My father, who is 76, lives with me as he shouldn't live alone without assistance. He does have an aide that comes in and helps with some assistance he needs. I work full time and like to spend my days at home, but here's the issue. My home has no doors (besides the basement and something for thr bathroom) and is a small home. For the most part he can do a lot by himself but there is no privacy. I can hear everything that goes on at any given time. I feel like i have to leave my own home to get any peace, which I feel I shouldn't have to do. Dad also doesn't want to go to a nursing home or any facility. I dont even have anyone over because there is no privacy and I dont want to expose anyone else to my situation.
How have others handled losing freedom and having their own lives while caregiving? It has burned me out and I dread coming home from a 12 hour shift for him to tell me things like he got the mail, how his day was ect. I dont want to sound cruel or meal but I just dont care at this point. We have had a very rocky relationship and I made the wrong decision to care for him about 4 years ago.
Your father doesn't want to move into care.
NO ONE "wants" to move into care.
But for most of us it is understood that is exactly where we WILL move, inevitably.
The only answer for people in need of 24/7 are is several shifts of caregivers, with several people on each shift.
Dr. Laura has a favorite expression: "not everything can be fixed". She is spot on.
Wishing you the best. There are hard decisions coming.
Put him in AL and get your life back.
Your situation is not sustainable, and the time to act is now. You deserve better than this. Start now to find a nice placement for Dad, whether he likes it or not, he's not making the decisions any more, you are.
Get him out as soon as you possibly can and don't second guess yourself.
My dad passed 5 months ago after living with my husband and I for 3.5 years, but I was beginning to need to find concrete options to allow my husband and I to have a normal life again, even if he still lived in our home. Others around me were telling me it "was time" to place him somewhere, but I frequently checked in with myself to determine the state of my mental health. If I could do it for another day, then I was still ok to continue. When that answer was "no" then the change would have been swift an imminent.
In hindsight, I find peace that I allowed dad to stay until his time here was over...but even if that hadn't been the case, I know he ultimately would have been ok and would understand (at a spiritual level, even if his brain wasn't capable of understanding). Whether you and your dad have that relationship doesn't matter... regardless, at a human level, none of us can expect a loved one to give up their life and existence and devote their lives to care for us. He's very lucky and blessed to have had you this long... if you decide "it's time" for you to live your life again, it's okay.
It will be okay.
Im scared to say we were 'lucky' that he had an mental break (most people get sensitive about stuff like that) but it got him out of the home and where he needed to be. NOW the relationship is on my terms. I see him when I want to and if he treats me bad I know I can leave. He has tried numerous times to change the narrative on how things happened but he was never a nice person and I made the mistake of feeling sorry for him. PLEASE save yourself. I know that if it had gone on I would have ended up in the hospital. I have finally started spending time taking care of me and my husband and spending quality time with all the people I missed while he was at home.
It is not cruel to want a life of your own. Its not cruel to feel trapped. Its cruel to YOU to continue.
You tell Dad that you need your privacy.
You tell Dad he needs to move out to assisted living . That you can not be his assistant any longer but that you will assist him in finding a new place to live with an entire staff , and socialization and activities .
This will only get worse the longer he stays.
I grew up in a home where my father guilted my mother into taking her mother in to live with us when she was widowed at a young age. My mother was SO resentful at the situation, living in a small house with zero privacy, that they fought constantly. The atmosphere in the house, while dad worked long hours and was unaware, was horrendous and the stress was unbearable. My childhood was ruined, my mother's life was ruined, and the relationship between the 3 of us was permanently strained.
Based on that nightmare, I vowed to never take my parents in to live with me in their old age. They lived in IL, then AL and then mom went into Memory Care for the last 3 years of her life. I was their advocate for 10 plus years, managing their entire LIVES for them, medical crises, doctor appointments, rehabs, hospitals, surgeries, you name it, I handled it. But I went home to my husband at night and slept in peace and privacy.
My parents had socialization, autonomy, beautiful apartments, great care and fine meals the entire time.
Nobody will ever sell me the bill of goods about "karma" or "forsaking" my parents in their old age. It's just a bunch of nonsense used to justify choices made that do not take BOTH party's lives into consideration.
Get dad placed asap and don't buy into anyone telling you it's wrong. It's not. It's a win-win situation for both of you.
You are ALSO entitled to live a life of happiness, my friend.
Some things you can do are to take one day at a time, hire help for 3-4 hours on the weekend when you need it, maybe start yoga/acupuncture or some kind of calming treatment for yourself.
Please remember you are not alone and many of us are caring for sick parents in our homes. They never asked to get sick with this awful disease and karma will reward us for being helpful, compassionate, loving family members.
Most of us on here are frustrated, scared, being financially sucked dry and a litany of other destructive things by a decision we either made, were forced to make, made through guilt, deception, coercion, again a litany of reasons. Saying that karma will reward us for being helpful kinda falls in the guilt category and pushes possible lifelong abusive parents onto their child victims. You have no idea what some of these people on here have been put through with the person they took in, some sexually abused, physically, emotionally, financially, some too awful to imagine, saying that karma will reward them is shaming the victim and rewarding the abuser.
2. YOU set the boundaries not him.
3. Caring for someone does NOT mean you have to do the direct caregiving. You are the one that decides the care level and where those care needs are met.
4. If you are gone all day (a 12 hour shift) is the caregiver with him for that entire 12 hours? (I hope dad is paying for the caregiver not you.) Why not have another caregiver for the time while you are home?
Is there an Adult Day Program that he can get involved with? That would get him out of the house for 8 or so hours a few days a week.
I do have to say that the "conversation" that you have mentioned above sounds like the typical conversation someone would have with someone that was at home all day to a person coming home from work. ("I got the mail and how the day was")
If you and dad were told that he should not be living alone but you can not handle the living with someone it might be time to look for another place where cad can get the care, assistance he needs.
A small Group home might be an option.
Assisted Living facility. I think your dad might not have seen an AL facility and it is is not like a "nursing home"
Wit the diagnosis of dementia any place you look make sure they can handle dementia and have a locked unit that he could transition to if he becomes a risk for "eloping". Also just in case make sure they also accept Medicaid in case that has to enter the picture.
If dad is a Veteran there are other option that might work. Check with the local Veterans Assistance Commission and they can help figure out what benefits he may qualify for.
Rober136, one dynamic we see on this forum quite frequently is that of adult children of difficult, absent or abusive parents getting themselves into thoroughly miserable caregiving situations seemingly in the hope of finally “earning” the parents’ love that had been withheld during their childhood. It doesn’t seem to work. 😞
All the best to you as you determine what can work for both you and your father.
Nowhere is it written that we have to take care of our parents. They're supposed to save and plan for their old age. You are too!
Tell dad you will help him find a great place to live. I can't imagine why a 76-year-old man wouldn't want his own life, own friends, people to hang out with, and a home of his own choosing. No nursing home unless doctor orders it. No facility if he can provide better.
If he has no money, there are low-cost senior facilities and he needs to be on a wait list. I wish you luck in extricating yourself from a situation that never should have started.
It really doesn't matter at this point that your father doesn't want to go to a nursing facility, as he really doesn't get a say any more, unless he wants to move into his own place and hire 24/7 care with his own money.
This is YOUR home and you deserve to live in peace and have privacy in your own home.
So time for a come to Jesus meeting with your father to let him know that things are just not working out and that he will have to move out by the end of September.
And if money is an issue with your father he'll have to apply for Medicaid.
I wish you well in taking your life and home back.
If you had such a rocky relationship, why did you take him into your small home? Of course, he is going to want to talk to your after your shift, you live together and that is what people who live together do.
What is your end goal here? Do you want him to move out? Can he move out? Nothing wrong with telling him this isn't working out for you. You just don't want to have to entertain him after an exhausting day, I get it. Would he understand this if you had a heart to heart with him? Could he go out to adult daycare during the day to get him around other so you aren't his sole source of entertainment?