My mother suffered a stroke that left her paralyzed in 2020. Two years later, she is still paralyzed and unable to function independently, she requires support from myself and my sibling. My mother has always suffered from Bipolar Disorder and Depression and constantly takes it out on myself and my brother. As a child, my mother would hit me and criticize me every second she could. I'm spending so much of my life taking care of her currently and she still manages to treat me poorly and say hurtful things to me. It's exhausting to take care of someone who is always being rude and hurtful. She lacks empathy for her family and is constantly complaining that we are poor caregivers when we are doing so much for her. It's exhausting and becoming more difficult to mange.
The latter years I gave up my life to make sure she was cared for and was safe. My husband went to work, came home and let me lay down for an hour...that's been the past 3 years.
I was the one who got the abuse, nasty comments, eye rolls, saying she couldn't wait to get the F out of here. The sole carer. I had no respite as she wouldn't allow it.
Now she is in a nursing home being nasty to everyone in there. I called her on the phone, I got her nasty attitude and she tried to hang up on me but couldn't manage it, luckily I heard her tell the manager she didn't want the phone call, I was giving her abuse and calling her a f****r.
Oobviously not true but I'm glad I heard it as it lessons the guilt for me to walk away.
She was jealous when I got married a few years ago, she divorced when she was my age. I believe her nastiness is a mix of dementia and harboured resentment towards me over the years.
I'm now trying to heal and go forward with the life I deserve with my husband.
My advice to you is get away from this situation, you deserve peace in your own life. Just because they are our parents doesn't mean their life is more valuable or precious than ours.
One last thing, if ever a phrase makes me want to scream it's "caring for your loved one is a rewarding experience " NO it bloody well isn't - it's exhausting!
This is after the fact because you ended up having to put your mother in a NH, but I'm going to say it for everyone else.
You say your mother would not allow any respite care services and refused to have anyone but you doing for her.
It wasn't her choice. So many people become enslaved in an abusive situation like you had because they make the mistake of allowing the elder to be in charge and make decisions. Family caregivers allow the abusive behavior and threat of tantrums to keep THEM in line and obedient to their elderly family member's demands.
That's not how it works. This is how caregiving works. It's done on the caregiver's terms, not the care recipient's.
The elder who refuses care because they only want a certain person to do it all should only get these choices.
-Do without care (depending on how much care they need)
-Placement in a managed care facility.
These are the only choices that should ever be given. I can't tell you how many elders I have had to tell that nothing gets a person a one-way ticket to a nursing home faster than being stubborn.
You don't allow a needy elder with dementia be in charge of anything more than what they want for lunch and sometimes not even that.
Also, I can say from personal experience as an in-home caregiver for almost 25 years and a family elder caregiver for several years that I have never had a "rewarding" moment. Not on the job and not on the job at home.
I do not think of my Mother as such, she truly never attempted to be a parent.
My view is simple, as if she were a relative that has no one else but do not put yourself in a position to cause emotional or financial harm to you, she certainly would not for you.
Skilled Nursing.
PLEASE let someone else care for her , someone that she has not hurt physically, emotionally.
Have a sit down with your sibling ASAP and let them know you are DONE and work on an alternate plan. Hired help at home or a nursing home. Either way she pays and you go back to your life.
i can tell you my strategy. eliminate as many problems as possible (delegate work where possible; solve admin problems now, so they don’t land on you later; make plans for emergencies)…
goal: to get your freedom back, and to be unavailable for abuse.
I have a question. In your response to sp19690, you say that it's possible to have a great parents even if they were abusive.
No, it's not possible. I will tell you something about adults who were abused children. None ever remember the good times. Only the abuse because the abuse eclipses any good times there ever were.
I don't remember any good times from my childhood. Not a one. Especially holidays and birthdays. My mother always put on holidays and birthdays but they weren't worth the suffering she created around them.
An abusive parent can make sure their children have their basic needs of food, shelter, and clothing met. No parent gets points for doing what the law demands of them.
I'm truly interested in hearing how an abusive parent can also be a great parent because I cannot imagine how that can be.
https://www.agingcare.com/articles/elders-abusing-their-adult-children-or-caregivers-137122.htm
https://www.agingcare.com/articles/setting-boundaries-with-parents-who-are-abusive-142804.htm
https://www.agingcare.com/articles/caregiver-fix-it-mentality-leads-to-burnout-152629.htm
I read the first article and it's absolute crap. The person who wrote it was having a hard time because her mother who was in a nursing home was verbally abusive to her. Being able to walk away and leave it to the nursing home staff is very different than having to deal with the person yourself.
The 'Don't take it personally' really helps. Please. What a fool. This article really gives no advice at all other than get out of the situation and don't take it personally.
I'll tell you something about caregiver's being abused by their care recipients and I say it after almost 25 years of service in this industry.
Never let a care client ever get comfortable enough with you that they will feel free to lash out or behave abusively. Never allow abuse from an elderly parent or "loved one" to establish. Sometimes mom and dad have to be put in their place too. Even when there's dementia. The caregiver (even when they are the adult children) have to maintain control of the situation at all times. The same way parents have to with the kids. When they are not able to, that's when it's time for placement.
-Do you want to maintain contact? Distant or a relationship?
-How do you manage your feelings? Keep yourself safe?
-What can/should/must you provide, to align with your own values, within your financies & within the law.
If you can walk away.
If not possible right away get some therapy to get over abuse.
Detaching, ignoring, saying no over and over and never ever explain yourself could be a good start.
Ignoring is a very effective coping mechanism. It works better than constantly saying no. Not explaining yourself or explaining yourself once, is also effective.
Therapy is always a good idea.
unfortunately, many people are in a tricky position:
they don’t want the State to take over, because although the parent is abusive, they want the parent to get the best care possible and that won’t be possible if the State takes guardianship.
i have friends in many countries. in some countries, if the State takes over, your LO will get awful care. hence some of my friends kindly continue helping (whether the parent is at home or facility). and they continue to get abused, because every contact = abuse.
'Shut the h*ll up nobody cares what you think.'
'Your abusive behavior will not be tolerated'. (Walk away and follow with a period of ignoring).
'We (you and your brother) do not have to help you or take care of you. If you drive us away with your abusive and berating behavior, you will have to go to a nursing home'.
I've been in homecare for a long time and am the sole caregiver to my mother who sunds very much like yours.
DO NOT tolerate her abuse for one second. When she acts up, you completely ignore her. Do not speak to her, do not help her, do not get something for her. Nothing.
One of my mother's favorite abusive passive/aggressive past-times was constantly complaining about every meal. This was a way to be snide and verbally abusive to me indirectly. One day she started up so I collected her plate without a word and threw it in the garbage. I had to do this a few times before she caught on that this would be the regular response from me. Ever been sent to bed with no supper as a punishment when you were a kid? Same thing.
She will either learn to keep her abusive behaviors to herself or she will have to be placed. Don't play her games and do not put up with her crap.
I had wonderful parents. Had I had abusive parents I would have avoided then when I grew up, and would have left them in the hands of the state, which is where many good people WITHOUT CHILDREN at all end up.
That's just me. Many others feel differently. But people don't usually change. And there is nothing we can do to make them change. And to my mind we have our one life. We have two chances at family--the one we are born to and the one we create ourselves.
I wish you the very best and I am so sorry you are in this situation.
As a member says, you may need to have a Jesus moment with Mom. COVID is here to stay need to get our lives back. I would have her re-evaluated for therapy. You can ask her doctor to order it. If therapy feels she can improve to the point of having some independence with a little help then you lay your cards down. Tell her she needs to improve because you are not going to be her caregiver for the rest of her life. You are not going to take her nastiness anymore either so she either improves or she will be placed in a facility she can afford.
Look up the "Grey Rock Method" you may be able to use it when dealing with her. Set Boundries. Do nothing for her she can do for herself no matter how long it takes her to accomplish the task. And when she gets started about you as caregivers, tell her you can always call APS and tell them you no longer can care for her and let them take over. Then the State takes care of her and you can wash ur hands. Walk away when she gets started. SHE NEEDS YOU MORE THAN YOU NEED HER. She needs to understand this.
You will never get a thank you or even a deathbed “I really did love you”.
The “but it’s your mother!” does not apply when she wasn’t a mother to you at all. Birthing a child does not a mother make.
She abused this poor man (who is now over 70 himself) and is the only person who can make him feel like garbage. My heart breaks when I hear what she has done and said to him--even at his age.
She really has good reason to fear a placement that she'll hate, and he will put her in the nicest place he can find...not some rat hole.
When it happens, I just plan to be there for him, because her anger might just kill him. He is a still a wily little 4 yo to her, even though he's been supremely successful and a great asset to the world. Her hatred and nastiness is so ugly.
BUT--he won't do anything that would hurt her. She'll be furious, but it is what it is. She can afford the nicest place imaginable, but she'll hate it.
Truthfully, in our situation, there's NOTHING he can do to not make her angry, when the time comes to move her.
If you are only 25, then your mom has to be pretty young as well, so there's probably realistically no reason that she can't be doing things for herself.
My husband had a massive stroke at the age of 48, which left him paralyzed on his right side, unable to walk, talk, read and write. With much therapy he learned how to walk again with a brace on his leg, and he learned how to do everything else with the use of only his left arm/hand. And even though his speech remained very limited, and he never could write again, he functioned very well for many years even worked a part time job at one point, and stayed by himself while I worked fulltime. And he remained paralyzed until his death at the age of 72.
Perhaps your mom needs more therapy as it sounds like she's taking advantage of you and your brother. No where is it written that a child has to take care of their parent(s) especially a parent that has been and continues to be abusive in anyway.
So please stop taking the abuse!!! You(and your brother)deserve SO much better! You and your brother need to present a united front and tell mom that you're no longer going to be her whipping posts.
I'm thinking she is more than capable and is just using the 2 of you.
After my husband had his massive stroke, and went to rehab, the very first day I had brought him some of my mashed potatoes that he loved and was in the process of feeding them to him, when the nurse walked in and basically bit my head off for doing so. She told me that he was going to have to learn how to feed himself and as long as I continued to baby him, he would never learn.
I learned very quickly to let my husband try for himself before I jumped in to help him. It was a great lesson for me to learn. I'm hoping it's one you and your brother can learn as well.
Your wrote that your sibling also provides care. How does this work? Is she in her own home and one or the other of you is always there to take care of her?
I think it's quite impossible to provide THIS level of in home care for a mother who was and is continuing to be abusive towards you. At 25 and suffering from compassion fatigue now, it may only continue to get worse as time goes by. It's very hard to care for a parent who's abusive in the first place, never mind under these circumstances where she's paralyzed. I think you've already gone above & beyond the call of duty caring for her for 2+ years. It's okay to say you've had enough and ask for help now. There's no shame in that, and in saying it requires a team of people working 24/7 to give your mother the level of care she requires.
Best of luck!