Elderly father is very depressed and I don't know what I can do to help him.

[Mismatchedshoes]

I have previously started threads about my parents situation and in particular my father who is a very difficult person to deal with.

He has always been a tricky character but since mum developed Alzheimer's disease 7 years ago he has become so much worse. I ended up doing so much to help them and found myself heading to a near breakdown as a result of spinning so many plates in the air. I was struggling to carry their burden as well as dealing my own life issues (I have my own family and suffer from several chronic health issues which have become much worse during these times).

I was visiting my parent's 5-6 days a week and dad was relying very heavily on me for many things but at the same time resisting everything my sister and I would suggest to make their lives easier (he is very tight with his money and resents spending out on mum's care).

Upon the advise of people on here, FB dementia support groups and my counsellor and due to the fact that I have had to return to some part time work as I could not afford to continue living off Carer's Allowance, I scaled back the amount of time that I visit. However, I am still going round 3-4 days per week, my sister goes 2-3 times a week, mum has her best friend visit once a week and mum has 2 x carers 3 times a day, so dad is not completely on his own.

I have noticed though that since I have set stronger boundaries and visit less dad has become even more grouchy, resistant and appears very depressed but he refuses to do anything about it. He tells my sister that I no longer want to visit and that I obviously can not handle their situation. He will not visit the GP for help, he won't go to any local dementia cafes to talk with people in similar positions to him and he raises his voice at me if I suggest he joins any of the groups within our village (we have lived in our village for 50 years, he knows people here and would be very much welcomed) but all he wants to do is moan and run down everyone he can think of.

I understand that he wants to shy away and that he is angry, I too suffer from depression and I know it is so very difficult to motivate yourself and push yourself to do anything when life seems hopeless but I no longer know what to do for him. He now hates his life, he resents mum for getting dementia and has developed health anxiety where he is constantly asking me about symptoms of this or that or constantly asks me to check moles or lumps and bumps. And hee is making things worse by becoming such a nasty person. The carer even told him the other day that all he does is moan (she said it in jest but I could tell she meant it).

He runs down so many people (neighbours, the carers etc), upsets people as he tells them exactly what he thinks and has no filter, is constantly trying to change things because he has decided it's not working for him anymore, for example we have managed to get mum back into the lovely day centre she used to visit before a fall in the summer and long hospital stay (she fractured her neck). This saw her dementia decline rapidly, The day center visits are for two days a week, the staff are fantastic and they even come and collect mum and bring her back home but he moans constantly about the cost of it (£100 per day) and has now decided to reduce the hours and take and collect her himself. I won't let this happen because the interaction is good for mum and the time away from each other is good for dad too (and my sister and I).

We have been visiting care homes and mum will need to go into care next year but we haven't yet found one that is quite the right fit. However, I just know that dad will plummet deeper into depression once mum has gone into a home, he will not know what to do with himself and will start to lean heavily on my sister and I, he sits watching adverts about lonely older people and says he doesn't want to be like that and gets very teary about it.

I just don't know what to do anymore. I have put in place all the things people have suggested and yet everything seems even more stressful than ever not to mention the overwhelming sadness of watching my dear dear mum die slowly day by day. I just live in hope we can find a lovely 'home from home' care home for mum that dad may also feel part of too?

But there is nothing more that I can do for him, is there?

This is so difficult but if he won’t accept help, you’re very limited in what you can do. My dad has struggled with depression and anxiety for most of his adult life but because of his generation’s response toward mental health, it never had a name. We just organised our family’s lives around dad’s up and down temperament. He eventually had a sort of mini breakdown and for the first time in his life accepted medication. It had to get really bad before he’d even consider it though. 5+ years on and he’s a different person. He has poor mobility and multiple health issues but his ability to ‘see the bright side’ astounds me now. Medication isn’t a silver bullet but for my dad, it gave him the internal scaffolding so he could help himself.

If your dad won’t accept help this might be tricky for you to navigate but perhaps offer some gentle encouragement toward getting some medicated help.

Thank you, I do feel that even a short chat with his GP may be of benefit to him. I will try as gently as I can to suggest this, I have to be so careful though as he snaps easily. I can only but try I suppose.

@Mismatchedshoes absolute sympathy with you. We are years down the line with a mother the same as your father and our Dad in a nursing facility. As an adult deemed to have capacity we make our own choices, even bad ones.

How was his demeanour as a younger person? I have realised as people age whatever their personality or demeanour in life was it just gets amplified. My Dad was outwardly very charming and sociable to strangers but miserable and grumpy towards us. He is just the same now.

Similar story for our mother. Sweetness and light and very charming to strangers but quite mean and peevish towards us and also any other women who she saw as competition to her. I recall how mean she used to be after going to church each week talking unpleasantly about what people were wearing etc.

I could have written your first post myself. Trust me you have done everything and to some extent too much. Perhaps a family meeting to discuss what your parents NEED in life trumping what they WANT is due?

In terms of your DMs future care please get advice from health care professionals about the type of care she will need. Care homes are not always the right place and a nursing facility may serve you all better. Good luck and keep us updated.

It sounds as if he needs a course of good antidepressants. I had to try 3 different ones on my depression but when they work it’s amazing, your whole outlook on life changes.

My dsis and I are going to try and persuade him to go to the GP in the new year, I very much doubt he will take up our advice though.

Thank you. I am sorry you are in a similar position to us.

You are right in saying often older people's behaviour is simply a 'turbo charged' version of their younger self. Both my parents are only children and my dad was very much pampered by my grandmother, as a result he has grown up thinking he is rather special. I did see this growing up but it was never a huge issue due to the fact my dad's life has been very privileged, he has never had any money worries, ran his own business so had no one to answer to, has had no health issues and basically lived life just how he wanted, he had zero stress for decades, until now. He has always been sharped tongued and never had much of a filter, he would always tell people what he thinks with a please or offend attitude but now that his life has changed quite dramatically with mum's serious health issues (mum also has heart disease and breast cancer) it has amplified all of his bad qualities. I paint him in a bad light in the here and now but he was actually a real fun dad growing up but as an adult I realise that was simply because he was doing just what he always wanted to do and poor mum did most of the parenting and worrying etc. He has always had a rather selfish attitude I suppose (I have been with DH since we were 16 and he has always pointed this out to me). When mum lost both her parents 30 years ago she came into a healthy inheritance which dad automatically declared as 'theirs' and even now will moan on a daily basis that he is spending far too much of 'his' money on care. That alone is depressing him, he hates to see 'his' money whittling away.

We have agreed to have a family meeting after Christmas to not only discuss mum's care going into the new year but also to let dad there is only so much we can continue to offer and he very much needs to accept this.

I will help him with his depression if he wants me to but there is only so much I can do for him.

You probably can't change him much tbh (sometimes it can help to just accept this and work round it like you would with an old, snappy dog).
That said, I've known a couple of people who were prescribed amitriptyline for pain and their manner was noticeably more agreeable after, so, you know, if he has any pain he might want treating...?
I know it's no magic wand but it's maybe something.

Doctors are reluctant to prescribe TCAs like Amitriptyline to over 65's due to the potential dementia risk. Mum was on it for years and we have been told it could have been the cause of her Alzheimer's although we will obviously never know for sure.

I imagine they will prescribe an SSRI but I doubt he'll agree to it.

I had to have a full on slanging match with my DM in similar circumstances, book the appointment, take her myself and sit in on the appointment.

Not how i would like to behave towards my DM but she did apologise afterwards. The problem turned out to be very treatable but she got entrenched in her own misery.

I think it may come to that tbh, I can't see how we can keep going on like this, something has to change.

When I was severely depressed many, many years ago despite urging by my family to go to the doctor ‘and start taking antidepressants’ I refused, as, to my mind, my depression was caused by deep grief and therefore ADs weren’t going to help.

The trouble is, when you’re deeply depressed you don’t think logically or healthily! In the end my father told me he wouldn’t speak to me again if I didn’t go to my GP. It was the kick up the arse I needed and I started taking Prozac. Well it was life changing. It possibly even saved my life.

To this day I send thanks to my Dad (no longer with us) for being so horrible to me when I felt it was the last thing I needed. He knew exactly what I needed.

@Mismatchedshoes you mirror so many threads on the Elderly Parents one. I am increasingly aware of- well I already knew but it didn’t affect me….Big Pharma is keeping people alive who would have been dead years ago. I am so far removed from conspiracy theorists….however I am more inclined to see the elderly are a brilliant laboratory to test medication on. If I was able to, and I know my father would agree, I would stop all his medication. He deserves to die in peace and with dignity not as an experiment.

I really hope this helps me too. I too have fallen into a very deep depression for various reasons, including my parents situation and have agreed to start antidepressants over the Christmas break (with a huge amount of trepidation I may add), I am desperately hoping they will help. I am hoping too if my father sees how much they help me (he knows about my anxiety/depression) that he may also agree to try them.

I am glad to hear they helped you.

As you understand what depression feels like, perhaps wait to see how antidepressants work for you and if it’s positive, then talk to your dad. You could explain your journey and how medication has helped you. A personal story might resonate with him.

I absolutely agree with you. Mum was diagnosed with breast cancer 2 years ago but that has been kept at bay with medication, blood thinners to help prevent the blood clots she is now prone to due to the breast cancer medication, a pacemaker to help regulate her heart issues and 8 years on a dementia drug to help slow down the inevitable (which is no longer working and the inevitable is now here). None of these things have really helped other than to line the pockets of big pharma and cause us as a family year after year of stress and anxiety watching a loved one slowly ebb away (and not to mention the huge cost of mum's care as we have to pay privately).

I know my dear mum and I know if she would not want to live like this. She can no longer string many words together but cries every day, I know what she is thinking, in the mid stages of her dementia she would tell me on a daily basis that she wanted to die. Like you wish for your father, I wanted mum to go before she got to this stage, it is truly one of the most undignified things I have ever had to witness.

I’m sorry, that sounds very distressing for both your mum and you.

My mum is in the opposite position that apart from her extreme frailty/parkinsons she’s actually quite healthy with all her organs plugging away as expected for a woman of her age. I have however told her care home that the next time any health issues arise DB and I are agreed that she shouldn’t automatically get antibiotics and we shouldn’t keep her going just because we can and avoid hospitalisation unless absolutely necessary. She doesn’t speak now but her body language is very much “I’m tired and fed up and I’ve had enough”. The care home are on board with this - she’s had her flu jab as to my mind that’s about protecting all the residents and staff not just mum but otherwise we’re very much hoping that nature will take its course eventually. Amazing how powerful the body is at keeping going though.

It’s such a cruel disease. We were lucky with my aunt, she was very jolly thought she was staying in a nice hotel (not a home), she loved the food, staff and the company, fell asleep one night and never woke up. We are not so lucky with my uncle, he was such a happy man, never a cross word but now he’s very sad, angry, frustrated. He’s also very strong for 88, so imagine he will keep going.

If there are sessions in the village your dad lives in, could someone give him a knock and encourage him to go there?

Look after yourself, there’s only so much you can do.

It really is mind-boggling how strong the body's desire to hang on is. Mum fell over in the summer and ended up with a very serious odontoid neck fracture, the orthopaedic surgeon basically gave her a month due to the high mortality rate with this fracture in the elderly, especially those with osteoporosis as mum has yet here she is 6 months on still clinging on to life. Amazing really.