & it sucks. My mum died 2 years ago at home after caring for her while she had a brain tumour. For the next year I worked FT & spent a couple of hours with my dad every day. He was miserable & it was grim, then he took a stroke from a massive bleed on the brain in Feb & died a week later in hospital.

The living on the edge rings so true, it took me a few months to realise I couldn't carry on so stopped working in Jun & had a lovely but hectic summer. Since September I've done house admin that's been neglected & tending to my dc, along with all the probate stuff & now getting ready to sell their house. There won't be a big inheritance but hoping to put a large deposit on a BTL that dc can inherit someday & really want to sort a holiday. Christmas was amazing-we had steak & chips & played games & I didn't have other responsibilities. I loved it.

Agree on doing small things now for yourself & keep dreaming for the future. Yes I miss my parents who I loved dearly but caring for them was soooo hard. They're at peace & I have some time for my life now. Rooting for you all

My DP is 97. Away with the fairies from Altzheimer’s but fit as a fiddle.

I reckon DP has min 3 years, max 6? At which time I will either be 70 or 73 and will have spent the first ten years of my retirement caring for DP (latterly in a care home but still the visits, the calls, the falls, the hospital visits, the anger, the aggression, the admin, the guilt …).

I do resent this stage of my life being taken. I’d worked so hard for 40 plus years and was so looking forward to it.

If (and it is an if), I outlive DP I am taking a deep breath and trying to forget the person DP is now and to celebrate with memories the person they once were. I’ve lost sight of that person and I’d love to get them back.

Solidarity to all. Acknowledging this helps.

Oh god, I'm so sorry, @theresnolimits. That is a hard hand,

I was surprised how easily I remembered my dad in his prime once he was gone. Moments that I hadn't thought about for decades, It's not a whitewashing, but it is kind of lovely, if sad.

Theresnolimits, that is so tough. I feel for you. I'm in my 50s and the thought of hitting 60 and my mum still being around is horrifying.
I've thought of another fantasy: being able to be 100% present for DC in a fantasy 'perfect mum' kind of way. Not that I would become a martyr to DCs needs in place of DMs! but just genuinely having the headspace and energy to book amazing holidays or trips out, without the constant 'I can't do that cos I'll have to cancel'.

I'm not confused OP.

Like the premise of this thread.

It's so hard, isn't it.
Sending everyone here love and solidarity for today.

I get it OP. I didn't care for my DPs because they died before that but I did help care for my DGM. There was always something. Her other DGC did nothing.

I was lucky that my DA and I did it together but I felt resentful that the others thought my life should be sacrificed.

You just want the relief and the headspace to think.