Cockroach cafe - Spring in autumn

[GnomeDePlume]

A new thread for those of us dealing with elderly family members. All welcome.

A place to rant, discuss, vent, decompress. No judgement just solidarity.

@GnomeDePlume ah yes the ‘it’s everyone else’s fault’ characters.

My Db is still blaming Covid for the fact his sons, now well into their 20s and 30s are in rubbish jobs which they hate. Before that when they didn’t do so well in school it was ‘they were let down by the school/college’. When they were teenagers he literally had all of his kids at some point on anti anxiety medication or anti depressants. That apparently was Margaret Thatcher’s fault leaving no work in the area. He doesn’t even live in a place where industry was impacted.
Honestly you are spot on it’s always someone’s fault. He has blamed me several times for our mother’s poor behaviour because I come up with solutions when all she wants Blue is you to spend time with her.

Well if she accepted some of the solutions proposed I could spend time with her, instead I just wasted time on non problems she invented to squeeze even more of my time out of me. So I come up with solutions to her problems but apparently solving them is not what she wants and it is my fault she is sad because I keep coming up with solutions. It’s a massive riddle.

@StillNiceCardigan sympathies. Your DH sounds like my DF in some ways, taking on responsibility for things he really hasn't any control over. Struggling to accept his DM is on her final decline I guess and wanting to believe she will go "back to normal" is perhaps protective in some way. But then, it leaves you to be the pragmatic one that faces the reality.

@GnomeDePlume ah yes, the "someone must be to blame" type! I think DF has some of that too. DGM's care in hospital has been at best unexceptional, but they are not to blame for her illness either. Every day he seems to be wanting to go to PALS about this or that niggle. I suppose making it somebody's fault is how they make sense of things going wrong. It's tiresome though, because you can see how picking fault with things doesn't actually make the situation any better.

@CrazyGoatLady so interesting- my father was brilliantly cared for during a long hospital stint. By brilliant I mean the staff catered to his every need. He’s long since been in a nursing facility and is even better cared for.

When he was in the hospital a few years ago now, with a terminal diagnosis our mother caused so much trouble because ‘ no one was trying to make him better’. She had a problem with her emails on her phone one day and asked me to help her fix it. This was a day after she had proudly told me she had emailed ‘all the top people about how bad the staff were and needed sacking’. I quickly got into her email and saw the sent item - forwarded it to myself. Oh my goodness. It was vile, wrong and frankly slanderous and possibly libellous about really decent staff.

Aside I do wonder if terminal diagnosis and life limiting illnesses do need some kind of acceptance counselling or therapy. I am aware it is available but anything I pointed my mother to she declared ‘they don’t know what they are talking about.

That said her and my DF still referred to each other as ‘my boyfriend’ and he called her his ‘girlfriend’. Years of marriage, toxic relationship but silly 1950s movies teen behaviour. Solidarity to everyone.

My brother,at the age of five, blamed 7 year old me for the shit in his pants.
He's 50 now and hasn't changed. His boss. His girl friend, his sports team, his co-workers even the pub landlord, all to blame. It's been a long term pattern.

@BlueLegume we've had Mrs Thatcher being blamed this week too, I was trying to persuade her to switch utilities to save money and she couldn't get her head round the fact that you can get electricity from British Gas or indeed that you can get gas from people other than BG.

Solidarity to all with the 'It must be someone's fault' relatives, and all those grappling with wants v needs.

It all sounds horribly familiar. My parents and siblings have always blamed someone/anyone else whenever siblings messed up and/or faced a problem. I think this mentality is part of the reason why Brother won't accept that DM is declining and there is no 'fix'. He seems stuck on the idea that there must be some physical illness responsible for DM's symptoms, which the doctors keep failing to identify/treat (which is obviously my fault for not 'insisting' on repeating tests/more doctors etc). He is convinced that if he shouts loudly enough someone will come and fix everything and hold someone accountable. This fits with the wants v needs problem too. Whatever he and DM 'want' has to be done and if it's not feasible that must be someone's fault- and that someone should be made responsible for putting it right. Which makes it impossible to have a sensible discussion about how we ensure DM has the care she NEEDS. Instead they are stuck in a loop of arguing about who is responsible for the situation so that they can be 'made' to fix it.

@BlueLegume and @GuiltFreedom so much sympathy as this sounds how my FIL was. Utter refusal of support unless it was family. He died before Christmas and I'm trying to be forgiving of what my DH and BIL went through, including nursing him through his final days at home because he wanted to die at home, again with no paid support and reluctant acceptance of end of life pathway nurses dropping in each day. It's left scars.

@teaandbigsticks oh goodness. In the mire of my DF being put under a DoLs and me finding him a nursing facility my mother decided she couldn’t cope. She has form on this over my whole lifetime - 62 plus years - as a child I had to pander to her. @Mumbles12 yep only family will do. Until they are also exhausted.

It does leave scars @Mumbles12 I feel like I'm the oldest cheer leader in town. Desperately trying to shoe horn in all the positives, the independence, blah, blah, blah. Trying to blot out the last year with all the whatever good I can conjure up.

I think the somebody's fault thing for DB is part of his struggle with accepting that DM has dementia and what that means.

@GuiltFreedom i laughed so hard re the fall alarm thing. It’s a particular kind of humour in here and I really need it. Here’s to another fun day.

Well, in a way it's sort of comforting that I'm not alone in dealing with the wants v needs, the "it has to be somebody's fault" and not facing reality and thinking the right doctor will come up with a cure. But I do feel for all of you too who are dealing with these things. It seems many of us who find our way to this thread are the family "copers and functioners" - we are the ones who have to stay rational, do what has to be done and keep perspective, while others get to go off and have their tantrums, rage at HCPs, and demand others bend to their whims!

@CrazyGoatLady totally agree with your last post. My brother when faced with our mother not coping with things decided she was ‘ill’. Did he organise anything, not really. He marched her to the GP and told the GP she was depressed and hey presto medication prescribed. When I found out I (pragmatically) asked what else she was doing to deal with this ‘depression’. I’ve been here so many times over decades with my mother I know it is simply how she reacts to not liking something. It is like a massive sulk but you can see she is raging inside that it is ‘someone’s fault’ and as you say she is waiting for a better ‘someone’ to come along and fix it. When I suggested doing things to alleviate worries etc like reading a book, taking up a hobby I was met with utter ridicule. I went to the cinema one day in the early days of all this with my DF initially when he was hospitalised. When I went to visit Dad and mentioned to him what I had been to see my mother and brother were aghast that I had done anything so frivolous.

I didn’t share that I was also going to the gym after each visit to keep myself sane.

When brother couldn’t deal with our mother’s behaviour any longer he kept saying she was ‘ill’.When she was rude to staff at the hospital he excused it with ‘she’s ill Blue’.

I organised a referral to a consultant at the local private hospital. The night before the appointment I had a FaceTime call with my brother asking what he was expecting from the appointment. He rudely and patronisingly replied ‘well a diagnosis of dementia and some medication Blue’.

No diagnosis was forthcoming. She passed everything perfectly. She did however sit like a sulky teenager when the consultant gently suggested she needed to start accepting things and perhaps take up some hobbies. Eating wise he essentially got out of her that at every point in life where there is a bump in the road she stops eating. Well, that came about because I identified this as a pattern I had become familiar with. She has always enjoyed the attention from people when she has had sudden weight loss because she has always been able to blame it on someone else…..bad school report from Blue, stop eating. I am mid 60s now so you get the pattern. 💐 That was a good vent. Thank you everyone.

How do you all deal with your elderly if they hang up the phone on you ?
We don't live close to ours , but other family members do . There are nearly 90 , still living in their own home but not managing but still deemed as coping and able to make own decisions ( I believe they don't as often report phone , heating , cooker etc playing up , but it's because they have forgotten how to use , have fiddled with it )
We used to take it in turns to call each other but now they don't , so when we phone often if they disagree or decide something they don't like is said the phone is put down .
There is no real 2 way conversation , they don't ask how we all are or what we've been doing , they probably don't even remember all of us !

I suppose I'm asking do we scale back the calls knowing the closer family members are seeing them but continue to visit every 8 weeks or so and not phone as much , or continue to phone but know they will hang up once we've heard the same thing about the shopping and the neighbours 5 times in rotation ?

@MayBeee I find that phone calls initiated by me to my DPs are mostly useless in terms of gaining any information as DF can only remember things on his timeline ( if at all) and it’s very difficult to understand DM because her speech is very poor now. If there is something urgent- or what they deem to be urgent- they will ring us - generally multiple times when we’re out in the evening.

As you’re lucky enough to have other relatives nearby, it doesn’t sound like the calls are serving much useful purpose so I would cut down to the lowest frequency you think is acceptable. It sounds horrible but the acid test I do is how would I feel about my own actions if DPs died tomorrow, would I feel guilty that I hadn’t done as much as I could whilst attempting to maintain my own sanity or not. I am just on the side of not for now.

Oh and for calls @MayBeee I keep them very short and avoid anything contentious. DM is past the point of relating all her neighbours illnesses anymore as she is mostly bed bound so I tend to talk about the weather and anything positive DS or rookiedog has done. I don’t expect to get any useful information from the calls, it’s mostly so I can check they are both still alive - although I guess the carers would tell me if not.

When DM was still capable of following a sentence I set myself the challenge of making her laugh. It didnt matter if it was over something ridiculous it seemed to have a very beneficial effect on her immediate mood.

One day I was phoned late at night by the CH because DM was on the toilet and refusing assistance to get her back into her wheelchair and back to bed. A full on toddler 'my do it' tantrum.

Anway, I chatted with DM and went into a ramble about DDog getting lost in our tiny back garden. She found this hilarious and within 5 minutes was happy for the carers to help her.

Everybody take half an hour to stretch or walk or boogie round the kitchen.
Look after yourselves too, you absolute heroes.

The dog, by the way, is a black labrador/border collie cross. Highly intelligent but also as stupid as mud.

I made DM laugh the last time I went up but sadly it led to a choking fit so severe I was worried that was it, so I won’t be doing that again.

Ah, phone calls. I must admit that I do get a bit teary at the idea that I will never again hear mum at the other end of a phone line saying “hello love”. Pre-grieving I think.

Part of her loss of cognitive powers was losing the ability to use the telephone. First in ringing me, and then finally in recognising what to do when the phone next to her bed was ringing. By that stage there were regular carer visits and I had access to their online notes so I knew she was ok.

I think it depends for you on why you call. If it’s to know they’re ok, then job done if they answer and not worry if they hang up in a snit. If it’s to continue to have some relationship with them then you might have to adjust your thinking on what that would look like going forward. It was a bit gut wrenching for my loving mum to lose the ability to consider me and DB and the little loving gestures like sending us flowers on our wedding anniversaries, let alone not mark birthdays and Christmas. I had to accept it’s part of her illnesses and her world shrinking and the fact she’s not the woman anymore that I knew as my mother. Very hard.

Ah phone calls. DM rings, then complains she can’t hear me because her TV is blasting away, then puts the phone down. And rings again.

We used to get lots of phonecalls about incontinence accidents, the TV not working (pressing the wrong buttons) or requesting visits for small things that need to be sorted right now. Then it progressed to crossword clues which I didn't mind really.

Now DF gets the carers to call to ask us if we are going to visit to guilt trip us. He has done it this morning already. He probably sees one of us in the afternoon every other day or so. DH puts him into bed every night, so it isn't as if he doesn't see one of us daily. He just can't do his crossword anymore and it upsets him so he wants us to visit and do it for him. He is also bored, but seeing as he won't engage with any alterations that would help this like maintaining his friendships so they visit him, going to a day centre, watching TV in the afternoon or any change in his routine/activity he has to deal with the boredom.

DAunt never phoned, she would answer and cycle through the same conversation each time, then she stopped being able to answer the phone properly as the dementia progressed because every time she picked up she would press a button and then wouldn't be able to hear us. Then she stopped picking up.

@MayBeee if you have other people visiting it is fine to phone less often, just let them cycle through the usual conversation then sign off.

@funnelfan yes, the first time I realised something was up with DM was when she forgot my birthday (the same date as her DH's) and then DD's a few years ago. It was a bit hurtful because of course she didnt forget DB's (golden child) a few month's later.

More than anything it was her reaction to forgetting DGD's, just a shrug. But it was a sign that things were slipping away. DB, of course, didnt see the problem.

Annoyingly DM remembered DHs birthday for longer than mine. I did get my own back this year because when I told her his birthday was coming up, she was fairly insistent he was going to be two years older than he actually was. I of course gleefully related this to DH. Lord knows what age she thinks I have, I seem to have aged at dog speed over the past 10 months.

The bit I find hard when I gently remind DM or DF that it’s one of our birthdays is they then go into anecdotes of how I was a month early and DM didn’t get much maternity leave, basically putting them back onto centre stage and myself or DS relegated once more to supporting cast. I would say it’s 100% a symptom of their dementia, but as DF talked about how concerned he was about DMs health as he literally walked me up the aisle 20 years ago, it’s a bit deeper than that for him.