Hello this is my first post having lurked in this thread for a little while. I don't even think I am after advice (I already know the answer to be honest) so it is more a place to just let things out. I am coming off of a week without any incident and have just become well enough to articulate my feelings on the whole matter. It has left me feeling very down, fatigued and generally feeling like rubbish. This post is a long one...
I am the tech support go-to for, in this instance, elderly parents. Thankfully and at this time it is really only this side of things I am assisting with but the previous week of issues has shown me just what 'future' I have in store for me. There is a tonne of childhood and teenage years baggage surrounding them and also around this title I have acquired due to the way I became involved in 'IT support' in the first place but that is a whole heap of mess that would quadruple this post's length.
Since the age of 15 (I am now mid forties) I have become the all-things-technological specialist. Name something not run with cogs and I am (apparently) an expert and God help me if I don't know. This has led to many conflicts in the past and an incident with their telephone line last year that almost finished me. A week after a shock bereavement I am up there pissing around with cables and liaising with the phone company as my father is pretty much deaf - an issue he will not even begin to look at getting helping with.
There had been a few smaller moments that week regarding my mother's smart phone. The bloody phone confounds her and I am unable to get things to sink in; she has always been this way - happy to the be the Luddite so I don't think it is particularly cognitive decline but I cannot be totally sure. She is almost proud of not understanding any form of technology however long it has been existence for.
Anyway, I receive a panicked text from my mother stating they have a "major banking problem" early on the Friday morning and have for a couple of days; father has not slept etc etc - The sitting-on-a-problem-for-two-days-then-exploding-with-panic is the standard M.O. for them. I fly into a blind panic as my first thought is they have lost money to a scam. I phone back and ask what is going on - thankfully no money has been lost and in the most calm way I can muster I ask her some simple questions to try to ascertain the problem. Neither of them understand the most basic of jargon so I am left talking in a manner as if I would a 5-year-old.
I drive to their house to discover my father has managed to lock himself out of his online banking due to the way he had tried to transfer money (all above board but flagged as possible fraud).
He is not that capable with technology and it is becoming a problem. He has never listened to me and he is now mostly deaf so he literally cannot hear me thus providing help is a nightmare. He is an impatient man and I really do not like helping him. He has always been like this, no one has ever reigned him in especially my enabling mother so in old age his obstinate nature and temper have been amped up further. He is moaning to me whilst I check his login details saying that he knew I couldn't help – nice isn't it. The reason I was checking for myself was to see with my own eyes what message was being displayed to the screen so I could assist further. Saying "I cannot log into the bank" means nothing to me without error messages. In short, a visit to the bank, and me doing the talking fixes the issue. All is well for the time being...
Guess what? A day later they manage to balls up their internet connection by attempting to connect a new router. I was unaware they were getting a new one and so off they go like a bull in a china shop on another escapade of technological incompetence. Instead of being glad of the win with the banking they cannot help but throw more shit at the fan. I get a panicked phone call this time late Saturday stating that the internet is broken (they have been attempting to resolve the issue for hours). I fly into full panic mode, heart pounding as this is yet another fire to put out. I ask why connect it when you have no idea what you are both doing and why wait this late to tell me and she says "she doesn't want to bother me". This feels manipulative as if I am the problem. I said that if I'd known a router was coming I would have advised to leave it until I could connect it - it wasn't an urgent changeover and was simply a hardware upgrade. She then reverts to her woe-is-me-mode saying "we're dumb", "we're useless" almost childishly voiced (like a hammed up attempt when you tried to sound too ill to go to school). They are both so emotionally immature and I cannot speak sense as they just do not listen. Anyway back over I go next day to sort it out.
Time-and-time again they will stick their heads in-the-sand until things get to DEFCON 1 and then they have this outpouring of panic, guilt-tripping and in his case, rage and tantrums. He is increasingly frail, my mother is unable to cope with anything and I will be left to pick up the pieces. I am terrified of the future as and I am juggling an endocrine illness which could hospitalise or kill me if the stress overwhelms. I told her this but I just get mealy-mouthed "I know, I know". But then we repeat varying degrees of stupidity again-and-again into the future. I feel that only a critical crisis will change things but they see good advice as an obstacle that must be avoided as all costs.
I know what the sensible amongst you are thinking - I shouldn't keep helping. I am doing it for my own peace as I am awful at putting things out-of-my-mind and to be quite blunt have been trained to jump to their requests. My father is not a reasonable man and in the past has done some quite frankly terrifying things when enraged when his females are not kowtowing to him. He has on several occasions jumped into the car and driven off in such a mad rage I really thought someone would die. This is what hangs over me when he wants something hence the jumping through hoops in an instant.
Having read some of your situations I almost feel lucky compared that these are my 'only' issues (at the moment) but I know the literal or figurative tomorrow is going to bring so much worse and I really can only see bleakness. I provided my servitude to them from the age of 15 onwards for 7 long years (them having risked our house for some utterly batshit insane reasons) and I have nothing else to give in their old age.
Thank you if you read this far. I am off to have a stiff drink or twenty.