Complex feelings around very unwell mum

[PamelaFlowers]

Can anyone relate to how I am struggling with my feelings around my elderly mum.

She is very physically unwell quite suddenly but has had dementia for a long time.

It is bringing up a lot of feelings about my childhood and how horrible she was . It would be labelled as emotional abuse now but that language didn’t exist in the 60s / 70s. I am going through the motions of supporting them practically but feel cold toward her and am actually mourning the fact that I have struggled in life due to what I experienced as a child. I don’t usually think about it as thought I was at peace with it,

my sister is not helping out much and is mostly 200 miles away which also speaks volumes.

my dad is really struggling but I can’t let go of the fact that he let her treat people terribly for their whole marriage. When his sibling was in a hospice for their final days 30 years ago she refused to reschedule their holiday and he was not there.

People are being supportive and saying how sorry they are and I feel like a fraud as I wish she would pass away peacefully as her quality of life is zero and I honestly resent the stress we are all under to care for someone who did not care for me.

Her illness has improved and she not is medically stable and people are saying ‘that’s good news’ and I can’t say how I really feel.

You can say here how you really feel, as we understand.
I also resented the fact that DF had a short prognosis and couldn’t be left alone, so I had no option other than to go sick at work and spend 7 days a week at his house, cooking/cleaning/personal care all while trying desperately to get the help we needed, and he was deteriorating by the day. I’ve never felt so trapped and, looking back, I took some of my frustration out on him when it wasn’t his fault, he didn’t ask to get cancer, but if he’d agreed to go in a home towards the end I could have visited and grieved him rather than having to wipe his dirty bum.
Some of my resentment came from thinking how he’d left me and mum when I was 5. Due to him leaving we lived in a cold house and I wore second hand clothes while he had central heating and holidays abroad with his new family.
In the end it was a relief and a release when he went, and I feel awful saying that.

I’m so sorry you’re in this situation. I don’t think it’s uncommon to have such thoughts. My mum died in her 50s. She wasn’t a bad person but had her demons. Life has certainly been less complicated without her. I am sad she missed out on grandchildren (she’d probably have been a good granny) but frankly I suspect we’d have spent the past 30 years arguing if she was still here. X

My mother was awful to me while growing up, she got Alzheimer’s and became nice, no more concerns about, what people thought. I’m glad we had those years but did resent being pushed into having to care for her by my sister, who’d had a totally different experience with her.

You have nothing to feel guilty about at all. You don't need guilt on top of everything else you have going on, so please try to be kind to yourself.

My mum is 89, pretty much OK, but requires a lot of care / organising that all falls to me. She tells me pretty much every day she wishes she was dead/hadn't woken up etc. And I know it sounds awful, but I hope she gets her wish soon before her health declines more. I feel guilty for this, and I'm sure I'll be wracked with guilt when she does go - but she's miserable. I too have complicated feelings as I don't think my parents were there for me when I was growing up - and they did some quite awful and unkind things on occasion that I'd never do, and I often felt like an inconvenience or irritant, but then I can't do anything to change that now.

I’d just say that actually, she won’t recover from Dementia and it would have been better if she’d died from her illness. There won’t be a single person not thinking the same thing, maybe apart from those who’ve never experienced dementia in a loved one.

Yes @BorgQueen thats exactly how I feel . It it were my dog I would have done the kindest thing quite awhile ago.