I am so very tired and feel physically sick. My sister and I live with our 85year old mom. Our dad died from lung cancer 12 years ago. We all lived in the same 2 family house. No mom lives upstairs by herself and we live in the bottom half of the building. I work full time and my sis takes care of the house, the errands, the cleaning, mom's doctor's appointments, and the shopping. She does not work. We both try and fit everything in that needs to get done. Not to mention the banking and financial issues which there are many completed issues in. We also are trying to have a semblance of a life. We don't have boyfriends and hardly every go out socially. We do most of the cooking and usually eat with mom most nites. She likes to eat at 5pm, even on weekends. This of late has been becoming problematic for us since firstly we sometimes are not even finished all the errands by then in time to cook or have spent so much time on errands that are now rushing to have meal ready by 5pm. Or we didn't get back from errands until late and had to have late lunch so we are not even hungry at 5pm. But we have dinner with her. We have been putting in a few nites a week for "doing our own thing" as we call it to either not prepare a big meal and/or just take care of what we need to and have a late evening meal alone. We also do this to have space. Our mom has a narcissistic personality, has no friends, and can be very mean. She was always difficult but now has become more so since she does not drive and depends on us for everything. She recently did something against our wishes which caused us and her more directly some great embarrassment. We were so angry about this but did not directly tell her anything. Now here again we just had to tell her that tonite and tmro we won't be eating with her (and don't get us wrong, her refrig is stocked with food and she has all the capabilities to cook). The reason or this is that I am having a horrendously busy day at work and am exhausted and my sister just now returned from a full morninga nd early afternoon of grocery shopping and is just now having lunch and eating at 5pm tonite will be too early and she is also tired. Also we can't eat tmro since we have many errands to do and then home to do outside gardening which we have fallen behind on. So thus we won't be eating with her tonite and tmro. My sister just called me to say mom is crying.
I am sorry to report that mom is losing her control over things since she doesn't drive and since she now has to depend on us for everything and hates that we do things based on our schedule. Please don't think we are prima donnas, we are not. We just have a lot of things to do and we need to prioritize. Mom sometimes wants us to jump and run when she says to for things that are not as important ... it is all about her will and not getting what she wants when she wants it.
I am rambling on here ... but we are just so depressed and tired.
We love our mom, but we can't take her anymore. Being around her 24/7 is a drain on us. My job is killing me and my sister is worn out with chores.
So, the question here really is how do we deal with her crying about us not eating with her every nite and how do we make her understand that we still love her but need our space without hurting her feelings. Thank you for listening.
I don't know how to deal with this. We can't go on like this. We need some space. How do we make mom understand that she
How large is your 2 family home? Is their room to have a bedroom set up for someone such as a nursing student who needs a place to live? She could buy her own food, but you could provide her room for no charge or for a slight utility charge, on the condition that she helps your sister do some household chores and she is available X number of days a week on a pre-arranged schedule to have dinner with your mom. As far is your mom is concerned, this person does not have to be a "helper", but can be described as a friend home you need to help out temporarily. Just an idea.
I reviewed some of your previous posts. Did you go to an elder care attorney back in March when you were planning to? I don't know what your moms funds are but I do know you can write up a personal service agreement that could pay your sister, and if its done correctly it can even pass the Medicaid look back test.
Furthermore, should your mom have to go into Nursing Home utilizing Medicaid, there is a thing called MERP where your state tries to recover some value from and owned home. There are exceptions for disabilities and family who have taken care of an elderly person for more than two years. A member going by "igloo572" has posted extensively on this topic. Go to your avatar, we need to choose MORE and TOOLS will drop down, choose that, then over to the left side, choose the option to look for other members and put igloo572 and the bar. REVIEW her many posts. IF you think something applies to you, ask a new question, start a new thread
My time is so limited since I'm in Cancer treatment that a quick run to the local dollar store is about all I can handle because the chemo making me so sick but Mom would still insist that we had to go out to eat even though the thought/smell of food would make me worse. She would tell me that if I didn't eat she wouldn't eat which I had to hold my ground on that one because I would have gotten sick. Then she would finally eat and then tell me if she ate anymore(which normally would be a bite or two) she would get sick...and she would go into details while I would be turning green about how sick she would get. Finally my siblings got after Mom on this one when some of them witnessed how she talked about getting sick to me. No amount of talking from me would make her stop.
What it was with Mom is she wanted to stay out all day doing things while I couldn't do that. I had tried my best to talk her into going to the Senior Center(they have a bus that would pick her up-she said that since she has a cane they couldn't help her--they have a chair lift plus people on the buss that will help her), also a Widows Club plus other organizations that she could go out and do things. So Mom's not without resources on things to do...she just refuses to do them.
The story here is, your Mom like my Mom is a controlling person and don't give in. She will get worse if you do. I told my siblings that NO more was I doing these little games...and I haven't for over a month now and I feel so much better as you will if you just take a stand along with your sister. It's hard but trust me, after awhile it's such a relief to know that you are doing what is right with yourself. Hugs your way!