(((((((sas))))))) Welcome to the club. You are not alone. There could be a website devoted to entirely to uncaring, bullying, critical siblings. You say that this is not new to you. The patterns that develop early in a family get played out with more drama at certain times, one of them being when a parent gets old and needs extra care. The bullying sibs take this opportunity to criticise the care/caregiver. In some cases, one of the bullies is also the "golden child" favoured by the parent, which makes life particularly hard for the caregiver. I have been accused of "having a vested interest in my mother's demise", while the one who has accused me is the one who has received financial favours in the past and who has openly stated that she wants all the inheritance. Go figure. She is not a healthy person and it looks like your sibs aren't either. I think you are right - limit interaction and let it be. Since the last volley of accusations, I have had no contact with my sis. I feel no obligation to keep her informed about mother, or to communicate with her in any way. I will see that she is informed if mother becomes seriously ill and/or when mother dies; however, that may not be for sometime as mother is pretty physically healthy. In the meanwhile, I do what I have to to protect myself, and along the way, develop a tougher skin.
Take care of you. Caregiving is hard enough without the extra interference. Pat yourself on the back for doing a good job and do something good for you - just for you - today.
I may have read "sisters" wrong. They are your mother's sisters not your sibs? It is the same general picture in either case. They are not healthy and the flack they create can be ignored as much as possible. I know it adds to the stress. ((((((hugs))))) And they wonder why many caregivers die before their care receivers...
It is a cover up for their guilt so they don't have to feel it. Do they really think the average 93 year old is up for long distance travel (sure, some are, but not many!) let alone 93 years old with Alz/dementia?? If they do, they are not thinking, and just not wanting to feel what they should feel.
Thats a short question with a lot of details that could be left out. I have a similar short story and first thing comes to my mind when dealing with my sibs is a little less talk and a little more action. Otherwise they can kiss it. lol
Your mom is 93. They need to do the traveling. At 68 my mother decided to just stop coming to Florida to visit her grand daughters. She was perfectly healthy. I told her, well I guess you don't want to see your grand daughters do you. And I left it at that. It was just her manipulating and trying to get her way. She still doesn't visit but that is not my fault. And now they hardly know her. Her choice, her results.
Yes, you read it right, they are my sisters. Boy, do I feel isolated but this is helpful. Please feel free to tell me more about your situations, if you don't mind, and not because misery loves company because I am a therapist, which makes this all the more ridiculous.
Your mother was staying with her long-term companion in his (?) home. He then fell ill and needed to recover from surgery. Your mother was, because of her dementia, becoming extremely disruptive to this process. The companion's children insisted on her removal to an alternative home and, failing your sister's prompt arrival to deal with it herself, moved her to stay with her twin - presumably without your sister's agreement to that. The twin, also presumably, is in no position to care for a sister with dementia. Your sister took the companion's children (and, regrettably, the companion himself) severely to task over their treatment of your mother; and since then relations have broken down, apparently irreparably.
I'm sorry if this hurts your feelings, but you are exactly the kind of uninvolved accusatory sibling who makes caregivers lives ten times more stressful than they are anyway. Your sister has serious responsibilities to manage, caring for an elderly lady with dementia whose finances also sound quite complex, and your contribution to this is to call various agencies, pose hypothetical questions to them, and use their hypothetical answers to give your sister an even harder time.
What is your plan for serving your mother's best interests? I don't happen to agree with deceiving people with dementia as a means of keeping them quiet, but your own approach of telling your mother about the condo, for example, which your sister had avoided doing because it distresses her, is not clever. You're not there to explain it to her forty times a day, are you? As for the mirage of your mother's returning to Florida at some point; well, there will be tests to do, that part is true. The rest of it amounts to: your mother will be able to "go home" once she's well enough, if possible. The point being that as dementia sufferers age, less and less is still possible. Would you care to devise a way of making your mother understand that?
You think your sister should ship your mother back to Florida? - and, what, care for her long distance? Move her own family down there? Bring the companion to live with her? Commute?
Contact with you is important to your mother's quality of life; that's why it's been reinstated. Contact with the companion is a "nice to have" - if he lived here, or she lived there, perhaps there'd be less standing in their way. But compared to your mother's substantial care needs, the companion is not going to get a look in. I'm sorry for that, I too tear up over late-blooming relationships; but from your sister's point of view it's a deeply unwelcome complication with a family she's already fallen out with: how hard do you expect her to try to make it happen?
I'm sorry to disagree with you so bluntly. All I can say is: you try it. You seem to speak from the perspective of someone who has never come into close, daily contact with dementia.
Why do they think you're holding her hostage? Because you don't bring her to see them more often? I know they can't expect her to travel across the country by herself. Could it be something that your mother told them that is making them think you're the bad guy?
I have a brother whose family lives about an hour away. They rarely come to visit. My brother calls occasionally. My mother feels it is my place to drive out to see them. If I say no, she starts in on how I should feel that I need and want to do this. She feels it is my responsibility to reach out to the family. It is something that no one in my family has ever done outside me. So I get the blame that she doesn't see my brother more often. I drive her out sometimes, but they never seem happy to see us. My mother is ready to leave in an hour or two, so I wonder why bother.
Take care of you. Caregiving is hard enough without the extra interference. Pat yourself on the back for doing a good job and do something good for you - just for you - today.
That kind of accusation should be treated with the derision it deserves.
Your mother was staying with her long-term companion in his (?) home. He then fell ill and needed to recover from surgery. Your mother was, because of her dementia, becoming extremely disruptive to this process. The companion's children insisted on her removal to an alternative home and, failing your sister's prompt arrival to deal with it herself, moved her to stay with her twin - presumably without your sister's agreement to that. The twin, also presumably, is in no position to care for a sister with dementia. Your sister took the companion's children (and, regrettably, the companion himself) severely to task over their treatment of your mother; and since then relations have broken down, apparently irreparably.
I'm sorry if this hurts your feelings, but you are exactly the kind of uninvolved accusatory sibling who makes caregivers lives ten times more stressful than they are anyway. Your sister has serious responsibilities to manage, caring for an elderly lady with dementia whose finances also sound quite complex, and your contribution to this is to call various agencies, pose hypothetical questions to them, and use their hypothetical answers to give your sister an even harder time.
What is your plan for serving your mother's best interests? I don't happen to agree with deceiving people with dementia as a means of keeping them quiet, but your own approach of telling your mother about the condo, for example, which your sister had avoided doing because it distresses her, is not clever. You're not there to explain it to her forty times a day, are you? As for the mirage of your mother's returning to Florida at some point; well, there will be tests to do, that part is true. The rest of it amounts to: your mother will be able to "go home" once she's well enough, if possible. The point being that as dementia sufferers age, less and less is still possible. Would you care to devise a way of making your mother understand that?
You think your sister should ship your mother back to Florida? - and, what, care for her long distance? Move her own family down there? Bring the companion to live with her? Commute?
Contact with you is important to your mother's quality of life; that's why it's been reinstated. Contact with the companion is a "nice to have" - if he lived here, or she lived there, perhaps there'd be less standing in their way. But compared to your mother's substantial care needs, the companion is not going to get a look in. I'm sorry for that, I too tear up over late-blooming relationships; but from your sister's point of view it's a deeply unwelcome complication with a family she's already fallen out with: how hard do you expect her to try to make it happen?
I'm sorry to disagree with you so bluntly. All I can say is: you try it. You seem to speak from the perspective of someone who has never come into close, daily contact with dementia.
I have a brother whose family lives about an hour away. They rarely come to visit. My brother calls occasionally. My mother feels it is my place to drive out to see them. If I say no, she starts in on how I should feel that I need and want to do this. She feels it is my responsibility to reach out to the family. It is something that no one in my family has ever done outside me. So I get the blame that she doesn't see my brother more often. I drive her out sometimes, but they never seem happy to see us. My mother is ready to leave in an hour or two, so I wonder why bother.
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