Dreading the phone ringing

[Scaredeycat]

Just wanted to say this somewhere safe. When my phone rings and it’s my Mum’s number or the manager at the sheltered accommodation, my heart just drops. I know it’s going to be another problem, another thing for me to sort, never get so much asa how are you or please, just a list of things to do/arrange/visits to sort usually necessitating cancelling my own plans. I’m just tired and fed up, and guilty. Aaaarrrggh.

It’s funny that’s how DS school used to start their calls and it does feel as if one is somehow expected to react as if it was a small helpless DC rather than an adult surrounded by carers.

lol, it does doesn’t it ?

but I’m waiting for a call to do bedside duty as they have asked me to be there at the end so I appreciate it

Totally sympathise with this.

I get calls from my Father, from his carers and from his emergency wrist buzzer thing centre.

They interrupt my work and cause loads of anxiety, and there rarely is an actual issue.

My father is a lazy, selfish man anyway, unconcerned with anybody else's feelings or lives, so he thinks nothing of causing this much trouble. I guess one day the call will be to say they have found he had passed away and that's what causes the anxiety.

Ugh I sympathise. When I see the call coming in from my relative my heart just sinks. Even the ringtone can set off a surge of anxiety through my body. I wish I was free of it. I often fantasise about going off abroad for a few years and just leaving everyone to it.

It is full on you have my sympathy. Im glad am working as they could be ringing you every day.. and needs done now.

We ended up unplugging the landline at night.

The emergency alarm people had our mobile and our mobile numbers were on a huge post-it note stuck next to MIL's phone so medics etc could contact us.

We had to do that to keep our sanity before MIL's dementia escalated to her being in a home. We refused a landline in the room at the home!

It is absolutely hideous. You have nothing to feel guilty for. Those who don’t understand are blessed that they’ve never had to suffer the trauma. It’s awful. It’s a special kind of hell and I sometimes wonder why no one has thought to create post-elderly care recovery courses or something, because it’s an invisible trauma. It takes years and years to recover from too. If ever.

This is so very true.

Thanks again everyone. She has carers in every day and is in very sheltered housing with a warden etc, so she’s not without help, it’s just that every little issue or decision seems to have to involve me. Of course I love her but it’s hard. I think very old age is often more of a curse than a blessing, but I’d never voice that in real life!

@Scaredeycat you are entitled to a life as well. If your DM requires this level of input, it’s time for her to move into a care home and I don’t say that flippantly.
Can you have a frank conversation with the sheltered housing manager on your own, say that you’re struggling with the level of calls and inout needed from yourself and is this still the right place for your DM? If they think it is, then can they work with you on a strategy to reduce the calls? This may not be appropriate I don’t know, DPs went straight from home to care home and tbh should have moved there a year earlier than they did.

We lived 4 hours from my MiL who, like your DM, lived in sheltered housing. She would regularly call us to say that the electricity had blown or the telly broke or a whole plethora of things that she was misunderstanding due to dementia. She also had a younger woman living in the sheltered flats who had decided that she would "care" for my MiL, care that extended to taking her to cash points with her card to withdraw money! We ended up "kidnapping" her to bring her up to West Yorkshire with much higher care support in place as the phone calls and weekly long drives were killing us.

That made me laugh so much!