Hi OP
My heart really went out to you when I read your post. Mainly because I have been through it with my own parents and I know exactly what you are talking about. My case was slightly different because I gave up work to do it and so had more time than you. However my dad passed quickly after getting ill (within 8 weeks) so he was not too much bother really. My mum (diagnosed BPD) was the one that quite frankly just about killed me. My dad had done everything for her all his life including take her abuse once the kids left home. With him gone and my siblings refusing to get involved I became cook, cleaner, entertainment provider, admin sorter, scapegoat for her moods/abuse. I got seriously depressed and put on 6 stone. However I was dealing with a very difficult person who told lies regularly for attention (police, ambulance, siblings, friends). Then I would get a call from social services who were furious they had been called out in an emergency after my mum reported she had no food or money. They got to her house and of course she had both. Then they would phone me and I would get the flack for it (like I could control her?). I would take her to the doctors for antidepressants, she would cry noisely in the car park, the reception, the doctors office then after I had been to the pharmacy to get the tablets she would refuse to take them. She actually got a scan (MRI?) to check for dementia but she did not have it, just normal old person decline. This was less than a year before she died. I was getting paid to do this by the way by parent. I had honestly forgotten how bad she was having left home many years before and not seen the 'bad' side of her since I lived at home.
She changed her will to leave me her estate and told my siblings who promptly decided I had stolen her money so god knows what she told them. However she also left them a letter to tell them how disappointed she was in them which her solicitor passed after she died. I will no doubt be getting blamed for that as well by siblings even though I actually told her that was a really hurtful thing to do and the last thing she would ever say to them. Her response - I wish I could be a fly on the wall to see their faces when they realise they are getting nothing.
I haven't mentioned yet the scrubbing the shit stains out of the carpet when she became incontinent. Washing her soiled underwear. Doing personal care for her because she refused to let anyone else do it. Driving her to the chiropodist to get her nails cut as they got too tough for me to do where I had to talk her into letting the lady do it as she was black/brown and my mum wanted another chiropodist.
Ironically my siblings saved me (not on purpose) by pushing for her to go into a nursing home which she didn't want. She had a little bungalow on an old persons complex which was perfect for her and she wanted to die there. My siblings I think wanted her to go to care home so the inheritance was eaten up. She died 6 weeks after going in. Probably just as well as they were having a terrible time with her upsetting all the other residents and quite honestly she would not have got the same care she was getting from me. The relief when she died was overwhelming.
By this point she was on so many tablets which I religiously ensured she took every day although she used to talk about stopping them and then change her mind. I used to think how crazy it was keeping someone alive in this state but because she didn't have dementia and 'just' heart failure and then became frail and incontinent she was able to call ambulances every week and be taken to hospital where I think she enjoyed the attention.
For me the regular work of cleaning, appointments, admin etc was very busy and took over my whole world. I also had anticipatory grief dealing with her. A strange type of grief you have for a mother who was mentally ill/abusive but still grief and I would cry alot.
My dad needed help with admin, chores, appointments but he was cooperative and not abusive and even then I was pretty tired doing it for only 8 weeks.
I think it is a mixture of physical and mental exhaustion trying to remember everything that needs done, dealing with the grief of watching them decline, dealing with the effect on your own health, facing up to your own mortality as you think you are seeing your own future. I honestly didn't think I was going to survive it and honestly thought it was going to be 'me or her' ie if she didn't die soon, then I probably would.
In the end her heart gave out suddenly at the end in the care home but like I say strange how she suddenly died after I stopped looking after her. I still wonder if they accidently on purpose forgot to give her something as she was causing them so many problems.
Anyway almost 3 years later (I looked after her for four and a half years) I am only slowly recovering. Like you I didn't know what I was getting in to really. I didn't think it would go on so long and I had no clue as to how much work is involved in the looking after of an old person. So many appointments constantly. So much work trying to keep them clean, sane, entertained, happy. For my own ending I pray for a quick death - quick heart attack in my home and then gone. Not so good for whoever has to find me probably weeks later as I live alone but definately better for me.
We really do need to do something about keeping old people alive beyond when nature would have killed them off. Perhaps when they get to 80 or something medicine gets withdrawn and they are just kept comfortable. It's tricky though as I guess some older people live good quality lives on a few tablets and so withdrawing it for them would probably be wrong. Nobody wants to push the red button either so we are all got up in this trap of hell waiting for old person to die off.
I had a thread on mumsnet which helped me alot called so bloody exhausted waiting for old person to die started in Aug 2023. The thread took on a life on it's own and went on even beyond when my mum died as lots of people used the thread as comfort. There were versions 2 and 3 and I'm not sure how long it stayed alive for as I stopped reading it. Anyway it helped me alot to vent my frustrations and stay sane.
Only those that have gone through the exhaustion, the grief, the fear, the uncertainty, the constant limbo with no end date can understand.
I promise you it will pass but unfortunately you will never be the same person again. It will also take you a long time to recover from it all if you ever do.
Huge hugs.