Cockroach cafe - summer

[GnomeDePlume]

A new thread.

This is a place where anyone dealing with elderly parents/relatives/friends can rant, vent, scream into the void.

There is no judgement just understanding, support and good advice.

@BeMintFatball if you have trouble getting to sleep a technique I've found helps still the mind is to imagine walking through a scenery and concentrating on the scents, sounds, feel of the ground/breeze. Pick whatever you like. I have an imaginary island where I start off high on chalk downs replete with early summer flowers and butterflies, walk down through a midsummer hay meadow, then a pine forest to a tropical beach with white sand and palm trees picking and eating blackberries on the way. It's a bad night if I swim out to the coral reef swarming with brightly coloured fishes, usually I'm asleep at the pine forest. I was taught it to help me sleep the night before sports comps but I used it a lot when parent issues are flooding my brain.

@MittensTheKittens
I can do better. I did the 12 week course.

The one I did started each session with seated exercises and then did some standing up exercising holding on to the chair. However, you could do those exercises seated too. There were also seated exercises using bands.

It is gentle and very much do what you can but trying to improve your balance. There were people recuperating from strokes and heart attacks as well as falls.

I found it helpful.

@BeMintFatball I hope you are having a better day. 💐

The games continue -

I spoke to M on the phone today. It usually takes me 2 -3 days to pluck up the courage and get myself in the right frame of mind before I can do so.

She has back pain (nothing new). This apparently means that she can't do the dusting as she can't move around and bend to dust. (NB She volunteered this - I am resolutely silent these days on the subject of how she copes and whether she'd like any help).

SHE HASN'T DUSTED FOR YEARS! The great swags and festoons of dust-enshrouded cobwebs hanging from the ceilings to eye level would look good on a Hammer House of Horrors posters. She can't see - OF COURSE she can't dust! Ah, but apparently my brother is "very good" and tells her when it needs doing. Well no he clearly bloody doesn't.

This is like the game involving the hoovering. She needs a new hoover but can't find the right one for her to be able to push around. (My sister apparently took her to the electrical store but she actually refused to pay the price of a hoover. I suggested 2nd hand/recon, but the rules of the game ban offering solutions to problems so that was Bad). She actually hasn't had a working hoover for at least 6 years, to my certain knowledge, because she got very grumpy with me when I offered to hoover during covid then discovered that I couldn't for want of a vacuum cleaner in the house. Yet we are supposed to believe that she really needs and wants one and the only reason that she doesn't hoover is because she hasn't got to the shops yet.

But according to her, she doesn't need help and the house DEFINITELY doesn't need cleaning, she is exceedingly offended by such being implied, and my father would be spinning in his grave if he could only hear how mean I am on the subject. ("Mean" includes my offering to pay for it to be cleaned, despite her having ample money to do so herself. But again, that's breaking the rules by suggesting a problem and solution). And she would rather continue this charade than do anything about it, and then use this as the reason that she doesn't want me to visit.

Why? She knows that we know it's all a lie. Can anyone make sense of this?

Yes it is denial and fear of her deteriorating health and the reality of her abilities declining @Eclipsing . It is if I pretend it isn't happening then it can't be happening. You will tie yourself in knots trying to get them to engage with this reality, all you can do is watch the inevitable crisis unfold and try not to expend too much worrying otherwise you will burn out. DAunt was like this and whilst they are deemed to have capacity and say they are fine and don't want help no one will step in to do anything to help. If it gets too bad make a social services referral for self-neglect and keep flagging it, but don't get your hopes up. DAunt was walking around half naked, eating only ice cream and sitting on a soiled chair and they still said she had capacity to refuse help.

@Eclipsing a lot of your experience resonates with mine. Please keep sharing and we’ll keep a seat on the bad daughters bench for you and 🍸🍸🍸

@BeMintFatball I’m so sorry for your loss and the swift requirement to clear your DM’s room. I found that on its own really hard and you have so much more to deal with. Please keep sharing 💐

I know, I really do try to understand.

In an unguarded moment she told me that she feels she has lost such a lot that she's desperate to hang on to whatever independence she can. I understand.

BUT I've told her many times over years that in my lengthy professional experience, those that retain their independence best tend to be those who ask for or accept help when problems are small, so that those problems can be sorted quickly. Nothing is gained by pretending that the problems don't exist to the point where they overwhelm.

But what do I know? Nothing, apparently.

(This is actually particularly galling as she was DESPERATE for me to go to uni and be a doctor, and withdrawal of affection was used a lot in my childhood if she felt I wasn't trying hard enough for this. So I tried, and I got there, and now I know apparently know nothing. But that's another story!)

She also told me not that long ago that the ideal to strive for was to be totally independent and never ask for help from anyone. I told her I disagreed - the ideal was to have people who love and care for you and want to be able to help you when you need it (and to accept that help when necessary).

Basically I think we come from different planets!

@Eclipsing can i make a suggestion/observation, coming from a somewhat similar situation? I have had to reconcile myself to the same sorts of problems.

if I’m wrong, of course ignore! I might have misjudged or I might have some insight!

You are viewing this as your responsibility, something you need to solve. You feel obliged to ‘do’ something. It’s exhausting and demoralising and bewildering that everything you try is unwelcome and unsuccessful. So you try even more- different things- in the hope that you can make a difference.

Unfortunately you can’t. She and your brother have choices- they are allowed to make unwise ones. They have chosen- for decades, repeatedly, in good health and eyesight and now in poorer health and eyesight- to live like this. This is how they want things to be.

She may well appreciate having someone to complain to, and to get sympathy from. That doesn’t mean she wants you to solve it, do anything or achieve anything.

I had to watch Dad’s last illness being (barely) cared for by my narcissistic mother. Now I’m watching her get in a mess with her affairs. She’ll have me researching multiple vacuum cleaners finding exactly the right one, then she’d buy a random one she saw and thinks must be exactly right. The same with a retractable hosepipe. And an air fryer. And and and…

Generally I remember my role is to listen, to sympathise, to reassure her that it’s not her fault. To look like I’m solving all her problems but not to actually do anything. I mean I do. I do loads. But it’s not straight forward and it interferes with her flex that she’s abandoned by her family and has to do everything herself. She repeats that regularly to anyone who’ll stand still long enough to listen 🙄🤣

@BeMintFatball I’m so sorry, that’s bloody awful. 💐
Have another large one, and I hope your DD is doing a bit better.
One thing at a time- all the other things are gonna have to wait. 💐

I’ve found a gif that might be almost enough gin for us all!

@EclipsingHavr you come across the book “Adult children of emotionally immature parents”?

I had some counselling a while back, partly as a result of everything I’d had to deal with with elderly parents and the counsellor recommended it. It has given me so many insights.

I am so grateful that my DM's decline was so sudden and complete meaning we didnt go through a long stage of DM being able to cope less and less.

Visited DM yesterday. She is in the best physical condition I have seen her for a while. Mentally however there has been further decline.

She was chatty but at no point did reality make an appearance. She had no clue who I was at all. She didnt respond at all when I told her news about DGCs and DGGCs.

The nurse on duty asked for my assessment of DM's condition and we agreed that her dementia has advanced. Interestingly DM is being kept on a regular cocodamol regime. I do wonder if this is so that if DM has more pain she will be moved straight onto morphine.

It’s good that she isn’t in pain. I was surprised to learn MiL has been on morphine for quite a while. Unless of course she isn’t. She could have been on it briefly and still think she is. I’ll have to try and find out.

@EmotionalBlackmail how did you identify a counsellor and was it expensive? I am beginning to feel I could do with some myself. I managed to stuff down most of my emotions with DPs in care home - and as I visit twice a week, it feels like it would be difficult to explore whilst perennially reopening the wound as it were - but the potential visit of some CF relatives has got me disproportionately enervated.

Initially via a work scheme which was free but time-limited. I’d recommend looking to see if your work has an Employee Assistance Programme as it’s a starting point to see how you get on.

That made me realise how much there was going on so I looked around locally once the work one ended. You can sometimes access subsidised schemes
via local universities or charities. I found one in the end that was happy to let me book appointments as needed which made it more affordable eg I could afford twice a month at £55 a time but not every week.

The subsidised one were a lot cheaper for someone on a low income, my income level put me at the top end of their scale!

Hah !
Finally a benefit to my low paid job ( taken because I wasn’t able to apply for full time professional work due to DP demands and my inability to cope with them.
I will look into that. Thank you .

There were some quite niche services too - my GP surgery had a list of local counselling services on their website as the NHS provision is so bad. There was one charity one for women living within a certain area that was heavily subsidised - I wasn’t eligible as wrong area but definitely worth a look to see if there’s something suitable.

I managed to get 12 sessions of CBT on the nhs talking services. I did have to wait for a few months, but if you’re unable to access any other services then it’s worth at least getting on the waiting list while you continue to look for other solutions. It was very helpful to me - when I get anxious now I am able to step outside myself and observe that I am getting anxious and talk myself rationally through it and then have a good go at putting it out of my mind. I’m still on sertraline but I suspect I’ll be on that for a while yet.

welcome to all newcomers, sorry you’re here. I too go by another name elsewhere on MN as I’ve shared so much of my personal life here that anyone who knows me in real life would clock me straight away.

mums funeral is booked for next week, her lovely care home continues to be lovely - we weren’t rushed to clear her room and I’ve been asked for funeral details as several of her carers want to go. DB is back this week from his last shift abroad so I’ve done the majority of the organisation myself (of course).

@rookiemere
I agree try your EAP as they often offer a 12 week CBT course via SilverCloud https://silvercloud.amwell.com. I’ve done the course.

Personally I think a talking therapy approach is useful and so I pay privately for my Therapist. I found them via BACP https://www.bacp.co.uk/search/Therapists

This is so different from poor Mint’s experience. I wonder whether it’s worth adding to the list of things to ask about when looking around?

@GnomeDePlume thank you for the new thread and thank you everyone for the fantastic advice x

Thanks for the counselling and therapy advice - slightly concerned that if I open the lid on things it will all spill out - but know I should.
Its sad how many of us have been negatively impacted by our situations, it’s not something we talk about often on these threads.

@rookiemere i think we tend to bottle up our feelings and look after everyone else first.... sending hugs and a v large drink of your choice 🙏💐🫂

Yes, perhaps we ought to have a separate thread where people can add hints on what to ask and look out for.

I've no idea how I managed to be so lucky in getting a spot at that home - based on my experience I would say go for a home with the best CQC rating you can find, that is small and independent and owned/run by people with experience in care of the elderly. That don't quibble about including basics like continence pads, toiletries etc in the fees.

Think about the needs (not wants) of the potential resident and don't get distracted by shiny facilities they'd never use, nor the odd bit of bashed paintwork in the corridor or lack of ensuite bathroom at the other end of the scale. What do you smell when you walk in the front door? Are the communal areas busy or quiet, and in a good or bad way? How much do they include relatives in social events? Do they accompany residents to hospital appointments? Do they provide end-of-life care when there are no medical needs? Do they talk to the residents like human beings or shout in that patronising manner? If you visit, can you spot any other visitors and grab a quiet word on what their thoughts are?

As an example, Mums home have a monthly social event where every resident can invite guests to a 3 course meal, they do regular pub and cafe trips where friends & family join them, if you turn up at meal times you're automatically invited to stay and eat with everyone, they have quarterly friends and family open meetings with the management. There's an open invitation for family to turn up at any time of day or night. I've no idea whether that level of openness and participation is normal but I loved it.

@funnelfan that does sound good. I wish I had known it was worth trying to avoid the corporate care homes when locating one for DPs. I mean in many ways it’s not bad - physically DPs are well looked after, the place is very well maintained, there are chefs on site so they have freshly prepared meals and DF enjoys some of the activities. However care home staff seem mostly disengaged, many have poor English and are hard for me to understand so my DPs have no chance and they are poor at responding to emails asking about care related to DM and seem generally not to have good communication techniques for someone with conditions that they have surely seen before.

A sign recently appeared at the front saying they had won some care home award and were in the top 100 care homes. I joke with DH that I would hate to see number 101.

But it is very close so we can visit frequently and keep on top of things for them.

We only had a choice of three homes for Dad, it had to offer nursing care and it had to be accessible to Mum. One we ruled out because it was cramped and very basic and on the day we visited the lift had broken, I asked how long till it was fixed and how the upstairs residents were managed if they couldn’t manage the stairs (there was no lounge up there) and was told they’d have to stay in their rooms, it would only be a few days. Not good enough. The second would have been fine I think, but we really took to the third, it’s expensive but guests are welcome all the time (apart from mealtimes, although if it is a partner they can stay), they have free coffee and cakes in a little “cafe” where residents and visitors can sit, lovely gardens, lots of events that families can join in with, outings, the staff are very caring too and we have regular contact with Dad’s keyworker. If the lift did break (Dad is on the second floor and non-mobile) it’s not too big a deal because they have their own lounge and dining room up there, also a couple of other communal areas. There is a “party” room which you can book for family celebrations if you want a group to come in and have a bit of a get together privately. But most important it is only half a mile from Mum and if she doesn’t feel like walking she can hop on the bus.