Hi all,
I'm not sure if I'm on the right page etc but here goes!
In November of last year my 64 year old father suffered a massive stroke. He's lost pretty much all movement and function in his right arm, he can just about walk a few feet aided and his speech is just a mumble. He was released from hospital in April and is living with myself and his wife(my mum). I am his primary carer as we speak and living back at hime but that is at best until the end of the year as I am digging into my savings and will eventually need (and want) to go back to work full time.
Now here lies the problem: My mother. She's unable to do anything sociably without drinking alcohol. When she drinks she almost always gets drunk to the point that she sways when walking and is totally incoherent. She can be like a time bomb at times and just go off at me for no reason. Before - whilst annoying - I could brush it off but now it's obviously an issue with my father in recovery.
Of course confronting her about her drinking is the obvious thing to do but she's stubborn and quite frankly I or no one else is going to make inroads there. The Gin always wins.
Tonight she went off at me again verbally calling me a tw@t and telling me to leave and I'm done in with it all. I'm absolutely exhausted from the caring alone and have not had a good run of sleep in about three weeks. Understandably my fathers state of mind differs from one hour to the next and I feel so bad for him but I'm close to breaking point and really need to get out.
My dilemma is leaving him in my mothers hands when she's clearly out of her depth and whilst there is help and care available she's hellbent on not paying for anything as she's been means tested and will have have to foot pretty much every bill. She's running the finances now as my father is in no fit shape to do so.
The bottom line is that she's not going to curb her drinking because in her head its normal to drink your self silly and I'm going to have to up sticks on move into other accommodation, which at my age I should be doing anyway! but it still sucks under these circumstances.
Just some advice and words of encouragement would be great. I'm not in a good place right now.
Thank you all for your time.