Why do we put aside our feelings to help our parents?

Those are good questions, FB, keep going!

Why would a mistreated child grow up and feel this way?

Why would an adult with a strained relationship with a parent think they need to push the feelings aside?

I would seek out a counselor for this one. Much has to do with early childhood training. Much has to do with our own habitual behaviors.

I was just talking to someone seeking medical advice here on Forum. And I said that there's sometimes danger in seeking expert advice from people on a Forum. You end up with sympathy, not help. You end up with their OWN sad story rather than any ideas of change for your own life. And you end up repeating once again the old familiar pain, making it with each repetition STRONGER and more real.

There have been three times in my life that I was in or close to crisis point, and sought the help of a therapist. Each time taught me more than I can say; and it always helped. I do admit to having been lucky in getting therapists who didn't just sit and listen while they counted out the cash, but rather shook my world until I was uncomfortable enough to truly look at what I needed to CHANGE.

Change is more difficult than we think. Our habits, while they cause us pain, are the "KNOWN" world. And choosing another path is a walk into the dark, scary. But so worth it for the discoveries you will make.

That's a very good question faithfulbeauty. Why do YOU put aside your feelings to care for a parent who didn't treat you well as a child and adult?
It breaks my heart that you think you owe your dad anything at this point.
I do hope and pray that you are in some type of therapy/counseling to find out exactly why you feel that you're responsible for him in any way when in reality you're not. I hope you know that, I really do.
No one is worth risking our mental health and well being over. NO ONE!

From the OP’s profile:

I'm the sole caregiver for my father. He still lives alone but I'm foreseeing that he will need constant help in the near future. My mother passed away years ago. I do not have any siblings and my father and I have a strained relationship. I did not have a happy childhood due to his treatment of my mom and I. I do not mind helping him but he expects me to not have a life. I'm going out of town soon and it seems as if each time I get ready to leave, which is hardly ever, he has a medical issue. I'm so depressed and anxious and I can not afford counseling right now. I'm retired but looking to go back to work full time because I'm struggling financially. When I go back, I know it will be an issue because I can not take off work all the time to accompany him to doctors visits. I need any advice I can get. I wash all his clothes weekly, clean weekly, grocery shopping and take him to all doctors appointments.

I think we do it because polite society expects us to do it. Most people want to believe we all lived a Norman Rockwell childhood. So therefore of course we would want to be there for our aging parents. Those that say they did not have ideal parents get told "they did their best". You know what, sometimes someone's best isn't good enough and it isn't an excuse for falling short. People chose to decide if they want to have children so shouldn't those children get to chose if they are up to the task of caregiver.

My father wasn't a bad father it just seemed that everyone else was more important to him than I was. That lasted until he got old and everyone else stopped visiting, then I was the most important person in the world. He was 40 years too late. I made sure he was well taken care of but very rarely did I do any hands on caregiving. I don't think he ever understood why I was so emotionally distant. I'm not even sure he noticed. And the few times I tried to tell him he'd act as if I was overly sensitive and needed to just get over it. My feeling was if you easily get over things, people tend to treat you poorly because there are no lasting consequences.

How old is Dad? How old are u. If he can drive, what do u do for him he can't do for himself? Will taking off a weekend be so bad?

You posted before about Dad always criticizing. An example was him just dropping by and criticizing everything about ur house and you. I will say this, your Dad needs you more than you need him and you need to make this clear to him.

If he is capable of driving to your house, what do you do for him that he can't do for himself. Laundry...my husband is 76 and has done his own in the 42 yrs we have been married. Cleaning...how dirty does one man get a house, tell him to hire someone once a month, bi-monthly. He leaves dirty dishes in the sink, he is capable of washing them himself. If he can drive he can grocery shop.

You need to start standing up for yourself. Learn the word No. Really, the more you use it the easier it gets. If he criticizes something your doing for him, tell him, "Well I guess u think you can do better so do it" and walk out. He may have more respect for you if you stand up to him. Respect goes both ways. You are not a child anymore. You are an adult who holds down a job and has a home of your own. You need to demand that respect. Look up the "grey rock method" and see if you can use it on Dad. Read the book "Boundries" by Townsend and Cloud. The one thing my daughter liked about it was...
When you say NO your are not responsible for the reaction u receive.

No is a one word sentence (meaning u do not need an excuse)

Guilt is self-imposed.

My mantra is "I am here to help people find a way, not be theway"

Therapy may help you find tools to deal with Dad. Just remember you place Boundaries for yourself. People like ur Dad will try to cross them but u never give in. I think in your last post I replied that he needs to call before he comes over. Your home is your safe place to fall. You control who comes over and who doesn't.

One answer may be that, too often, many of us hurt, neglected, abused as children by the very people in charge of protecting us, grow up to be overly giving and dutiful as adults...in part, I think, because we long to give what was withheld from us...we seek satisfaction in giving. Not that it is consciously calculated in that way. But my experience has been to find many wounded people turn out to be natural caregivers...could be their over-developed empathy as a result of childhood wounds.

All these things you do for dad can easily be done by paid help....groceries ordered, a housekeeper hired, laundry pick up and drop off service and hired caregivers to drive him to doctors appointments, on his dime of course. Or, you just tell him you're going back to work and are no longer available for ANY of these tasks, here's the number of an agency to send out a CG for 4 hours a day to do it all for him, easy peasy. Whether you actually go back to work or not is up to you and none of his concern.

In the meanwhile, you're choosing to do all these things and "I'm so depressed and anxious and I can not afford counseling right now." Only you can change this situation and make it better for yourself. How do you plan to do so? Establish boundaries immediately or nothing will ever change, but continue to worsen as dad's needs increase. My mother thought I worked full time even after I'd retired precisely so she didn't feel like I was available at her beck and call. It's called self preservation, at 60-something years old, and a necessity.

Good luck to you!

Faithful, only you can answer why YOU do that.

Many of us were trained early on to ignore our feelings so that our parents' lives could be more stress free and so that our families could look more "perfect" and normal.

I would strongly suggest you make some excuse and back away from "doing" for your father for a few weeks. See if your level of anxiety goes down. Then you'll know you need to make that change more permanent.

You’ve been programmed to believe that you have to be available for your dad.

He expects you to serve his every need. What would he do if you weren’t around? He would find a way to have his needs met.

You can offer suggestions to him. There are people that he can hire to help him.

Don’t drop everything and run off to help him. Would you do this for everyone else? I doubt it.

I worked with an older woman who stopped working and thought it would be nice to volunteer in the community. She enjoyed it for awhile.

Then, she found herself working more hours volunteering than she had been working in a full time job!

She quit volunteering and returned to work. She said to me at lunch one day, “I decided that if I was going to work full time as a volunteer, and have listen to a pushy chairperson order me around until I was exhausted, then I will return to working a full time job and be paid for it!”

You’re miserable, so I am going to suggest a few comebacks to say to your dad when he makes his unending requests.

Dad, I am so sorry. I have a dentist appointment. Can’t possibly make it today!

Dad, I have a doctor appointment. Sorry!

Dad, That doesn’t work for me. My friend is visiting from out of town. I promised her that we would do lunch. Sorry!

Dad, I’m feeling under the weather today. I have to rest. Sorry.

You can give him phone numbers of suitable helpers.

Look for a therapist that charges according to your income. It will be money well spent.

Best wishes to you.

You are “ feeling nervous , anxious and just an overall not feeling good ( emotionally ) because I’m in constant thought about how I was treated as a child and as an adult .”

You don’t have to put your feelings aside to help a parent . It’s making you feel ill . You are conditioned to meet his expectations, or you feel obligated as the only child . If he can’t do for himself , he can hire someone to help . Back away . Tell him you are going back to work ( whether you do or not ) and he needs to hire help or go to a facility .

Sorry you are not handling the stress. I know from my experience exactly how you feel with the nervousness and anxiety. Maybe you need an antidepressant to help you get through this. You can't change the situation but this might help.

What caretakers do is fail to take in down time. You can't be on call twenty-four seven. Hire a home care agency for these abusive parents using their money! Medicaid will also pay for home health aide services. You will never get validated or approval from narcissistic parents. I think if I would have been a little bit more assertive during my younger years, I could have been in a much better place financially, emotionally and physically today. This stuff will haunt you years later if you don't handle it now. Don't sacrifice your life and happiness for a miserable old person who has done nothing but made you miserable. People can create children, but it takes a parent who is willing to care and protect them. For abusive parents, don't take on a POA and be treated like trash throughout the process. I never had a POA, but I did catch a lot of flack from the government agencies and people trying to monitor my life constantly when I was at home with my younger sibling. I was in college at the time and caretaking placed a real damper on my life. I eventually gave up the caregiving to a severely disabled sister, got all the ducks in the row for her care and moved out. My dad had married a golddigger who wanted me to sign for a house loan so that she and dad could go riding off in the sunset living happily ever after. Well, that didn't happen. I was not willing to allow myself to be exploited any longer. Financially, I was just getting started out on my own in life. Unfortunately, he saw this setup for what it was a few months before he died. This woman was only in it for what she could get financially. She got a lawyer when my dad was on morphine and had him sign over all of the assets, boat and house to her and her children. His bio children received one dollar. Then his wife had to nerve to wonder why none of his children contacted her after his death. I get calls for her at my home from bill collectors trying to collect on student loans.

You are not responsible for abusive parents. You don't owe him anything.

Faith, can you look up symptoms of PTSD? I am concerned about your weekend symptoms that you may be able to get help for yourself too.

Reading your response, I ask myself why are you doing so much for him? Are you trying to ease your past and "hope" that he will now love you more?

It doesn't work that way, he has shown you who he is, believe him, age and his personal needs do not change this.

My mother was a terrible mother to me and my brother, both verbally & physically.

I no longer speak to her, and didn't for several years on & off, the last time has been for almost 13 years, no one else in family does either, except my brother who only does what he has to. She is in AL.

Don't waste another minute of your life on him, this situation will only get worse.

Start pulling back, he can have food delivered, you do not have to shop for him. If needs other assistance he can hire a caretaker to come in a few times a week.

Set your boundaries, stand up for yourself, live your life, we only go around once!

He can live for a very long time, my mother is 98, step back now before you become even more entangled. When he can no longer live alone, he needs to go to AL with a step-up program to MC.

For me personally, the challenge is accepting that I'm going to have to be "mean" in order to save myself. I've accepted that, have a hard line with my mother, but I constantly have to redraw that line in stark, sometimes harsh language. This casts me as being unsympathetic, unkind, hard, a b***h, selfish, etc. All words my mother has used for me. She badmouths me to her friends, trash talks me to my sister, constantly lets me know that I've let her down, plays the victim, gets indignant and angry, yada yada yada.

It used to be easier to just cave and do what she wanted. There's a cost to sticking up for yourself. I've accepted the cost. Being "hard" is worth my mental health and time.

Good luck, hon.

I also had terrible weekends. I dreaded the weekends coming. It was absolutely terrible. I survived the weekdays much better.

I had a loving relationship with my mom. However, she was definitely needy. I think my feeling of responsibility came from her inability to do for herself. She was not physically and mentally capable and was very fragile without my help. Putting myself in her place, I understood her frightened state. I think the weekends, for me, were about the lack of spontaneity. I had to plan everything in advance, I could not go out on a Saturday and suddenly decide to have dinner with friends. Everything had to be planned ahead.

My mom was also an introvert and was uncomfortable with strangers. She seemed to dislike every caregiver I hired. My mistake was not pushing for respite care more often even if it meant she would be unhappy with it. I also failed to take advantage of other people and services that would help share the burden.

Hire where you can to take some of the load off. You do not have to do everything yourself.

Push yourself to have at least, if not more, a weekend a month free……FREE! I would often wish for freedom. It will not cure the situation but may give you a few moments of anxiety free time to yourself.

Your anxiety in your circumstance is normal. You don't know what to expect when you get there? You resent having to give up one whold day of your week for someone who couldn't/didn't sacrifice for you when you were a child? Am I close?You asked a similar question a few weeks ago. The fact you are coming back to this tells me you are really struggling.If I recall you are, like me, the sole family member and caregiving is entirely on your shoulders. Is he in any kind of care facility? If he is, you don't have to go see him. Give yourself a day off. If he's not, find a way to do your Saturday duties for him on Friday evening - anything to free up your Saturday.

In the best circumstance, the anxiety comes and goes. Every one of us needs to vent a little. In your circumstance, and mine, the anxiety is never far away. I find that engaging in positive activities that I enjoy helps me deal with my mother.

And if you feel your personal wellbeing and sanity is on the line, you really can just walk away. It sounds cruel, and some will say it is, but they didn't walk in your shoes when you were a kid, so they have no business dancing on your toes today.

Most of these answers are so selfish!! For Christians there is no quandary here. Be selfless and care for your aging parent. Follow God's commandment to honor thy father and mother. He doesn't say to honor your father and mother IF THEY WERE GOOD TO YOU. Do what He asks of you and you will be rewarded. You also won't have any regrets and you'll find yourself feeling better. It's really quite simple...

I’m pretty much in your same situation. I have a brother and sister. I tell people I always got the verable abuse why my brother and sister got the physical and my poor dad got both. Now since there is so much friction between me and my sister and my brother and sister it seems that I have become her caretaker. I go up once a week and put her medicine together take her to run her errands. I never know how long I will be there. Trust me I would pretty much walk away but since my sister has told me a couple of times that she isn’t going to be around when mom can’t remember anything anymore. I feel like I can’t trust her to take care of her. To put her medicine together run her to dr appointments do the follow up for procedures to be done. Like getting in touch with the insurance company to find out if they have approved it or follow up with the dr to see why you haven’t heard from anyone yet about doing test that have been ordered. I feel like if I step away on this and it becomes time that she really needs me I won’t know what is going on and I won’t be on any paperwork that says I have the right to know because my sister isn’t going to tell me and she won’t remember. My brother was going to help me soon when he semi retired but now I don’t know because him and my mom got into a few weeks ago and everytime something happens that I get mad or he gets mad is because my sister has caused another problem. She wants control but says she doesn’t but she won’t give up dpoa plus she won’t call me or text me. With my mom having dementia and heart problems this situation is really hard. I totally get where you are coming from. I did find away to possibly get some help if she would just except it but it involves people coming into the house and she doesn’t want that. I could possibly get her on hospice. They would have a nurse come in 2/3 days a week to do her vitals and medicine , they would also have a cna come 2/3 days a week to do some light housekeeping laundry errands a little cooking. When she needed to go to the dr they would take her off that day and put her back on the next day. It is totally a great thing for me but I know as soon as I mention hospice she is going to loose it, but soon I’m going to have to because winter and holidays are coming and I may not be able to get up there on my day. Even though she says with a list she can put her medicine together by herself but she can’t because one medicine is every other day. She doesn’t always take her medicine and because of maguldegeneration in her eyes she can’t really see the medicine bottle to read it right. Sorry I made this about me. I only wanted to tell you about hospice and possibly your dad would qualify because you don’t always have to be at the end of life to get it.

I hope you can get some help soon.

There isn’t any reason other than your own internal battle that you need to be doing all of these things up close and personal for him. Believe me you are still doing a lot and taking care of your dad by ordering the groceries to be delivered, setting up an aid 2-3 times a week to spend time with him, take care of his laundry and dishes, feed him or make meals ahead, most if not all the things you are dreading each weekend. Call his local Agency on Aging (that’s the title I know) and have them go out for an assessment, see how much help he can get both financially and physically then make it happen. They will talk to you on the phone if you don’t want to be there and I’m not sure if you should or shouldn’t be there in your dads case.

To answer your actual question, I think we do it because despite wether or not we like out parents, wether or not they were a good parent, we have a deep connection maybe love maybe just genes but a connection that keeps us tethered and society, our own sense of responsibility tells us we should care for those people we are tethered too when they need it. How we care for them should not be dictated by them it should be dictated by us, though it rarely works that way probably especially when the relationship has been rocky. That child in us will always want to please that parent we never could and repair that relationship we never had and some of us are very fortunate to get that time to do it when our parents age and need us. It isn’t all about them it’s about us, establishing a relationship where you feel some control and maybe even some respect will be good for you in the future it doesn’t really matter if it’s good for him or not. Removing yourself from his beck and call by setting up others to do the week to week care is a great first step, this way you are watching after him and you may find you want to go to his appointments or stop in once or twice a week for a visit but you don’t have to, you can just call him to go over the grocery list or check in too. As long as you know and believe that overseeing this and making it happen is you taking care of Dad and his needs it doesn’t matter what he says about it or the way you do it, he’s very fortunate it’s getting done. Sounds much easier than it is but we’ll worth it.

Being a parent doesn't come with instructions. Some were better than others. Maybe you look back and it wasn't the Leave it to Beaver family, but it wasn't worse than friends you had during that time in your life. Sometimes your own kids go through a period of giving you total frustration, but you don't write them off and would have run to them had they needed you to. I guess parents are the same. We may not always like them, what they said, what they did, but in the big scheme of things....we love them.

We set step up because of our basic humanity recognizing their basic humanity. It doesn't mean we forget any of the abuse, harms, or mistakes our parent(s) made but because we know it's the decent thing to do, within reason. Some situations are too heinous to stay involved, but we do what we can because each of us deserves a decent ending to our life. This is not a requirement, no matter what anyone here says, but a highly individual decision each of us has the right to make. I stepped up for my mom because I knew she was a deeply wounded/fallible human being, aside from the rotten treatment I often got from her, and because I wanted our 'parting' to be as 'clean' as possible, for both our sakes. It's as if the behaviors of the offending person are 'mask's, ugly masks sometimes, which is simply 'personality'...not the essence (soul) of the person; so I think we care for the essence of the person, to whatever extent we can commit to, or not (that is an entirely legitimate choice in some case and not subject to judgement by any outsiders, btw), to have a clean conscience yourself, that we did right by another human being, and a humane sendoff for the parent/loved one.

Why do you feel (NOT THINK, 'feel) you do?
It is a well known fact that children will want to be with an abusive parent because it is who / what they know, they want that person to love them, they do not want to be abandoned (even if they are), they want the love of a parent. I believe it is ingrained in our DNA... and then we become adults and learn how to heal ourselves (we learn, I learned - how to allow part of me to become my own parent to myself. I believe they call it RE-PARENTING.

I learned to love myself as my mother could not. She did not love or know herself to impart this / these emotional, psychological, physical bonding) that is what a mother could/'should' do for her offspring/children.

Possibly ... There comes a time when we forgive to allow us to move through and forward. Forgiving is not forgetting. Forgiving is a way to find inner peace. It matters little (or not at all) if the other person being forgiven benefits).

We feel compassion for our vulnerable, aging parent. This is a side / a part of them that we (most of us) never saw growing up. It is like meeting a new person who 'needs us.' Our humanity reaches out to another.

I would encourage you to allow yourself to FEEL everything that wants to come out - during the weekends. It is GOLD for you to get up what has been stuffed in for decades. It is the stuff that will allow you to fly - to let your 'self' out - to learn who the part of you that you have hidden / stuffed down comes out to 'meet' you now. It is / will be an awakened to your full human potential.

Facing our feelings is how we grow and move to where we need to be - an evolving, new person. When we feel the 'triggers' is when the real inner work has an opportunity to happen ... if we allow it to. ... if we embrace all our feelings with humble gratitude. Then, we change in unimaginable ways.

I would like to hear how you feel about all this. Gena.

FYI: suicide risk in caregivers of dementia

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35696056/

Conclusions: The prevalence of suicide ideation is high, affecting several caregivers of patients with dementia. These findings suggest intervention and/or policy are urgently needed to address suicidal behavior in this at-risk population.

https://www.caregiver.org/resource/caregiver-depression-silent-health-crisis/
Caregiver depression’ a silent health crisis

https://www.aarp.org/caregiving/health/info-2020/coronavirus-increased-suicidal-ideations.html
Unpaid family caregivers have increased suicidal ideations

"He does still drive but not out of town because his judgment is not good (pulling out in front of cars, etc.)"

OMG, please get him off the roads before he kills himself and someone else with him. His judgment is just as bad in town as out of town. If he's three blocks from his house and pulls out in front of a car carrying a family of four and they all die because of his bad judgment, the effect is the same. Dead people are dead people whether in the next town or right down the street.

I live in a retirement community where many residents should no longer be driving. One fatal accident about two weeks ago, two dead. Another accident last week, waiting to find out what the outcome is. Both accidents due to bad judgment. No one wanted to take the keys away.

Why? Because we hope that if we were in their position, that someone would come forward and do for us, what we are doing for them.

...also, some of us don't want to have the same aging experience as our elders and we want to learn first-hand how we might be able to lead a better life when we get old.

...and last...because it feels good to help someone in need and we want to be contributing members to society.

Bless all the caregivers that I have encountered and will encounter in my lifetime.

P.S. I have various stress balls around the house and in the car. Much safer than texting while driving.

faithfulbeauty: We do so because we love them. That doesn't mean that we should 'throw caution to the wind' and not take care of ourselves.

Because you're gullible and you let people take advantage of you?

(sorry, don't shoot the messenger... but it's true...)

We do it because we see a person in need and we react...we help. I truly believe that my mom would not do for me, what I have done for her. In some weird small way that makes me feel better that I did not become her. I don't know if that makes any sense or not without getting too deep.

I can definitely relate to the anxious feelings as the day rolls around that you have to visit or do things for them. It's like you're not in control of your own life...your own time and then resentment sets in. I try to flip the switch in my mind by adding up all the hours that mom is in memory care by herself, not knowing anyone or remembering anything and not having any purpose other than to exist. The few hours that I give her is not much in comparison. It helps me to look at it that way. I hope someone will care enough about me to help if I am ever in this position.

Take care of yourself FaithfulBeauty.