Cockroach cafe Summer 2025

[BestIsWest]

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.

@Dormit you have done the right thing to step back. I hope your GP and social care are supportive.

Great news @countrygirl99

DD1 got the grades she needed to do her A'levels and DDad's medical appointment went well with referral to specialist and extra meds sorted. I nearly lost my #### with DD2 today because she is being a typical teenager and I had 4 hours sleep last night, but I didn't rise to it. So I count that as a successful day.

Well done to your DD @Choconuttolata.

Hope it goes well @countrygirl99.

@Choconuttolatacongrstulstions to your Dd! My Dd got the grades she needed for both her A levels and uni course (they wanted a certain number of As regardless of A level results) so we are very happy here.
SS care package starts next week and mum tried saying they’d said I’d do it until then. Erm, no and ss had said they’d ask. I’ve told ss I can’t and my mum will have to ask my sister. That will go down like a bucket of sick. My brother is supportive at least and my lovely godparents.

Well done @Dormit and daughter

Huge well done to DC of @Choconuttolata and @Dormit . Lovely when DC get what they need for the next step 😀We are thankfully in a no exam year here, only my lovely god daughter had results and she was mainly pleased. Have just got a card to send off to her.

The new carers phoned me today to say they are doing an assessment on Tuesday and did I want to be there. I’ve said no because mum needs to start advocating for herself and tell them what she needs rather than me telling them. Without me there they will get a better idea of how she is cognitively too. I’ve told them to ask my mum for my sisters number too. No further abuse from anyone which is lovely. I was so anxious all yesterday over things.

@Dormit the anxiety is as tiring as the doing isn't it.

Ugh, it’s just awful. The FOG is real. I’ve had the well I’ll just have to manage line today. I was trying to get her to understand that if she manages all day when a friend visits for coffee and cane but does nothing to actually help then why does she need me so much. She couldn’t get her head round that at all. Her new dosette box from the pharmacy has been delivered but she just said she’s not even looked at it and has no idea what to do with it. I do wonder if there’s definite cognitive decline or if it’s a point blank refusal to do things for herself. Like thinking. There’s just no excuse for not actually looking at her new medication system. You know, the one designed to help her 🙄 I’m going tomorrow and if it’s all woe is me I’ll have very little patience. She’s not actually unwell. She has a chronic condition that affects her mobility and the pain and painkillers can make her feel rubbish but she’s not acutely unwell.

I'm finding the whole thing sad. DM has disappeared. I guess DB and I are dealing with it in our own ways.

He is hoping that it is something which can be cured if only DM could get the right treatments. He wants the care home staff to do more for DM. But I'm not sure what form he expects 'more' to take.

I'm dealing with it by being practical. Keeping clothes labelled, room tidy, bringing flowers.

But it is all a bit pointless. The person I am doing this for could be anybody and for DM I am just a friendly visitor. I could be anybody.

@GnomeDePlumethat must be soul destroying. I’m so sorry.

I'm sorry @GnomeDePlume - it's horrible. I agree with your approach, but some people (like your DB) always seem to have to try and fix things - even if they can't be fixed.
I understand your frustration @Dormit - I am having similar here. I am supposed to be going away for one night tomorrow to my sister's (who lives about 4 hours away) and both DM and DD are anxious and worrying how they are going to cope. I don't usually go and help on Sundays anyway, so they can manage; it would just be the Monday extra. Anyway, we had another minor emergency this morning, so I've been over twice already and am going back at tea time. Sigh.

On the plus side, DM has finally accepted a carer going in twice a week to help with meals and has been very happy with the lady who's been going....until this morning when there was some moaning about how early she comes (it is the time they asked for). I am still planning to go away. I just hope there are no more dramas.

@NDornotND the do not disturb facility on phones is a marvelous invention.

@countrygirl99 I don't think I can do that, DH and I are going and leaving DS16 alone at home for only the second time, so I feel the need to be contactable, unfortunately.

@NDornotND you can allow access to specific numbers.

I’m up today to do some signing off of duties and the state of everything is awful. No bread, no washing up liquid, nothing for lunch except tinned soup.

I just want to tell them to count their blessings. They have each other, no dementia (yet), some health problems, but show me anyone in their late 80s who doesn't, enough money to buy in support. Me coming in every day. My adult DS mowing the lawns. My DB willing and able to come and help out if I'm away. But the misery is relentless, and I don't think me telling them to 'cheer up' would be in any way helpful.

You can select to allow certain numbers through. Mine is on Do Not Disturb during work hours but DH, children’s school and the wraparound care provider are all able to ring through.

Just don’t tell the elderly person this is possible!

@GnomeDePlume it’s so cruel losing the person. MIL always smiles at me but she doesn’t know who I am. We used to be so close. There seems to be a ‘people to smile at’ list in her head, and I’m on it, so that’s nice. I get a ‘hello’ with a smile and that’s it, just hello and smile every time she looks at me. It’s sad and lovely at the same time.

@Dormit FIL does the ‘won’t even try’ routine and it gets short shrift from DH. I’m wondering if he’s losing his marbles though, we got summoned to fix the microwave, because he’d forgotten how to turn on his laptop.

I’m come to the conclusion that mum is definitely losing it somewhat. I’ve said she must go to the GP about that and her mental health too. She wasn’t happy but I’ve told her this woe is me mentality and I can’t do it attitude needs addressing. She was in a lot of pain today but had missed some painkillers. My sister managed to leave her with no bread or washing up liquid and nothing for lunch today. Mouldy food in the fridge and the place a mess. I’ve mowed the lawns and had a quick tidy of some weeds and a hanging basket. I’ve said I’ll get the garden sorted ready for regular maintenance and have arranged an online shop. I think she needs a lot more doing than she thinks she needs. My list of jobs is 1.5 sides of A4 paper. The carers will only do a fraction of that once they start. 6 hours today that was meant to be gardening was mainly sorting out the mess that had been left and going over what I’m no longer doing, what she can do for herself and what the carers need to figure out or wider family.

I’m in trouble again for “just leaving her” and no matter how much I explain that it’s due to what her family said and the fact she didn’t back me up, she still doesn’t get it. I should have told her it was getting too much for me. I did when I got carers in to give me a 2 week break. She wasn’t happy that I did that and didn’t seem to want to accept that it meant I was having two weeks rest, not two weeks still running myself ragged. It ended up as not a rest anyway. Apparently we never discussed me having days off. When I asked if I wasn’t entitled to a day off so said of course I was but didn’t seem to realise that meant not doing anything for her that day. There’s lots of things she’s just not thinking about. And she says her sister obviously didn’t mean it like that when she put in a text that I was going to kill my mum and it’s all my fault. Yes she did. She’s said it before. I got told off once for going shopping with my mum about 20 years ago. She said it was too much for my mum and how she shouldn’t be taking me shopping. We shopped together each week for her groceries and mine. She needed to shop and I needed to shop so we went together. Not ok according to family. The problem is that mum has never told them to fuck off and butt out thereby condoning their behaviour and giving the impression she agrees with them.
Those carers cost her £1800 for 2 hours a day for 4 weeks. So £1600 more than she was giving me for an average 5 hours a day. I feel really taken advantage of but mainly by her family and her expectation that I ask how high when told to jump. Fuck that. I’ll talk to her properly again once the dc are back at school when we have privacy and hopefully get her to understand.

@dormit, with kindness, stop shouting down the well. ‘No’ is a full sentence. Walk away before you’re drawn back in.

I can’t believe I’m writing this but the live in carer is still with us. We’ve been in touch with the agency, SW, CHC, hospice, district nurses, CQC and it’s all very 🤷‍♀️ we should be grateful to have care. I would say I am incandescent but that’s far too elegant for my baseline. We’re taking it in turns to be there, and will be taking legal advice on Tuesday.

Oh, and golden BIL is doing his best to maintain the status quo because he and FIL have cooked up a plan that she will stay on and tend FIL when MIL dies. Doesn’t matter that she’s not doing her job properly now because FIL is ‘with it’ enough to keep her straight. You couldn’t write this.

What is it about bank holiday weekends that seems to bring out extra outbursts of insane behaviour from the elderly relatives and/or their carers?
Too much sun? Bank holiday rota issues?
Expectations that an adult child with a Monday off work will be at their beck and call?!

@EmotionalBlackmail sadly predictable, I hope you’re ok?

In a similar vein I had The Chat from FIL this week about how much time I will have on my hands now our youngest is off to uni. Was possibly blunter than I needed to be.