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.

@Digdeep73 welcome, that sounds really tough. It is hard but do try to put some space in to allow you to be there for your teens, they need you too. X

Visited parents the other day (weekly visit). I understand the point about them making more and more demands. They are shifting for themselves physically more or less but lots of admin now is for me to solve. I read letters, make phone calls, book appointments etc. I don’t mind doing it but I find they pounce on me all at once with multiple demands and almost compete with each other for their thing to be done first. It doesn’t help that they don’t talk to each other.

Very exasperated with DF this week - the bank wrote to him to say he could make more interest on his savings and offered a different account (probably regulatory but hey, still a good thing), but for one reason and another he didn’t want to. They have this odd arrangement where even after sixty years of marriage they still each have their “own” money so Dad puts his pension in his savings account and likes to withdraw it in cash because he regards the current account, where there is a lot (too much) money as “your mother’s.” It’s all convoluted and over complicated. He decided he didn’t want the better account, and he doesn’t want to do internet banking (though he happily shops online which is far less secure).

He has capacity and I know that although I think he’s making a daft decision he’s entitled to make it. It just drives me up the wall because it’s part of a pattern of always doing things the hardest and most inconvenient way because they don’t want to change when circumstances change. They want to go back to 1983 but now they don’t have a bank in their town and even to transfer money between their own accounts they go to the library once a week to see a banking hub, when they could do it online in seconds. I have to step back and think, fine, I’ll drop it.

On top of that DM has a nasty streak that seems to increase when she is feeling vulnerable or that she hasn’t got all her own way. Typically this manifests as insulting my hair or appearance. This time my hair is “rat’s tails.” I came home fuming about what a bitch she is.

It is so hard to keep positive. My mum is in an amazing care home and regularly goes on outings and has hair done, docs/podiatrists who come in and regular entertainment and activities. Yet it is never enough and I get the worst word from her. I know she has dementia but no-one else seems to get the brunt of it.

On the subject of care homes - once her money runs to below the lower capital limit, can social work take that to pay care home fees? I have looked and it appears not however it is a minefield. Any help gratefully received. Thank you.

Last time I checked I think their remaining money can NOT be used for care fees, even if they/you want to use it to top up.

Thank you - it is just so unfair as it was money for their DGD (I don't need or want it). But you know how the coucils are - will try anything to cut spending!

@MotherOfCatBoy I swear it's because they watch day time TV which is full of scamming stuff and paranoia sets in - every app including official banking ones are out to get them etc - now's bit of awareness is very very good, but many are taking it to extremes

@Patsy7299 I’d also be interested in what people have had to do as and when the money dwindles.

Currently in a kind of purgatory where I’m arguing about a LA funded period and not sure whether to move my Dad to stop the complaining I doubt it would stop.

I stupidly haven’t paid myself back for when I was paying the care home fees, although I have repaid myself for the initial respite period. My siblings also need expenses reimbursing for costs we’ve all incurred over the last two years. In theory, the sale means we can correct the situation - but I don’t know what the LA will require or consider reasonable. Plus with all the complaining we’re kind of holding off so he has the 2-3 years of fees in the bank that some nursing homes require if he moves (the one he is in is good).

My mum has reached the upper limit however the invoice received from care home has not taken into account the "tariff income" where they are charge £1 for every £250 or part thereof between upper and lower limits. Council are hopeless, care home have been understanding but bill is £26K and I can't fob them off forever! To add to the confusion, I received a £4K credit note yesterday from care home - aaaaaggggghhhhhhh!

@Patsy7299 that sounds such an admin nightmare. Council here are also just so slow and I kept getting the invoices when there was no money, it is so very stressful. Having PoA has helped but is also just incredibly stressful as there always seem to be people to call and write to.

On top of that DM has a nasty streak that seems to increase when she is feeling vulnerable or that she hasn’t got all her own way. Typically this manifests as insulting my hair or appearance. This time my hair is “rat’s tails.” I came home fuming about what a bitch she is.
@MotherOfCatBoy if it's any comfort, my DM can be like this too. It's either my hair or my clothes or my weight or some other criticism. And then she wonders why I don't visit more often!
I don't know whether to be happy or concerned that there was no such criticism at the last visit, so just taking it as a small win (for now).

Our council exactly the same - you would think it was coming out their own banks! POA is a godsend but it is a full time job on top of a full time job!

@Crikeyalmighty oh God yes, DF goes on about those all the time. That is a large part of it, but he doesn’t really know how internet security works so he’s fine with Amazon but not with online banking (I mean, I know nothing is completely bomb proof, but banking is regulated and pretty safe). Most scams target the human, not the tech!

I read a thread on here fairly recently about “what’s the worst thing your mother has said to you,” and amongst all the examples it was surprising in the end how similar they all seemed to be. There’s a certain type. I found it quite comforting tbh.

@MotherOfCatBoy yep- drives me nuts

Just to say to everyone complaining about councils - we all want free care but no-one wants to pay the taxes necessary to fund it.

Unless we raise taxes across the board, it's always going to feel hard to be the one in 4 who needs long term care and to see your life savings dwindle until you reach the threshold for help. Bit what on earth would you suggest they do differently?

The fairest thing would probably be high inheritance tax for everybody bit you can see how well the electorate would react to that!

@BishyBarnyBee yep -

@BishyBarnyBee sadly the sums involved for us are small (never going to graze even the old inheritance tax thresholds). I don’t disagree about tax increases, or self-funding, for social care - but siblings are renting and we’re all working. All grandchildren are still school age. It is worrying to wonder how on earth we’ll fund our own futures, or our children’s’ without the house value increase being used for our father’s care.

I’ve had two main issues with councils - the way care is pushed from the NHS to the local authority and back again and the silo of x team needing to do x before y team can do y. Resources are being used inefficiently (and sometimes it feels to hinder) and @Patsy7299 is right it creates a job in itself being POA on top of my own job. I’ve also had to learn a whole system and then fight to get what my father is entitled to.

To make it truly excruciating, my father accuses me of mis-managing his finances because he doesn’t want to pay for care he thinks he doesn’t need (he really, really does but how do you say ‘you’re not going to get better than this’). So the visits I can find time for are currently very unpleasant. I am in purgatory.

@MotherOfCatBoy the criticism 😤! Also usually about clothes or hair. My mother seems to be obsessed with my clothes, continually moaning that I have too many. Honestly, it’s none of her business and secondly I actually don’t. Just more than two outfits! She has been a narcissist clothes fanatic all her life and has more clothes than me - ironically - but sees no contradiction.

Anything personal now I change the subject as fast as I can!! Try to limit it to the weather and the NHS and transport 🤷‍♀️

I didn't mean to be unsympathetic, I think it's pretty much an impossible problem to sort.

We are in our third round of end of life care and each time it's felt like there is a huge amount of bureaucracy to navigate and you have to become an expert and advocate. It's a whole new area of knowledge and expertise that you would rather not have.

And like bringing up children, each time you think you've got a grip on things, the goalposts move and you have to develop a new set of skills and knowledge. But with children, it's a positive progression and with elderly parents it's only heading one way.

It's so hard! But this forum really helps, both for the practical ideas and the understanding.

Just got back from visiting my mum today at her clean, bright, comfortable and well staffed care home.
"Why are you even here?" "It's torture here". "The food is yuck... I ran my own restaurant so I know when food is good and when it's tawdry" "They keep making me fall over" "There's no point in even talking to you about this. When am I going home? I'm only here because it suits you better".
In the end I had to go and get one of the carers as she was getting into a real tizzy.
She did calm down and we went and had a car picnic at the seaside then the "I'm sorry... you do so much for me..." started but it's really just another tool in her box of manipulation.
There is no way she is safe to be at home, she is in a lovely care home and I have lived with her emotional abuse, insults, sulking and narcissistic behaviour all my life but it still gets to me. Every single time.

@BishyBarnyBee completely agree it seems an impossible problem and you’re right this is such a helpful forum to find advice and discuss our experiences.

I didn’t think you were being unsympathetic, I just wanted to express the wider, multi-generational challenges, and that the system could be designed better.

I am very much sandwiched between parent (and in-laws) and teenagers (and younger siblings), worried for all our futures.

I’m so sorry you’ve had to navigate end of life three times 💐

@StripyMug well done for getting through the hairdryer at the start of that visit and hopefully leaving on a more positive note.

Thanks @FiniteSagacity! It was challenging to not turn around and just say "Ok, I'm off then!".
In my work I deal with challenging behaviour like this all the time but with teenagers but it's so different when you're related! And carrying years of co-dependent conditioning!
Anyway, 2 cups of tea, a hug from my lovely DS and a dog curled up next to me on the sofa and I'm feeling a bit better!

Yes agree with others a quick hug and a " Ok then , I'll go now , see you next time " let's her know you don't dance to her fiddle .