Hello I'm new here and I don't want to seem like I'm whining or anything, but I need some advice.. I am 26 year old and I am taking care of my 71 year old grandmother.. I am the only one who has been taking care of her since I was 14 years old when everyone moved out. I do the cooking, cleaning, laundry , working, making her doctors appointments, medication, house and food shopping ,making meals etc.
I do not get out and have anytime for my self, the only time I have for my self is at work and at night when she is in bed. During the day before work and during my lunch break I'm making sure she is taken care of. As soon as I walk in the door the first thing she asks is what's for dinner. What are you cooking? If I sit down for a millisecond she starts throwing a fit telling me how I'm just like my mother. (whom I'm nothing like..)
If I'm even sick she tells me there's nothing wrong and that I need to get up and quit being lazy. Half my paycheck even goes to her, and if I don't give her enough, she starts to throw a fit and once again telling me that I'm like my mother and gets pissed off. And everything revolves around the two dogs that we have. Every moment I am not working and that I am home I spend it with her.
Trying to get her to take a bath is a chore. She can walk and do things for herself but she calls me to do everything for her. If I don't do it the first time she will ignore me and not speak to me for days at a time, especially if I want to do something if I go and do it, she will throw a fit and not speak to me for weeks at a time. I myself suffer from depression heavily and her actions do not help. I do anything and everything I can for this woman and she's extremely cruel to me. She lies to her other daughter that I don't do anything, And that all I do is stay in my room. Everyone believes her and people tell me I just need to suck it up because I owe her everything because she raised me from a baby... I don't know what to do.. I feel stuck... and no, I am not putting her in a nursing home or anything.
If I try to speak with her about these problems, she throws a fit and starts yelling about how she gave up her life for me. She volunteers me for everything including babysitting everyone else's kids when I have a full time job.. I get dragged and guilt tripped into everything. Anything I say I want to do in life like have kids my dream job, etc she puts me down and says I'll never do any of it. and that I'd be a terrible mother and all. All my friends are getting married having kids and graduating from college and getting their dream jobs ... I feel like I'm stuck and can't do anything right in her eyes...
We can sort this out. What would you like to happen? How dependent on your grandmother financially are you, or, are you at all?
She is using guilt to keep you in this situation. You need to set some goals. Do you have any legal authority. Who does? That or those persons need to step up. This is sounding like indentured servitude to me.
I hope I have not shamed her in any way by my behavior of others....
My OTHER grandmother used to say " You can either serve as a wonderful example or a horrible warning".
Wise words from lovely ladies.
I did NOT give up my life for my children. They were the reason I existed. My life was being their mom and now Nonny to their kids. A gift of love that will hopefully go on forever.
Whose house are you both living in? Is it grannies house, and that’s why you give her half your paycheck? For rent? For all you do for her, it sounds like she should be paying you, or at least living rent free.
71 may seem ancient to you, but it’s actually pretty young for someone to need all the help you’re giving. Is grannie disabled? In a wheelchair? Been diagnosed with dementia? Has she always been mean and demanding? Do you (or her doctor)think she’s actually incapable of living on her own due to physical limitations? Or do you feel its more a case that you to do all these things for her, so why should she do them herself? You just fell into the roll when everybody else bolted, and she took advantage of the situation?
She may have “given up her life for you” (no normal loving Mom or Grannie would ever say that, by the way), but now it’s time to say “Thank you Grannie for all you’ve done for me. Now it’s time for me to do things for myself.” You need to make concrete plans to remove yourself from the house (if it’s grannies house). Tell her doctor that you will be moving out and enlist their help and suggestions in getting a few hours of home care to clean, and make her dinner etc. if she really needs that. You could still visit and take her to appointments (if you wish), but you need you extract yourself from under her thumb. A surgical “thumbectomy” is my diagnosis. Please come back to the forum as more people can advise on how to do it, once we know more about her Actual physical limitations and the housing situation.
You've been robbed of your life, your self esteem, basically everything that matters. Your grandma is holding you hostage, not with a firearm but the weapons of guilt and lies. You have it within your power to take it back.
Midkid and Sunnygirl gave you some great advice. Take it!
YOU ARE AMAZING.
YOU ARE AMAZING.
YOU ARE AMAZING....
Get it?
You've been CG for granny since she was 59? I'm 62 and I cannot FATHOM putting any of my family in this situation.
Honey--you need help--yesterday. Granny is eating you alive and ruining any chance you have for a NORMAL LIFE.
Please come back with more info about family dynamics and living situation. It's hard when someone just posts that they are frustrated and angry. We need details to be able to help you.
In the meantime--call AAA (agency on aging) and APS and report your granny as an endangered elder, which she is, since you are overwhelmed and no longer capable of caring her.
You have NOTHING to be sorry for. NOTHING is "owed" granny. Life doesn't work that way. We care for those we love, we raise them to be INDEPENDENT and then we let them fly. I have 5 kids. They are all independent and remarkable individuals. And they owe me NOTHING but the simplest respect. They don't even owe me love.
YOU need to get out of this completely and find a life.
Guilt is the primary "force" in people who cannot get what they want by being decent and nice. It's so subtle and sly--you walk away and think "why the heck did I say I'd do such and so"? Guilt. Works amazingly well.
I, too, am sometimes accused of being "just like so and so" and it's NEVER a nice person. YOU are YOU. Not your mother.
BTW, she's putting you down b/c she's terrified you are going to figure her out and leave her. Keeping you down and depressed--keeps you in stasis and believing her--and you WON'T get those things as long as she is in your life.
You have value. You have worth. Granny is ill, mentally and while you cannot fix THAT--you CAN fix a lot of other stuff.
PLEASE see if you can meet with a therapist, or a group therapy.
But, going forward--you MUST get granny out of your life.
I do hope you come back. You will have more info and better advice than you can handle.
You need this today. {{Hugs}}00000