But you’re my carer!

[Dormit]

How do you respond to this? I’m just back off holiday and my mum has asked me to go up (a 30 min walk uphill-I don’t drive) to make her a cup of tea because she’s upset and a bit shakey. When I said no, I got the but you’re my carer retort as though that means drop everything and do what she wants. She’s quite capable of making a cup of tea and food. Hospital has just discharged her and deemed her medically fit and safe and she’s just been on holiday. I’ve explained I’m cooking dinner for my children and can’t get up for a couple of hours. I’ve not had lunch yet today due to being on the phone with her and the hospital and messaging family who have only given me grief. I’ve just come back off a week holiday and feel like I wasn’t supposed to have any time off. Family are saying I shouldn’t take any money for what I do for her (£2 an hour). I’m her official carer and barely get time to eat lunch on days I am there (4-6 days depending) and yet family (who do fuck all) are saying it’s only what any daughter would do. I put in around 40 hours a week and am on call constantly. I do her shopping, gardening, cleaning, cooking, banking and all admin, hospital and GP appointments, transport booking, holiday booking, gift and card buying, DIY, liaising with all professionals and lots and lots of emotional support. I was exhausted and needed that week away and have come back to being told by family that I abandoned her. I organised carers to be there in the days that I wasn’t and she told me she wouldn’t need carers today so I cancelled them. I’m so pissed off.

Wow.
Your family are really using you.
You should claim carers allowance - at least then you'd get your NI stamp paid

This might be a daft question (if so, sorry) but have you spoken to Adult Social Care to explain the situation and see if they can advise?

Stop doing it.

Just tell your family that unfortunately, you're going to need to step back from being your mum's carer.

You won't be accepting the £400 any more, & you won't be available for care, but will drop in on your mum once or twice a week for a cup of tea & a catch up.

The extent to which various people, starting with your mum, then your siblings, will rage about this, will demonstrate the extent to which they've been taking the piss.

If they ask for reasons, just keep saying 'no, I can't do it anymore. It isn't working for me or for mum.'

If you would miss the £400, that's maybe 8 hours a week behind a bar or on a checkout...so maybe do that instead?

Honestly, you're being exploited & abused. Call time on it.

Is she paying you the equivalent of carers allowance ? is that why it's so low?

I’m well aware 😔 just trying to work out where the hourly rate was coming from in the OP.

The easiest solution would be to tell your sister she can do it all for £400 then!

This is entirely a problem of your own causing. Tell her you're no longer the career and the problem goes away.

Accept the £400 but say your rate has gone up due to inflation to £10 per hour.

"no I'm not", leaves

It’s really tempting to say no I’m not and walk away but she’d have no one then. My sister wouldn’t step up, she’d just say she needs to be in a home. She doesn’t need to be in a home because she’s independent with washing and dressing and can do things, it’s just that she’s in pain and finds it difficult. She’d get even worse in a home.
I’m going to see her today to do the cleaning, change the bedding and see what’s what. I told her yesterday she needed to be less mentally reliant on me yet that didn’t sink in. I’m going to tell her I will go on set days to do things and other people will have to work around me not me work around them. I’ll have told her on Tuesday that I’ll be up on say, Thursday after a day off on Wednesday and she’ll say oh I don’t need you because my sister it her friend is visiting. My sister visits for about an hour and doesn’t do anything and the friend is a precision visit so she manages fine on those days. My plans get messed around then because she’s arranged things on the days I go so I have to change my days off and working days to fit. They stops as of this week.
I’m also telling her she needs to get her phone sorted to be separate from mine. They are linked, through Apple ID I think, so that if I block my family they are also blocked on her phone which isn’t ok. I’ll sort that today.
I told her to take a meal out of the freezer last night for tonight so I hope she’s done that. She doesn’t forward plan then it’s me that is expected to sort things out. She’s got 3 Alexa devices in her bungalow to remind her about medication and anything else she needs reminding about so there’s no excuse for forgetting things.
I’ll be reminding her of the Silver Line phone line to ring instead of me all the time. She’s only really got 2 friends and is pretty isolated but strongly denies this when mentioned. I’ve said that she’s got to start going to some of the local groups for people her age to get out and see other people socially. Her conversation is so limited because she doesn’t do anything and doesn’t see anyone except me most days. I hate this role reversal as does mum. She looked after her mum and dad, separately, and with the help of her sister, but it was nothing like I do. She was paid £20 by my grandad and seems to resent paying me. She forgets that she had tens of thousands from my grandad over the years to get her out of messes in her 40s/50s/60s including the deposit for her house. I feel really angry and resentful this morning and have woken up with a bad headache and blocked nose as well as a crick in my neck so I’m grumpy 😁 Ah well, I’ll see what I can get sorted today.

You're having it tough OP. Re the food. Wiltshire farm foods are very good. They're frozen and you microwave them from frozen in up to 12 minutes. My dad has them and my FIL had them. He died last week and we have been eating them whilst we are sorting things at his house and they are good.

Look, I’m disabled and in pain everyday and I bloody manage.

your mum is taking you for a ride.

she can pay for cleaners and similar like all the rest of us do who aren’t physically able to do it.

you are doing too much.

step back.

@MusicaltheatremumI'm sorry for your loss
She’s not interested in Wiltshire farm foods so far. She’s very fussy on what she will eat so is very limited when it comes to any kind of ready meal. Very old fashioned British meals of meat or fish, veg and potatoes. She was on about a roast dinner yesterday and I don’t even make those for myself. I don’t have time really. I’ll request the Wiltshire Farm Foods catalogue and she can look at it. There’s a local company that delivers hot meals so she’s going to have to try those. She looks to be for all the answers and I haven’t got them all. My holiday was much needed and I don’t feel I’ve had a break because I’ve come back to extra stress. She doesn’t want to be a burden of course 🙄 yet decided to ignore red flag symptoms for days meaning that in the day I was travelling home she tells me about them and I have to tell her to go to A&E and try and organise things from trains with shite phone signal. If she’d have gone while on holiday she’d have not been in this current mess so I’m really pissed off with her. My mum is lovely usually but this is killing our relationship.

@Octavia64she sees that she pays me to do it so I’m expected to do everything. I hoover every time I go because the carpet shows every crumb. I empty the bins, take out the recycling. My sister barely manages to put her own rubbish in the bin. I too have chronic pain as well as being autistic and ADHD with 3 ND children one of which is now an adult and has drug issues. She doesn’t live with me. It’s a lot of stress and I get angry at the helpless act from mum then feel guilty for feeling angry and resentful. She’s managed fine on holiday with her friend so she can pull herself together out of this helpless crap.

@Dormit I’ve been you in this situation .. You just have to put your boundaries up and if it comes to it, stop being your mum’s carer You seem to have enough on your plate as it is use that as an excuse and get out of it .. If it’s due to the money side of it, for example you get carers allowance are either of your children on DLA ? I promise myself, I’ll never get myself into that situation again. I just now say I’m not doing it.

The children wouldn’t qualify for DLA I don’t think and seeing as I’m doing so much for my mum, I certainly wouldn’t. The money side of things is worrying. I do get the carers allowance and mum is quick to point out that it’s supposed to be 35 hours a week. So if I only go 4 days a week and stay for 4-4.5 hours then I wouldn’t meet that time specification. Obviously I do a lot at home for her too in terms of shopping and emails and phone calls. Then she gets upset that I’m “charging her” for doing things a daughter should do. Not a son, not her other daughter, just this daughter. Then there’s the derision from certain people that I don’t work as though I live on he life of Riley. I don’t feel like I have a life sometimes. Later today I’m going to phone SS and ask them to do an assessment. Then at least the box is ticked and we’ll see if she’s eligible for any help from them. I doubt it.

She must be dying of thirst if she’s waited for you to come home from your holiday? 🤨

Cheeky mare.

You need to cut back on what you’re doing. 4 hours of gardening a week is ridiculous if you’re already pushed for time. It won’t affect your mum if the garden has a few weeds or if the grass is allowed to get a bit overgrown before you mow it. Unless your mum has acres of land you really shouldn’t need to spend 4 hours a week gardening! 4 hours cleaning a week seems a lot as well if it is just your mum at home alone, I assume she must live in a huge house. Maybe she needs to look at moving into a smaller place so that she can maintain her independence for longer.

Why don’t you use online delivery to do her shopping to save you having to go to the shops and back? Considering you don’t drive this would surely be much easier and save you time and effort. You can arrange a delivery slot for a time you would be there anyway.

She’d managed to make herself a hot chocolate and eat some danish pastries that are individually wrapped and in a bowl for her. Some days I make do with toast or porridge for dinner if I can’t be bothered or I’m too tired or feel ill. Sometimes we all have to make do with whatever we’ve got, nobody’s going to suffer from not having a hot meal in the evening. I’ve said I’ll call at the chippy on the way up so she’s had a hot lunch and will make her a sandwich and put it in the fridge for dinner later. All the professionals have said she needs to move more so I’m reluctant do things I know she can do albeit with difficulty. If she couldn’t do things then they would be different. Her mentality is a significant barrier.

It sounds like she needs someone else to have on standby (not you, you're doing enough by the sound of things). A neighbour or family member/friend maybe

Maybe you could check out charities for the elderly too for support. Meals on wheels etc.

I think you should stop being your mum’s ‘carer’, and start being her ‘daughter’ again, like your other siblings. I think you need to protect your own future, it sounds like you may become financially vulnerable - in terms of think about how you will manage financially in the future.

I think now is the time to actually ramp up your proper paid employment - it sounds like you are subsidising your mum to the tune of £1000s of pounds a month - and unless you have substantial means / savings, then you are doing this at the expense of your own (and possibly your dcs’) future financial security.

You need to contact the adult social care department in your council, and ask for an adult social care assessment. You can be there when this happens, and can make sure you tell the assessor what things your mum actually needs doing for her, and what things she has done for her. They can make recommendations, and if your mum has savings over £23k (if in England) then any care need that is identified, she will need to pay for herself, but if she has savings less than £23k, then you can help her fill in a financial assessment form, which goes through income / expenditure / savings etc, and the amount she has to contribute will be worked out from this basis.

If she is on the lower end of the financial spectrum (not too much in savings, and not too much in income), then it may just be the attendance allowance that she will need to contribute to the care. I have to go - but will post again shortly!

This sounds awful. There is no reason it has to continue. If your mum has capacity, she needs to do her own thinking rather than relying on you.

I would let everyone know you can no longer manage the caring hours, and that you won't take any money. If you want, offer to visit on a day that suits you, and say you can spend x hours doing shopping/cleaning/gardening if she makes a list in order of importance.

Persevere with carers, it's not always ideal, but you'll burnout otherwise.

Then take a step back. You'll likely get a lot of pushback, but stick to your guns. You're being terribly abused by your family.

Ask for another assessment by social services. I know that agencies can be a nightmare and mess you around. Your mum can ask for direct payments and employ a carer directly who can act in more of a PA type role.

I experienced the opposite previously. My half sister manipulated me into relocating and employing the biological mother as my carer and housing her. Then thought she could dictate when the biological mother was allowed to do tasks for me. Once I settled in to the new place I put a stop to it and was subsequently dumped by all. Now I have no contact after trying again a few more times. I have more stability and security. I understand as a fellow Autistic women it is difficult as you feel morally obliged to support. Your role is to be as healthy as you can for you and your children. Feel free to PM if you want further advice and guidance I am a policy analyst.

It will only get worse. As you are claiming Carers Allowance and taking the Attendance Allowance none your siblings will ever lift a finger as that makes for a good excuse.

Personally I would stop taking any money and get yourself into part time work. Mum can then use the money to pay for help and all siblings will need to step up equally.