Where do I start. Mom is 89 and Dad is 91. He still drives, but shouldn't; he has told us (three siblings) that even if we take away his license he would still drive. Dad is very very mean; no this did not become of lately, he has been mean all his life. His way or the highway. This has become increasingly worse. He is VERY independent and does not like when you explain to him you want to help, Dad will take it as he is weak. Yeah he is weak, he is 91. But in his mind he is 51. Most of the times I can let things role, but yesterday broke the straw. My husband and his brother planted our garden with everything Dad wanted. Every row is marked with what it has in it. Dad was already planted over the carrots and yesterday he planted right over the okra and beans. He wanted his OWN role of okra, so with no regard to my husband and his brother, he planted his okra. I know all of you will say it is just a garden and to be glad he can still do it, BUT this is with everything. He breaks things constantly around the house. We have "old-aged" proofed it, but things seem to find him. When he breaks our stuff he hides it or tries to fix it (always looking horrible). He never apologies and will never replace it. I have had it up to my eyeballs. I am wanting to move, but I will still be the one taking care of them. My older sister has a husband with bipolar, brother has a wife that is, well not stable, and my other sister just lost her husband and has her daughter and three grandchildren living with them. So I am in a pickle. I feel guilty about not wanting to help, but I am being honest. My poor husband deserves the gold metal for having patience with them, but he is able to walk away from them more than I can.
My heart goes out to each and everyone of you. This is not easy and until someone walks in our shoes, they do not understand. I am glad I found this site where I may vent. I cannot talk to my siblings cause they have their own problems and I do not want to burden them with more.
Thanks for listening. Have a wonderful day.
Jett
I thought of sharing this from Bhagavad Gita....this is the advice Sri Krishna gives to Arjuna in the battle field..............it is a interesting one...........I thought this is relevant here.........we all go through this phase...............but our interaction is not with our parents, relatives, friends or any such relationship................but with God. Because he will finally ask us.....Did you do your duty ?
She is not lazy. She may or may not even be "mean" - she IS totally unreasonable, but it is because her reason is gone. She has dementia that has advanced to the point that she has no capacity for judgement or empathy, regardless of whether she had any in the past. I do not know if that might help you feel any less resentful of the caregiving that she needs, which is extremely frustrating as well as physically demanding because she also resists the care she needs. That resisting everything is, unfortunately, not at all uncommon in dementia. She has no idea why she should ever have to do anything that requires significant effort or discomfort. She can't likely even sequence the steps involved in getting help to go to the bathroom. Her problem solving is, as expected, absymal.
Let's get practical. You have spent nearly everything you had taking care of her, because she has no funding. If she has no funding, she can qualify for Medicaid. You as long time caregivers may have rights to stay in the house if that's a concern. She is undoubtedly skilled nursing qualified according to your description. She is almost undoubtedly not legally competent. You don't mention things like POAs or guardianship, which somebody should have for her. Take whatever steps need to be taken to get help with her care. There may be some preferences of hers that can be respected, but it cannot be left to her choice whether to urinate in the right place or not, and you cannot let her choices continue to destroy your health, your life and your marriage.
Stop regarding her as being the person in charge of her care and letting her run the show, which she is running right into the ground. She is not capable of being in charge, as badly as she might still want to be, and you should not let that continue any more than you would let her drive a car or let a 4 year old babysit an infant. Make sure you have your husband's support and understanding before you make this major change in your approach to her situation. I'm not sure her daughter is such a bad person for refusing to be involved in this scenario as it stands, BTW.
We started out caring for his aging Aunt, MIL's eldest sister, during her illnesses the MIL decided she had to have hospital stays and our attention too. We cared for Auntie for over 4 years, she passed away just before her 91st birthday with stage 4 colon cancer, she refused to let the docs do a colonoscopy for years. When she finally did it was too late. They had been giving her blood and iron infusions for nearly a year before she finally let them do the colonoscopy. When the results came back they put her in hospice care at my MIL's home and she lived 3 days. She was easy to care for, always doing what we told her she needed to, there were moments where she gave us a hard time but she would always let us know how much she appreciated us for all we did for her. During this time my MIL was being very trying, so we were pulled in both directions taking care of both of them. My husband was running his mother to the doc every week or so while I was taking Auntie to her appointments which took 4-6 hours two or three times a month. MIL got to the point she wouldn't eat or take her meds and breathing treatments, she was having panic attacks at all hours of the day and night which meant no sleep for us. The day after he sister was buried she was out of it, I mean totally. We called an ambulance because she was non responsive, her BP was really high and she wasn't breathing right. Her GP had missed that she had pneumonia after 4 visits for breathing problems. Well she ended up on a ventilator for 8 days and then another 6 days in the step down from ICU. Her CO2 was three times what is normal, which really messed up her mind. She was moved from the hospital to rehab for 28 days. She loved rehab, didn't want to leave. When we brought her back to her home she didn't know where she was and continually told us she wanted to go home and if we didn't take her she was going to call the law and have us put in jail for kidnapping her. It took over a year for her mind to return back to partial normalcy. Not long after her GP diagnosed her with Dementia and Alzheimer's, some of her actions are put on for attention.
Well now that I have gave some background history I can vent. I am so sick of being a 24/7 caregiver to a woman that refuses to even try. The doctors have told her she needs to get up and walk or she would end up bedridden.
She has always been a hateful woman, for the 18 years I have known her she has always been one to yell for this and yell for that because she wasn't able to do anything for herself. No she was and still is down right LAZY! She gets her breakfast, coffee, morning meds brought to her in bed. She will lay in that bed until 12:00 or later and urinate all over herself and the bed because she is too lazy to get up and go to the bathroom. I generally end up taking her lunch to her and picking up her breakfast dishes and making her get up to go to the bathroom. My husband went in one morning and caught her with her butt over the edge of the bed urinating on the carpet. There is no excuse for that, she is supplied with Depends and overnight pads but she feels it is degrading to wear them and insists on wearing panties and puts 2 or 3 washcloths in them for protection. It doesn't matter how much I clean her room it smells like one big piss fest has gone on in there. I don't know how much more I can stand. She doesn't care that my husband and I don't have a life and haven't for over 5 years. We can't go anywhere together because she has to have 24/7 care and she can't afford to pay to have someone other than us to come in and stay with her if even for a few hours. We have went through all of our savings, assets and sold off stuff that we just really didn't need in order to help pay her bills and try to keep ours paid. She doesn't appreciate anything we do for her. My husband has health problems and when he has to stay with her for any length of time he ends up with chest pains from the stress of her screaming his name for no reason other than "bring me a cup of coffee". She is killing us! She has a daughter that refuses to help, she moved out of state as an excuse for not being here to help us take care of Her mother.
One more rant and I am going to stop. MIL will not shower, I have to force her to get in the shower. She has every precautionary item a person could need for safety in the shower. She feels that her spit baths are enough, even when she has sat in her chair until she is wet with urine from her waist to her knees. I am tired of having to make her go to the bathroom, I am tired of trying to make her shower. I am just TIRED! I am, or maybe I should say was a healthy person but she is ruining my health and my husbands health.
I'm sorry I have went on for so long, thank you for giving me a place to let this out.
I just feel like this mean old woman is going to outlive my husband and I and it's not fair. I know it is wrong to wish death on someone but she has no quality of life and making it so that we don't either.
Everyone have a great day!
As an adult, it's easy to lose our way and not see that we actually DO have some choices in front of us. We have been programmed to oblige, oblige, oblige our entire lives to the point it's instinct now. Everyone's problems must be our responsibility, right? Everyone's satisfaction, contentment, happiness, and calmness is our problem, right?
WRONG.
Fixing this kind of thing is going to take some real grit on your part.
When elders are beyond understanding what you ask of them, it's time for an assessment by at geriatric doctor. NOT a family GP who is not trained on old age like a pediatrician is on young age. Find a geriatric doctor who will see your elder. Send them a list of concerns ahead of time. Request a cognitive evaluation.
Say & do whatever you need to, to get mom/dad in the car to that visit. Say it's required for insurance, or the government requires it, or that you don't know why you have to go, you are just following instructions from the doctor. Whatever it takes. I give you permission because this is a kind of emergency.
This doctor visit can do a number of helpful things. It can start a file that other agencies and people are going to need to reference. It can straighten out any medication related problems, hidden infections, depression, anxiety, and a host of cognitive related problems. You may be referred to a neurologist for a follow up. This is a GOOD THING.
The doctor can take away driving privileges and report that to the DMV. It's not YOU being the bad guy. My mother got to the point where she did not care one whit if she ran anybody over or killed babies out driving with her terrible vision and reduced comprehension. You can take the car & keys away by pretending to take it in for an oil change or gas or something. Just don't bring it back!
The next step is to find a placement for this parent/elder that is NOT YOUR HOME. Very important that it is not your home. When there is an abusive/toxic relationship between the elder and their adult child, it will be a very poor and damaging caregiving experience for everyone.
I didn't give my mom a choice about it. I had scouted out a place in advance, filled out the paperwork, and done everything but write the check. Her choice was apartment A or B. She got a tour, a free lunch, and we wrote the first check out for her. Done. I probably got really lucky because she was soaking up the petting and attention from the manager that day. And she was very angry at our complete refusal to treat her like the Queen of Sheba at my house.
Once mom got out of my house, I had some buffer zone between me and her personality (to put it nicely). I went to visit, do laundry, grocery shop, etc. until she moved into the nursing home unit. That move was not my choice or hers. It happened as a result of being hospitalized and some spiraling medical & psychological problems. It was all out of my hands at that point.
She started seeing a psychologist, better doctors, and getting her "meals, meds, and beds" on a regular schedule. More changes put her into the locked memory care unit this past year. Getting her on anxiety and psychotic meds has made a huge difference in her wellbeing. This would not have been possible if she had stayed in her own home or mine.
There are some people who just cannot live together or even close to each other, and that is just the way it is.
Gail
Back hen the term "mental retardation" was more OK - and "retard" was NEVER OK - there was even a person with Down syndrome who was featured in a book called "Retarded Isn't Stupid, Mom!" that you can still get online
That said, catlady, I know what you are getting at; but neither you nor mom have what used to be called mental retardation. Mom has at least mild cognitive impairment and has lost any sense of perspective or empathy she might have had; that is often the first thing to go. You feel guilty because she is your mom, and you are not used to setting limits with her but you really have to - she does not perceive them herself and really no longer "gets" why you are an adult with other things to do and not available to cater to her 24 x 7. Don't argue with her so much as tell her you need to go and when you will be back. I hope you are not the only one staying with her if she has reached a point of can't be left alone. It is very hard but if you want to stay in her life and help, you are stuck with looking hard at what is really going on, conquering your perfectly understandable and normal negative emotions, and achieving that difficult mix of assertiveness and compassion this situation calls for....or finding yourself increasingly frustrated and depressed to the point you have to get out of the situation altogether to have any relief.
The R-word is exclusive
The R-word ignores individuality
The R-word equated intellectual disability with being “dumb” or “stupid”
The R-word spreads hurt
The R-word is offensive
The R-word is incorrect
The R-word is derogatory
The R-word fosters loneliness
The R-word is hate speech
Here's just the one thing I wanted to point out--- You are going to get stuck with final expenses! But I found a cool alternative, if your dad qualifies---
www.sciencecare.com
Might be able to take care of that, utilize your dad's body for medical students or research, cremate and return ashes to you at no expense to you!
I'm doing this for my parent's demise, since they qualify.
Here's one catch I found out the hard way.
Even if you have power of attorney or guardianship, any monies in the bank gets locked up, swallowed by the bank when your parent dies. We got screwed over bigtime by this little crappy loophole banks have to take what should be rightfully yours at a difficult time, and you are stuck with final expenses... all of it.
I had a narcissistic mother and I do NOT say that lightly. She tried breaking up our marriage and she never lived with us. That was one thing I made sure NEVER happened. But when my mother wished me dead..... that was it!! My husband was a saint especially during the last 10 years of her life. There was so much drama from her.... insanity!!! If I had not laid down my boundaries, it would have been a whole different ballgame.
Your father may never talk to you again after you lay down the boundary lines, but would it really be that bad? Your dad my do some pouting for weeks or months, but in my life when I got that from my mother.... AAAHHHH peace and quiet! I took full advantage of it. But if you are responding due to their manipulation, nothing will ever get resolved.
Only you know, and only you can solve. Keep us updated!
My point in posting was to warn others, if your parents were jerks when you were a kid then time and distance isn't going to change them just because it's changed you...they get even worse with age and then expect you to snap back into the service role you had as a child. My Mom basically isn't just a selfish person, I then to think she is plainly a sociopathic personality to begin with and only sees other people for what they can do for her, and this is especially true now. This is really hard to even say, but it is the truth and I had to say it some where to someone, and at least that made me feel better.
But instead of always arguing with him about leaving and where was he going, etc.... I would then hide his wallet. It would delay him long enough where something else would snap in his brain and he would get distracted doing something else. It took work, but once I figured out what it would take, it made that particular situation, sooooo much easier!
Then I remember when a couple stayed with him while I worked. My mom was in the hospital and dad could not be left alone and I needed to work. So I would have a couple who claimed to be family friends live with them during the daytime until I could get home from work. The friends "promised" me they would keep him on routine with meals, etc but they ended up really messing him up. My father was to the minute on his routine and when it got mucked up he was horrible!!!!!!!!!!!
Well after a almost a week of not sleeping and such because his routine was off, one day I decided I was going to move all the clocks ahead by 2 1/2 hours. I cannot express that no matter what else he could not remember, he still somehow knew his routine and time. It was the weirdest thing I've seen. But to get him back on track it was the only way I knew without constantly arguing. I had no more energy to argue. So when he was puttering around out of sight one day, I moved all the clocks forward about 2 1/2 hrs. As he would prepare for bed, he would look outside and swear that it was only such and such time. But thank God to it being fall and getting darker earlier, he wouldn't argue.
It was amazing to watch him still follow an internal clock, but he would always double-check the clock and that was his final authority to him and he would follow it.
Dad was much different than mom to handle. She was a whole other beast. She was narcissistic, but what made life easier was the fact that once she had a break down and ended up in geriatric psych a couple of times, it ended up where she had no ultimatum. She either had to get a live-in staffer that she would NOT be able to kick out of the house (oh the stories I could tell there). Or she was going to assisted living but it would be her choice period. There would be no other options. That one I really had to put my foot down on being the only child. Thankfully she decided on assisted living, but of course she had to yell at me and curse me out for that option, but even though we went over all the reasons why, she was still furious at me.
I think the thing that is easy to forget in the midst of all the misery of caregiving is that we have to play in a twisted way by their rules but using our style and method We want them to conform to us, but they are not children. Even though they act like it, they aren't. So between my mom and dad I had two completely different situations to deal with and I had to meet dad at his level of reality and play some tricks to get life functioning there and then there was the narcissistic mother who attempted a lifetime of manipulating me to her benefit. So that was always a fight just to keep her out of my life.
Maybe if its examining how their needs are met might help your level of sanity in all of this. Mine? Well the first time around when I was dad's sole caregiver it took me about 5 years to recover, then mom went into her thing and then it was another 4 years of her caregiving, so now they are both gone and its all about gaining control of my life. Health wise I'm just really tired and there are things going on that doctors can't figure out, but I'm "healthy" if that makes any sense.
Emotionally I am soooooo relieved they are gone. I don't feel guilty about it. Dad I miss terribly, but mom made life so horrific, I can't say I miss her at all. Now it is time to live my life my way. Woooo hoooo for that! Now if I can find the energy! LOL
A For Sale sign would go up Monday morning and new living arrangements made immediately if this were happening to me. Sorry but I just cannot understand how this happens in families. I wish you all the very best.