🪳 Cockroach Café Spring 2024 🪳 🪳

[MereDintofPandiculation]

I’ve had a good clean of the place, replenished supplies, and brought in pots of snowdrops and daffodils to remind us Spring is just around the corner.

Come in when you want to share good news, or to rant, or just to hang out with others who understand what you're going through. The way MN works, hopefully this thread won’t appear in any featured lists, and the only people wandering in will be those who understand what it’s all about.

If you have a BIG question, it might be worth giving it its own thread, so as not to swamp this one.

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. My recent enquiries suggested more people wanted to keep the well known name than wanted to change it to something mor savoury, so for the moment it stays.

@EmotionalBlackmail sorry to read your recent post. Can I ask how does the manipulation play out? My mother does manipulate but at times I worry I am imagining it and it is me reading between the lines of the language she uses. An example being I filled her freezer with a good selection of things but she then told me she didn’t trust the freezer anymore so I ended up going to her place every other day with fresh stuff. A relative then told me they had seen her in the supermarket buying food. She tells me she cannot go shopping anymore.

@BlueLegume well that sounds extremely manipulative for a start! It doesn't sound like getting some shopping in is a problem for her...

Mine does theatrical moaning and groaning when moving around. Getting up from a chair is made to sound like a major endeavour. Trouble is, I've realised she only does this when I'm around. If she has friends (or Goldenballs) around she's able to get up and about without much effort and definitely no sound effects!

"Well I can't walk far/do much/see people these days". When I know she's had friends to stay and they've spent the day out and about exploring on foot and by car. She doesn't understand social media so has no idea I can see from her friends' feeds evidence of this!

"I'm finding it hard to do the cooking". Again, she managed to feed friends meals for several days.

Suggestions for how I should reorganise my house so that she can stay for periods of time (basically she's trying to turf my child out of their bedroom so she can have it). NO.

Many many comments about how maternal a female relative of similar age to me is, what a wonderful job she does parenting. This is because I work FT and has nothing to do with my child, it's about not being available all day everyday to run around after her.

"Next door neighbour's daughter visits every weekend to take her shopping!"

Somebody on here a while ago suggested observing them like a lab rat to help with not getting overwrought by these situations. Since I started doing that I've noticed all sorts. I also have a game of "bingo" running in my head which helps too!

@EmotionalBlackmail goodness sounds so familiar. Yes to the bingo - I do that. Usually, I haven’t left the house or seen anyone since you last came. Usually the day after I have visited - also a lie as I have one of her neighbours keep an eye on her and regularly the minute I have left I will get a message from neighbour checking I am ok as she knows my mother is toxic and also telling me she has just gone out. Unfortunately mother has alienated everyone friends and family with her attitude - always ‘I just tell it as it is’ has worn people down as it is just rudeness. It is obvious that people stuck around for our Dad’s sake but now he is in nursing care they clearly don’t feel they need to/want to. It is exhausting. Absolutely resonate with ‘so and sos son visits every day and takes Mrs X out shopping/for lunch ‘etc etc. Passive aggressive digs at me. It is really taking its toll on me at the minute. Nothing is ever right, but then it never has been. A wise person told me recently about black catting. As in if you tell my mother you had a black cat hers would be blacker!!

Sorry to hear you’re quietly steaming, @EmotionalBlackmail , and no wonder - that sounds so frustrating. I’ve often seen ‘grey rock’ recommended on here as a good technique to aim for, but I can’t claim I’m very good at it!

I didn’t have this particular problem with my DM, thankfully, but I do have a sibling who was pretty oblivious to the amount of ‘looking after’ I did. There was rarely any acknowledgment. He once did take two days off work when DM was unexpectedly ill and I literally could not drop everything and rush up there until the end of the week - then he told me his boss had had ‘the talk’ with him to say it was OK just this once but if it happened again he’d have to think about some other solution for his mother to be looked after 🤔 After 2 days! At this point I’d spent over 10 years using more or less all my free time travelling up and down to be with DM. I also lived 4 hours away and he lived, erm, 20 minutes. Sigh.

(I should say that DM was always very grateful to me for being there. So there is that).

@BlueLegume I recognise that bit about the blacker cat except it would be my goldenballs brother she tells me has the blackest cat.

Ah, Elevenerife syndrome. If you've been to Tenerife, they have to go one better.

I’m sorry everyone is going through so much (particularly those with manipulative relatives- my DGM was like that and it was exhausting and enraging, and I wasn’t even the main target).

A colleague of mine (with whom I have had a few long chats about caring for our respective elderly relatives) reckons the collective nouns are ‘a duty of daughters’ and ‘a shirk of sons’. She has a goldenballs brother and is carrying the load along with a full-time demanding job, and I can really see the toll it’s taking on her.

I haven’t posted for a while as there’s nothing to tell and it’s all too grim. MIL no longer recognises me or DD, and is begging to be allowed to die. It’s horrible (especially for DH and BIL) and I see no reason why it won’t go on for years. Honestly, if I didn’t have DD I’d probably top myself now to be sure of not ending up like that.

@NefretForth oh please have a hug. It’s awful hearing lovely people explain how stretched they are. I’m unable to help but utterly understand

Just sending a general hug to everyone on here coping with so many difficulties and so much heartache. I’ve made the journey and am on the other side now but I feel for you. It’s unbelievably hard.

Todays weekly visit was ok - no floods to mop up but she had a bloody nose which she says she got when she got up to go to the toilet last night and fell over. Of course she wasn’t using her walker.

I’m one week into taking sertraline for anxiety after exhausting all other non-medication options. And this week I start working reduced hours to try and reclaim some kind of work-life balance. I’m trying hard to fight against the cliche of the middle aged woman giving up her life, career and health to caring reproducibilities, but I seem to be falling into the trap we all know is there anyway.

@funnelfan oh goodness it is such an easy trap to fall into isn’t it. Do you have any support or options to het in help so your visits are more about having time together as opposed to doing tasks?

Suggestions for how I should reorganise my house so that she can stay for periods of time (basically she's trying to turf my child out of their bedroom so she can have it). NO.
Ha, I feel your pain. My eldest is about to go to uni so naturally his room is free for the taking…

@funnelfan sadly you’re in good company. If you haven’t already please don’t mention your reduced hours. If she thinks you’re at work you can get that break. I hope the sertraline works for you.

We’re pootling here. FIL is claiming to be all but immobile (selective competence is the phrase I saw on here, always seems able to get to the biscuit tin), has an infection from refusing to (be) wash(ed) that could well lead to amputation. MIL’s Alzheimer’s is cruelly pressing on, she’s convinced FIL is a nun from a childhood hospital stay and desperately tries to escape back to her mum. The wandering is our main concern, so DH is fitting a new fence and gate this week as she seems to have a keyless means of getting out of the house.

@SockFluffInTheBath sorry hearing your situation. I’m glad you have also heard of selective competence- it’s a phrase new to me and I nabbed it from the “out of the FOG” website. Another favourite is terminal uniqueness- our mother suffers from this meaning she is too special to have food delivered- too special to have a cleaner - so guess what it’s all left to us. I’ve backed off the past week and goodness I feel better.

Thanks, sadly DMs cognitive decline continues so mentioning reduced hours would make no difference whatsoever to her, she wouldn’t grasp the implication at all. She won’t twig when I start visiting her on Fridays not Sundays because she never knows what day of the week it is, but I am looking forward to having weekends again, and I think so is DH bless him.

@Nodancingshoes sorry for your loss and I hope you get lots of help and support over this difficult time. @funnelfan i hope the medication helps and you can find that time for yourself.

So much to catch up here and all the usual
frustrations, with SS & NHS, discharge and capacity. I quizzed Med. Student about how much time was spent on dementia and elderly care in the 4 year degree, so far none but thinks a week in the last year!!! May explain …..

I thought of this thread today as I have just cleared the 10 plastic files I had for the multiple mostly minor health issues for MiL that filled a lever arch…. A large bundle for recycling. 4 crates of cards, photos and momentos on the landing and more things to move from the flat. I don’t get rid of anything without permission from DH and or family. Car full for charity.

in the meantime DD wrote off his car but no one hurst so huge relief and he will not drive anymore. Very hard where they live as there is just one bus, he went to get it last week and bus driver said you aren’t in the correct place, but let him on. DD asked bus driver to alert him when near his stop, driver responded. How should I know I don’t live round here. DD so anxious got off a mile early, tripped and cut his face. He isn’t keen to get the bus again but can afford taxis. DM still thinks the phone is faulty (not her 👂 no) and won’t go back to GP about her issues, both need help to organise online food shop, and DD doing his poor me attention seeking - moaning about DM and calling her a control freak because she tells him what she wants him to say to me in the background when he is on the phone. She is only doing it because she can’t hear properly and he is yelling ‘control freak’ at her😮.

DB and SiL with them for 2 days atm so hope they can get a few things sorted. We will take the walking frame and recliner chair that they say they don’t need but might one day. !

we will all keep an eye on things…. Both now wobbly on their feet, slightly deaf and DD gets lots of words wrong, DM forgets or doesnt hear whole conversations. I looked up Age U.K. and they have no presence in their area - nearest 40 miles away.

They may be fine as they are for some while yet - Friends say things like, so they will move to be near you then … No they won’t for so many reasons. DSis and DSiL and I will all make sure to phone and visit and compare notes, of course they often don’t hear the phone …

@Juneday you may find that your parents will prop each other up but if/when a crisis comes with one of them, you end up with two crises as the other one can’t cope without the other around. Has happened recently to a friend.

God news your dad won’t be driving any more, glad no one was hurt.

Hugs to you all. My mother is almost completely deaf, has to be really close to hear anything, but she can still ring me up and ask me for everything she wants from B&Q. How does that work?!

paging @MereDintofPandiculation , we’ll be needing a new thread soon…

@funnelfan i am sure you are right, DM is a good cook and very practical but has lost her way in the modern world of mobile phones, online shopping etc. Gets furious at DDs lack of common sense (a common problem I suspect) Can still play bridge. DD proud to be a techno phone which is infuriating but he has a retired friend he calls for all tech help for now. @MotherOfCatBoy that made me laugh … I suppose she just assumed you are saying yes of course …

bus driver said you aren’t in the correct place, but let him on. DD asked bus driver to alert him when near his stop, driver responded. How should I know I don’t live round here. DD so anxious got off a mile early, tripped and cut his face. Oh, the poor man! Luckily people round here were generally supportive. Dad’s had supermarket managers spot him in the street and give him a lift home, a community policy officer carry his shopping for him, and when he fell over and refused an ambulance, someone delivered him to our doorstep. Both DS and I have had bus drivers let us off at our gate rather than carry us past to the bus stop.

Have they hearing aids? Worth trying to persuade them. Deafness is a risk factor for dementia via not being able to take part in conversation.

Somebody on here a while ago suggested observing them like a lab rat That was me. I’m probably not a very nice person.

@funnelfan Thanks for the alert. I’m recovering from a tummy bug and not yet capable of rational thought - can you all post slowly overnight?

Somebody on here a while ago suggested observing them like a lab rat That was me. I’m probably not a very nice person

it’s a very helpful technique. My variation is to pretend I’m behind the camera in a nature documentary so I can mentally narrate in the style of Sir David Attenborough.

hope you feel better soon.

hope you feel better soon. Thanks. Had a piece of toast tonight, first food since Friday. Now, if only I can keep off the half stone I lost, it will all have been worth it.

@MereDintofPandiculation so sorry you’ve not been well.

Thanks ☺️. I’m getting there. I’ve now added nectarines and mint tea to my toast diet.