Cockroach Café 🪳 🪳 🪳New Year 2025

[MereDintofPandiculation]

Welcome in to the Cockroach Café Bad Daughters’ Room, the rugs and cushions all fresh and clean for the new season.
Good daughters, find your way to the small room behind the stairs. Sorry it’s not as equipped as here, but it doesn’t get much use.
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 more savoury, so for the moment it stays.

Sympathies to you all dealing with tricky characters and refuseniks.

One benefit of my Dad having gone into hospital is that he is giving in a little easier if I say no this has to happen. He often agrees for a quiet life and then tries to renege on the previous agreement. Anything new is too overwhelming and often met with a no, but this is not a knew thing, he hates change, it makes him anxious (he is likely 'high' functioning ND).

The example the other day was agreed to OT visit, they measured for another hand rail for the stairs, organised the date for them to come then he said no I don't want it. No reason why, but I reassured him to old rail would stay on the other side anyway and let them fit it. DH said just don't use it then when he moaned about it to him. Two days later he says to DH hold my stick and goes up the stairs holding the new rail and tells him that it is not bad🤦

Thankfully Mum seems settled in the rehab ward. The OT came round when I was there and asked all kinds of questions about how she copes at home. Lucky I was there as she was blithely answering that she bathes and showers herself, cooks roast dinners, mows the lawn and plays bowls in the summer. She does not!
Not helped by another visitor recognising her and asking her if she was joining the bowls team this year. it’s been at least 5 years.

@funnelfan I do stand aside when they argue - last thing I want to do is get involved, it’s pointless. But what triggers sadness is that they would rather spend their time like that, than engaging with me or letting me help them. I am only there once a week and half the time I may as well not be. I have practically given up offering help because it’s seldom taken. But I look around and just feel … sad. It doesn’t have to be like this. But there we are. They can still feed themselves (well DF cooks and shops) and get around, so that will have to do. The disfunction isn’t something I can do anything about.

I think that’s the point I run up against probably needing therapy, because I’ve given up on exerting my efforts towards them, and now I’m left with my own feelings inside about it all.

Ah I remember the arguing over pointless things between mil & fil .
That is until she practically helped his demise along due to her fear of hospitals and being in the house alone.
( She wouldn't call an ambulance when his health took a nosedive & citing that the district nurse is coming to the house daily and she would know if he was really ill )

@MotherOfCatBoy this was insightful thank you - good preparation for the weekend I have ahead of me - I’ve set my expectations to very low after a few weeks of not seeing DF (still had admin but we both needed an emotional break).

…still has objects from her past then she can deny that change happens, that things and people wear out, and that she is going to die. It comes out as a hoarding disorder and intense hostility…

I really appreciate everyone sharing and the solidarity of this thread (a reminder of why we’re at the nursing home stage is also helpful, such familiar stories!).

Visited DM this afternoon at the rehab ward and she is not happy. Why can’t she go home. We have broken her heart treating her like this. Why is she being kept prisoner? What has she done to deserve this? Bags packed, tears and all.
I had the same last night and on several other occasions, I’m done with the sympathising and the explaining so I have said I will not visit her if she continues like this.
Everyone has explained countless times that the plan is for her to go home when ready but she’s not ready yet and is likely to end up back in there if she’s home too soon.

I am really cheesed off. All my spare time is taken up either visiting her, washing her stuff, sorting out her house to make it safer for when she does come home, trying to find things to entertain her while she’s in there and it’s not good enough is it. Tomorrow, I’ve had to cancel coffee with my oldest friend who I see once a year because her new washing machine is being delivered between 7am and 7pm.

@BestIsWest that sounds so tough. You need to look after yourself or you’ll burnout especially when it’s so unappreciated. I hope the delivery comes early and there’s still a chance you can see your friend, which would give you a boost.

@BestIsWest sounds completely exhausting. Sometimes it just gets too much, maybe back off some of the tasks like entertaining her? Hopefully the washing machine will come early, or call with a smaller delivery window so you’re not stuck in her house all day.

@BestIsWest if something is not essential (like entertainment) and not good enough maybe you need to drop the rope on that one, tough as it is to do so. I kilometres you manage to sort coffee with your friend.

Just had a text with Delivery window 7-11 yay! Friend is in this part of the world until Wednesday so I’m hoping she can reschedule me in among family commitments.

Hi everyone 👋, I'm new to this thread, however no stranger to the elderly parents section.
I've been reading through the last few pages of comments and sorry to hear about what all of you are going through, and to those who have lost their parent, my condolences 💐.
I feel like I've been through the ringer with my parents over the last few years. Both stubborn as mules, my DF (88) has lost almost all his mobility yet walking aids were refused until recently, but it's now too late and they lost a lot of their freedom through their stubbornness. They live in a house nowhere near amenities and between 2 steep hills, DM wails constantly about the hills abd the house and garden which is frustrsting given they have/had the financial means to move.
Now my DF has been having confusions (almost definitely dementia) for 6 years and getting my DM who is the queen of denial to agree to get them addressed. Past few weeks have been horrendous and she has finally agreed to grt him to see a doctor but only because SHE can't cope now.

I am.at my wits end with anger and resentment towards them for their stubborness and refusal to take any personal responsibility for themselves. I am scared and living in a state of constant anxiety, jumping every time the phone rings, and honestly am fighting with my own emotions.

Thanks for listening to those who have got this far.

Frazzledmummy123, well done for posting here. I can't really offer advice, but am coming out of 7 years of similar experiences and feelings which I'm only making sense of now the dust has settled. I wish I had found the thread much earlier. Sending flowers 💐 for you. There will be some great practical help and moral support on this thread I'm sure.

Thank you 💕. I'm.sorry you have had 7 years of similar, it is so stressful isn't it. I sometimes feel like I am losing my mind with it all. If it isn't the worry, it is frustration and resentment.

@Frazzledmummy123 welcome - we have spoken on other EP threads and share similar stories. I have literally just got in from a 2 and half hour walk simply trying to clear my head. The stubbornness is just so hard to deal with. They present a problem - you present a solution-it isn’t what they want. There are far too many of use feeling utterly at our wits end.

Thank you 💕.
I remember you from previous threads, and have seen a few of your comments on here. We definitely have a similar experience, and some of your comments upthread actually gave me goosebumps as it could have been me saying what you said (about entitlement and expecting us to pick everything up).
At my wits end pretty much sums up my feelings right now, I could just scream and scream and forget when to stop lol.

I hope your walk helped you a bit.

@Frazzledmummy123 totally understand how you feel. I do think we owe it to ourselves to not do that though. To stop, to breathe, to step away and to do something that soothes us. One of my siblings would call me selfish for doing this. I call it sensible. A good walk yesterday in a lovely space and a good sleep have turned me around from feeling absolutely awful and exhausted 48 hours ago to feeling much more able to ‘cope’…which sadly is still the best case scenario. 48 hours ago i was as you sound wanting to scream into the abyss. I liken it to having to have a good shower to get rid of grime…the grime being the mess our elders bring to the table because they have made zero provision for where they live to be suitable, for what help they will accept such as a food delivery…oh no we want you to do that. If these people were our partners our friends would be telling us they were abusive. They are, but society expects us to look after them.

Yes, agree with all of that, bluelegume! With a bit of perspective, I realise that my parents thought that they HAD made provision for their later years, by producing a daughter to do the messy stuff and a son to do the money....🙄 The plan, which they didn't share until the last minute, presumably because it was obvious to them, was that I would give up work at a point specified by them, my husband would "keep" me and that I would be on call for them. But I departed from the script by having a career, not because I particularly wanted one, but because I had a living to earn and childlessness required me to do something positive with my life or go under. I found a career in a sector which is hard work, poorly paid but secure and highly rewarding (again, departing from script). Mum and Dad loved me deeply, but simply couldn't understand why I was, in their eyes, being so perverse: it really upset them. And marrying a man who was thoroughly good but not a high earner...well, to them it was incomprehensible. As a kid Dad had known true hardship; why was I not earning as much as I possibly could? (I tried that sort of life, had no talent for it and saw the damage it can do to families). It still is incomprehensible to my Mum and wider family. Yet their expectations of me didn't match how my Mum treated her own parents: she was an only child, lived at a distance and visited every 6 weeks.
I can't offer any advice really: although if you can find friends locally going through the same it helps. I have found that when I quietly admitted over a coffee that my own Mum- daughter relationship is less than ideal, a social taboo was broken and we could even have a quiet laugh and eye-roll together. It isn't a solution but it does make you feel a bit less lonely, and that actually you are probably doing your kindhearted best.

Welcome to the thread @Frazzledmummy123.

Well, visited DM today and what a difference. Back to her usual self, much, much happier. We went to the day room and it was a good 100 yards from the ward and she managed it well with a walking frame. DB and I are in agreement that the food is doing her the world of good. We’ve been worried that she’s not been eating enough for some time.
Continence is still an issue but we know now that it’s related to the hydrocephalus so not much can be done about it unless neurology decide on treatment.

@BestIsWest that's good news.

I had a horrendous visit last time. I'm clearly a total barstard for keeping mum safe. If you don't.

@countrygirl99 sympathies. That’s how I felt earlier this week. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

@BestIsWest isn't that the truth. Had to leave because we were going round in circles. Mum was denying the behaviour that's causing the problem and I wasn't backing down on the solution. The alternative was leave as is and leave her with no service contract for heating.

Hi.

I'm really sorry to swoop in without acknowledging other posts. MN have put me on that stupid test thing where I can't see anything properly and I have requested to come off it but they haven't done anything.

I just wanted to vent here. The short version is mum seems to be much better so she is currently driving me mad.

She wanted to get rid of the carers, but I told her today that I want the carers to take her to shops post office, et cetera

I'm trying to give myself permission to go round there less. The whole point of moving was to make my life easier with the constant medical stuff. If there isn't any constant medical stuff, I feel as if I should be able to live my life in peace.

It's impossible to say how I really feel unless it's an anonymous forum. Seven years ago when dad died, I said I felt that leave being left with mum was like being left with the child I never wanted.

I cannot believe I am still suffering with this problem seven years later. I'm having those thoughts that I would rather die first. It feels like some sort of punishment.

thank you for listening.

@EmeraldRoulette welcome 🍷

Fairly standard stuff for here. That in no way diminishes what you’ve shared, it’s meant to let you know you should feel what you want to feel, we understand and don’t judge. It is hard, it is unfair, and this is a good place to vent, cry, or get reassurance.

@SockFluffInTheBath thank you.
I'm not new on the board, I was here for ages but I try and avoid it now because I basically try not to think about it.

One reason I find reducing visits unhelpful is that I try to exist in a world where I'm not paying attention to it and then it's like the interruption is even more rude, if it's weekly visits. I still have to do a daily phone call but as I say, mum is feeling better so I think I can find a way out of that one.

I just really needed an anonymous vent, so thank you for hearing and acknowledging it.

I get it @EmeraldRoulette - it’s a problem you didn’t ask for but feel you have no choice.