Be the bigger person?

You’re being judged. I’d back away from this friend and refuse to engage in conversation about the topic. There’s no point in arguing about it.

If she keeps on about it, insist that she meet you at your parents’ and let her clean up the mess while you watch. She should be the better person, right?

If your parents push you away and yell at you why do even have anything to do the them? Is there more to you and your parents relationship that might be good?

I have always found that when does the honorable thing then you can't go wrong. Maybe that's what your friend meant. A true friend will tell you what they think and maybe they are right, or maybe not. Life is not easy. Try to do your best and think for yourself. In time you might find you were right, or not.

I used to believe the whole blood is thicker than water thing until I joined this forum and encountered people who lived with real family dysfunction - people who have never experienced abusive parents really don't have a clue, it's as simple as that.
I'm sorry they can't be there for you, if you otherwise value this friendship you can try to educate them, or you can choose to compartmentalize your life an never share your family struggles.

Penny,

Why would you think the people here want to knoe or care about what your friend thinks?

How about instead of lamenting and soliciting pity from others, you actually try some of the suggestions the good people in this group have made to you.

Only you can decide if you're going to be in service to your abusive parents.

You are the one who decides how much you're willing to give and none if you don't' want to.

I understand all about abusive parents. You will get no judgment from any person who has them. Certainly none from me.

To tell you honestly, I think you should take a big step back from your parents. Let them reach out to you if they want to.
Then find a good therapist who can help you deal with the feelings of guilt.

As for your "friend". A person like that is no friend at all. I'd tell her to go pound sand and the friendship would be over.

Don't keep people in your life who are not supportive of you. No one needs friends like that.

Be what you want to be.
Do what you want to do.
How do you feel about yourself?
The way you feel about yourself and see yourself is what's important and all that truly matters.
Don't let anyone tell you who you are. You know who you are better than anyone.
You are the only person who gets to decide who and what you are and want to be.
Sometimes you have to let go of people who bring you down and only make you feel terrible. The weight of those people trying to drag you down will drag you down, cut the weight and free yourself.

Tell your friend to take care of your mom. That should shut her pie hole.

And get some new friends.

Your parents are competent adults

They tell you not to enter their property. To do so would be trespassing.

Tell the Social workers/discharge planning office at the hospital what the condition of the home and the purported "caregiver" is.

Leave this in professional hands.

And that is your "best friend".

I would think a lot about this were I you. Either this isn't much of a friend at all, OR she is frustrated with hearing about your woe with the parents. I can't know which is which. She has offered her help, and it is making me think that makes her possibly a "true friend". So I would be thinking a lot about what she said to me. It sounds to me as though, telling your friend about your childhood traumas has made her want to direct you toward a good psychologist.
I think that might be a good idea. Friends listen up to a certain point, but most of us aren't trained or brilliant enough to help people through childhood angst, and it gets tiresome to hear. Friends help friends, but they also learn to laugh a lot and get on with it, even in the tough times.

I would get some help with dealing with your issues. Friends are the last to do it, but a good psychologist will shake you up and get you moved from ruminating about the past, and into the present where you have decisions to make about how involved you wish to be in care of your elder parents.

I sure wish you the best of luck. Old habits are difficult to break, and as unhappy as we might be, the unknown of trying another path is even more scary. It takes great courage to change your life, but it is your one life and you deserve to make it a good one.

If your dad is one of those folks who is charming when there are outsiders around, take your friend with you to clean out dad's squalor.

It's a win/win. Either she will see what you are talking about in terms of his impossible behavior OR he'll allow the cleanup to proceed because she is there.

I think your friend misused "Be the Bigger Person". (And I think the phrase is "Better Person") It does not mean you go and clean your parents house out when you have been told to stay away. It means you walk away. The Better/Bigger Person, walks away from a fight. A Bigger/Better Person will do for a friend even when they have never done for them. My MIL was mad at her sister because she felt she had done enough for her sister. Sister was asking for more and MIL didn't feel she should because sister never gave back. My FIL told her to be The Better/Bigger Person and do it for her.

So in your situation, you step away from your parents and tell yourself you are not doing anything for them ever again. Let Sis do it all. But then you get the call "we need help". You perfectly have the right to say NO. You sort of want to teach them a lesson that they hurt u not wanting ur help before. But you are the "The Bigger/Better person" because you choose to help them.

For now, you step back. I know its hard but thats what your parents want. You need to honor that. Just tell them when they need you call. Sometimes being the Bigger/better person is knowing when to walk away and just wait for something to happen where you can tell the powers that be that your parents can no longer live on their own.

Sorry for your troubles, both with your friend and with your parents.

Take a break from your "friend". She's not very helpful, to say the least. Don't reach out. Just let her drop. Or you can forgive her for her ignorance, but I'd limit the topics of conversation. Don't talk to her about your parents. Ever.

Are your parents competent? If so, back off. Take a vacation. Turn your phone off. If there are things they are depending on you for, let them know you're done doing X and they need to find another way to deal with it. You should do this calmly and matter of factly, not angrily. Set the boundary. Agree with their desire to have you not do what you think (or know!) needs doing. Let them suffer the consequences of their crappy behavior.

If they're not competent, you can still back off but may instead need to keep an eye out. Find others to fill the needs that really need to be dealt with so you don't have to be berated for trying to help.

Best of luck.

If your parents are cognizant then they can live the way they want to live.
If they are not cognizant then maybe you can do something.
Since mom is in rehab talk to the Social Worker and discharge planner. Tell them that mom can not return home as it is unsafe, unhealthy. (photos may help if that is possible)
You can report dad's living conditions to APS and they can follow up on it. Use phrases like:
Unsafe, Self neglect, Unhealthy.

One of the difficult things to understand as a caregiver, as a "child" to aging parents is you can't fix everything.
You can try to make things better. But you can't do everything. Pick your battles.

And since your parent do not want your help maybe back off.
Maybe the little bit of help that you do give makes them think they can do more. When you stop doing what you are doing they may realize that they do need help.

Penny,

I understand your need to vent. Everyone needs a shoulder to lean on once in awhile.

If you share your feelings with others, they will most likely tell you what they think about the situation.

If you don’t want to know what they are thinking, then don’t share anything with them.

You don’t need anyone else’s approval for your thoughts on how you decide to handle a situation.

Does your friend know your dad’s situation? Ask her if she is interested in trading places with you. That might shut her up.

Lots of people are great at telling others what to do, even though they have absolutely no experience in handling these kinds of situations.

If you already know that you will not be happy with her input, then refrain from commenting on any further issues. Her responses will only be a source of frustration, so it’s best to avoid bringing up any controversial topics.

Wouldn’t it be nice if parents would be agreeable to hiring professional organizers? I actually know someone who started doing this as a living. Her clients have told her that she changed their lives. She’s really great at organizing other people’s mess!

Funny I should read your post this afternoon. Just had a really crappy time today with my often difficult adult son. He has a birth defect and has lifelong consequences, not his fault, but it often doesn’t make him any easier to live with. We learned many years ago that our friends and family are all limited in how much they want to him about him, especially where the hard parts come in. Don’t discuss your parents with unsupportive friends. Though we all need a place to vent and talk, you know that well is dry, so stop seeking water there. Make the best caregiving decisions you can that work for your well-being, the ones that leave you with peace. I wish you well

Thank you and I am sorry for your situation

Penny,

Just don’t take what your friend says to heart. Follow your instincts and do what is most comfortable for you.

In other words, live and let live. She’s entitled to her opinion regardless of whether you find it offensive or annoying.

Don’t waste your time and energy on trying to convince people to see your point of view if they are close minded.

Honestly, I don’t expect or care if others agree with me or not. We gel with some people and we clash with others. That’s life!

The most important thing is to be at peace with whatever you decided upon. No one else’s opinions should matter enough to get under our skin. Be true to yourself, regarding your own personal beliefs.

My experience (and that and $5 will get you a latte at Starbucks lol) is that when it comes to caregiving, people will always tell you to be the bigger person when they aren't the one doing the caregiving. It is what YOU do with it that matters. And ultimately you have to decide

In our situation - our flying monkey is my FIL's sister. Who lives over 10 hours away and hasn't seen him in more than 10 years. But I promise you she knows more about taking care of him than we do - and she - who has what she considers a great relationship with him - will tell my DH and SIL in particular that they should just suck it up and love on their dad because he won't be around forever (because he is HER hero, and she likes to pretend that she isn't aware of what kind of father he was - hint: the narcissistic abusive kind)

Very recently - enough that it is still pretty raw - she overstepped big time. She basically accused them of not taking something seriously enough. But she only knew what he was telling her - and what he was telling her wasn't the truth. It was a story from the mind of 90 year old man with dementia - who is very unhappy that he had to be moved to a nursing home. She accused DH and SIL of not loving their father and of not ensuring that he was well taken care of. And stated that clearly SHE was the only one that was concerned about his welfare.

Except she said all of that to ME.

With their permission - I simply and clearly stated that it was very easy for her to have a quick phone conversation with him from 10 hours away and feel like she knew everything there was to know. But SHE could walk away anytime she chose if they had any issues or problems. The same couldn't be said for my DH and SIL. She considers talking to him and interacting with him a blessing. DH and SIL consider it a responsibility. She has a very different relationship with her brother than his children do - and she just wants HIM to feel loved and special - while he treats his own children and grandchildren and everyone else around him terribly. And my favorite. "You should love him and respect him - even if he has NEVER SHOWN AND NEVER SHOWS YOU LOVE AND RESPECT. He's YOUR FATHER! He deserves your love and respect!"

That she chooses to believe everything he says as gospel and then accuses his children of not doing right by him when she doesn't have the full picture is problematic. And I basically warned her if that is the case, maybe talking to him all the time isn't good for either of them - because as his dementia progresses he is going tell her more and more outlandish things about the nursing home and about us, that if she continues to believe, will cause us bigger and bigger problems. (though I didn't say it at the time - the implication was that if she continued to cause problems - we had no issue blocking her number and password protecting access to him if we needed to because she was agitating him)

At first she blustered and said I misunderstood and she never said any of those things. Problem - she wrote them down. We all read them. I told her I allowed for tone and allowed for her to correct her statements and she doubled down. So I doubled down. Reminded her that SHE wasn't the caregiver and she had no idea how hard it was to actually be the ones who were here doing it all.

She thinks we are terrible people. We know it. We've made peace with it. But you know what. That's her problem. She wants access to him - she has to be nice to us. And I'm sure that kills her. Because she closed the door on really knowing us as people in favor of believing every word he says.

Some people are just judgmental. And don't know you well enough to know the truth. You know the truth. You are not a bad person! If they think you are, they don't know you.

I'll leave you with my favorite Dr. Seuss quote:

"Those who mind don't matter. And those matter don't mind."

This is so sad I am done with this forum unfortunately.

Such wonderful people (hugs)

I don't want be afraid to post anything and scroll down to see a hateful message, it's just jarring

hope to find a different place, thank all of you that have given me such good advice!

I read all the posts, and I couldn’t see anything that was ‘a hateful message’. Just one phrase in Burnt’s attempt to be helpful, suggesting an alternative to “lamenting and soliciting pity from others”. Perhaps an exaggeration, but you can see what she meant. If you are this sensitive, perhaps stay away from the topic with everyone.

Penny, don't go. Really.

If you find a post hurtful or mean-spirited, report it.

We are here for you, we listen. Some folks are a bit...unvarnished, but just scroll on past.

I have to tell you, most other elder care support boards tend to the "they're your parents, you have to do EVERYTHING you possibly can to support them. I think folks here on AgingCare are more realistic.

((((Hugs)))).

One thing most families have in common- they’re complicated.
Once I accepted that my family is full of individuals who have their own personal set of values which makes each of them prioritize different things, accepting my role in my family became so much more clear & easy to do.
It sounds like “be the bigger person” is a reminder for your friend of what she values & maybe ask her sometime about what that phrase means to her.
When I was married, I would preface my conversations with my husband with “just venting” or “need advice” perhaps it would be helpful to do something similar with your friend & explain that sometimes you just need someone to vent to, other times you might need help problem solving.

I think your parents should be bigger or better persons.
And how can you if they put you down berate you become bigger person if it will only make you feel small.
I think you need to work on self esteem, develop confidence so they will not treat you like that, then you can decide how to help them.

oh no why did I come back here.