Dad had stroke - struggling to forgive mum

[Cardinalita90]

My dad had a stroke this week. I found out by fluke when he accidentally called me, was crying and told me he couldn't read. Told my mum (who was with him) could be a sign of a stroke and to get help. My sibling called them 40 mins later, his speech was garbled, my mum still hadn't called for help and had made him an alcoholic drink.

Long story short, I ended up calling 999 myself and turned out it was a stroke and bleed on the brain. He's in hospital and my mum has no concerns about how she handled it, and has accused me of trying to control everything. Prompted by me asking her if the hospital have her contact details and down as next of kin (she doesn't know and hasn't bothered to ask). I admit I can have a controlling nature sometimes but it really angered me because if I hadn't taken control, my dad wouldn't be alive.

I haven't said any of this to her because she's extremely defensive and the last thing we need is to fall out. But i feel so shaken by her poor judgement, scared of what'll happen in future if he falls ill again and I'm not there, and I feel like I'm the only one dealing with reality while she faffs about sorting clean pajamas and chocolate for him and ignoring the stuff that matters. Any advice?

Ate your parents both alcoholics? Perhaps this os why you need to “control” things—nothing wrong with that. Your mother, and perhaps your father, have abdicated a lot of responsibility to you. Just ignore your mother’s spite and incompetence and go ahead and make arrangements for your dad’s care.

Is your mother herself quite well? The making of the alcoholic drink is just bizarre.

That’s really strange behaviour on your mother’s part. I’d struggle to get past that too.

I hope your dad recovers as well as possible.

no my parents are definitely not alcoholics.

My dad was trying to play it down and asked for a drink apparently - probsably to calm his nerves. But she keeps focusing on the fact she didn't drink herself rather than the obvious point that she should have called am ambulance,not made it for.him

Seriously? The call needs to come from the person with the patient as the call handler will have questions and will direct the caller.

OP, I'd find that hard to forgive and like @Motnight, my first thought was that your mother has a strange relationship with drink.

Don't. Just don't.

I was there when my husband had a stroke and was phoned by my mum when my dad had one.

It's better if the person with the patient phones because they can then relate all the symptoms, etc.

Some years later, I was also with my husband they night he died of a massive heart attack. I did some things right, but later realised that there were some things that I missed out because I was in a panic. The fact that I couldn't get through to 999 didn't help any.

When you're in shock or in a panic, you don't always remember everything.

Moreover, the OP actually did tell her mother to get help. She would have assumed that the mother was calling 999 so that she could go over symptoms etc, as per my comment above.

The OP did call when she realised that her mother had not.

What a strange reply. The mother shouldn’t have needed ‘nagging’.

Are you the mother, because that can be the only explanation for this comment.

My mum completely ignored my dad when he was so unwell that he couldn’t get up off the bed some weeks ago, to the point that when he managed to call me from the bedside phone late afternoon, she’d not even brought him a drink of water. I called the ambulance.

She has dementia and if anything isn’t routine, she just shuts down. Could your mum be unwell?

Hope your dad makes a good recovery.

Some people are bloody weird about illness and hope things will magically improve if they wait a bit. I bet you're not controlling, your mum just doesn't have a grip on things.

I hope your dad is on the mend now.

That's tough OP, maybe your mum just couldn't believe it was something serious and your dad didn't want to worry her if he was playing it down. I don't think blaming anyone is going to help here tbh, I'd focus on how they are going to cope going forward if you can.

OP, I understand your concerns about your mum’s behaviour and worries in case there is another emergency in the future. She clearly didn’t handle this one properly at all. Do you have any insight into why she didn’t do what she should have done? Does she have form for avoiding anything uncomfortable and focusing on other things? Might she have panicked and gone into freeze?

If she’s being defensive it means, on some level at least, that she does have some awareness that she did wrong. Maybe when the dust has settled a little and emotions have calmed down a bit there might be space to gently ask her, or at least coach her on what to do in future.

@Cardinalita90
Are you an anxious person in general?
I am, and often have to find myself pulling back from exaggerating things.
But at the same time I often feel that I can’t trust other people’s judgement, but I also can’t trust my own .
Are you cross with yourself for not listening to yourself and calling 999?
As an aside you shouldn’t take it out on your mum. She will have done what she could in the circumstances, and even if it wasn’t the right thing to do, it wasn’t intentional.

You’re assuming an awful lot here - taking the mum’s actions and extrapolating backwards that because they’re so strange, there must be a backstory of known incapacity or neglect. We just don’t know that from the details OP has supplied.

I don’t think it’s kind or fair to throw blame at the OP. Who would imagine that the person on the ground would do anything other than cal for an ambulance straight away?

I think it's a combination of minimising the severity of the situation as a coping mechanism, and not having the confidence in her own judgement/their relationship dynamic to overrule my dad when he's saying he's OK. But that's what makes me pretty sure it'll happen again.

I remember when my dad had cancer and my stepmum said they'd booked a holiday for three months ahead and it would be nice to get a break. The words "but he'll be dead by then!!" almost came out of my mouth as I couldn't believe she was ignoring the blindingly obvious. It was frankly weird. He was dead within two months 🙄 (he would be ok with that eyeroll).

Elderly parents seem to be averse to phoning 999.
My DM has had 2 incidents, in both situations my usually sensible parents waited 2+ hours, then phoned me, whereupon I said ring 999.
They have now faithfully promised me to ring 999 straight away (or at least me).

It reads like you are conditioned to avoid confrontation with your mother as you expect her reaction to be extreme/out of line/combative or whatever.

you say your mother might not go against your father - is he a difficult man to be married to? Or does she follow everything he says? Or…

are struggling to forgive her because she isn’t one to ask for your forgiveness regularly, and you know she won’t this time? and/or because you aren’t seeing any signs she thinks she was in the wrong and therefore will do it again? Both?

being controlling doesn’t mean you’re just a bossy boots who wants her own way. You might have always had to fix things, take control, etc etc.

im only saying this as it sounds you might be on a hiding for nothing with her, and if your dad is ill, will be in for many more crazy mother episodes where you are the one in the wrong according to her. In which case I’d gently suggest getting your mental health in the best place possible (in regards to your relationship with them/your mum) so you can take it in your stride.

hope your dad is ok. Sorry to hear it’s so hard right now

This is exactly what happened between my mum and dad. She seemed incapable of advocating for him. I also suspect there was a degree of bowing to his wishes rather than recognising the severity of the situation.

This. I'm not being ageist but it really is a generational thing, many older people think 999 is there for car accidents or collapses not for general deterioration.

It's hard op you just have to advise . I don't think being angry will help you or them. Just step in when you can.

I hope your dad makes a good recovery. It sounds like their relationship dynamic was partially responsible for her not calling an ambulance and your dad has to share responsibility for that. Have you and your siblings considered the support both your parents may need going forward?

I think very understandably, you are letting emotion cloud your rationale to an extent. And I'm saying this as someone who would be equally upset if the roles were reversed. But as I'm on the outside, I would say you're being a tad inappropriately judgemental. Your mum didn't mean to dither intentionally or maliciously (now if you think she procrastinated maliciously or just because you were telling her what to do, that's a whole other ball game) she must of thought the situation wasn't so serious and might resolve itself with a bit of a wait.

When my now adult son was 7, he jumped off a settee playing Spider Man and I thought he only sprained his arm. He was moving the arm in all directions fine. My instinct was not to take him to A&E as he initially cried but then stopped. His dad was insistent I take him A&E. I waited till the next day. He had fractured his wrist. Had a cast for a few weeks. I felt like shit. My (now ex) hit me over the head with it and brought it up repeatly for another 15 years!! He knew each time he brought it up it would hurt me and held it up as a measure of my failure as a mother on that one occasion. All my years of dedicated parenting boiled down to that lapse in judgement.

So think carefully if you're being totally fair. Shit happens and sometimes our instincts and judgement isn't what it should be. I think you need to pull together to be a united front and support for your father.

Does your dad like hospitals? My partner is always warning me to not leave him in any hospital if he had to go.