How do you deal with resentment of being the caregiver for an LO where some of their suffering you are bearing the burden of was due to their own bad life choices? When I say resentment, I mean about things like: partial or complete management of the disease, the running commentary about things pertaining to managing it by nurses, doctors, health insurance, the dialogs that have to be initiated ongoing regarding it in different scenarios, etc.
For example, if an LO smoked their whole life, was urged to quit repeatedly, and then ended up with a disease like emphysema, or lung cancer and you as the caregiver are having to manage and monitor all the oxygen, breathing treatments, medical appointments, other treatments because the LO cannot due to other medical comorbidities like memory loss, etc.? Does anyone find it is hard to have sympathy for someone who invested in destroying their own body, and then is dealing with the fall out of their bad choices? Do you ever feel resentment over being ensnared into ongoing complicated health care management that was at least to some degree the fault of the LO who made bad life choices? Or, feel like as a caregiver you have become an LO's personal poor life choices janitor cleaning up and managing the mess they have made, where you are missing out on living your own life? (Especially if you are an only child, have no family or those that refuse to help, or are handling care for a high needs / complex caregiving case like dialysis, Alzheimer's, rare disease requiring isolation or uncommon sanitation measures etc.), where you can't just have a local CNA from an agency swing by to watch Mom for an hour or two for you to "go get a coffee".
Caregiving is complicated almost always with mixed emotions. Many do love their LO so usually swiftly removing an LO care recipient from their care is not anyone's intent especially if the LO is otherwise nice and grateful for the care. Just wondering if anyone deals with ongoing resentment of being pulled into management of conditions that exist in part or completely due to an LO's bad prior life choices. Kind of seems unfair that caregivers should miss out on their own lives in dedication to ongoing cleaning up of the messes LO's made. Or be subject to hearing about / having to talk about it / address it around the clock everyday.
If you are in the situation, how do you deal with the resentment and grief over your life being monopolized by the LO's care requirements and ongoing discussions about them required? What about the mixed emotions? Like, let's say your LO is not a monster and is grateful, but you still have resentment over the LO's poor life choices and how it is eclipsing your life continually. Things like paying for counseling, etc., are out of reach. Nowhere near enough money to afford that when shouldering the burden of what the insurance is not covering. What do you do on a personal basis to self-manage?
Thanks.
I read thru the posting threads and it sounds like your frustration with your Mom not taking good care of her health is multiplied tenfold by the effort you are giving to advocate for her getting quality care at the hospital.
I think it would help immensely to call the local Hospice agency and have them come out and assess your Mom. If she qualifies for Hospice, your Mom will get comfort care, a chaplain to visit and talk or pray, (which may be a help to both of you), supplies when she is discharged home, a nurse to come to her home at least once weekly, an aid to come a few times weekly to give baths and diaper changes, hospital bed, O2 supplies, etc. They will bill her Medicare, not her or you directly.
I'm hoping that you'll feel better able to cope with the situation if you have Hospice program in your corner.
I wish you well.
I helped him and I was a ferocious advocate for him. Not an easy position, all things considered. His quality of life improved tremedously on my watch. In fact, enough to go back to the pit my husband and I had rescued him from at his request.
I dealt with it by having strong boundaries, a nerf bat to beat my frustration out on a pillow (which I can not recommend enough), the privacy of my truck to let out the things I wanted to say to him but, would never say because he was old and dying, and last but not least, I prayed to be able to forgive my dad for the poor choices that directly impacted me and for the strength to do the right thing.
You have to let go of the why in these situations and do what your heart leads you to do without losing yourself in the process. Woulda, shoulda, coulda. Didn't, and here you are.
Reading your responses I would caution you to not think oxygen means the end is near. I know a lady that was 5 years dying after oxygen was a daily regiment because of copd and other consequences of life choices. This could be a long haul, so you have to find ways to relieve your resentment and frustration or you could be a statistic.
Come here and vent, heck get into it with some of us if that helps, we all have done that. Find a nerf bat. Scream in your car or cry your eyes out, whatever helps you feel less stressed. You know what lets your steam off.
Every person who's ever been a caregiver has mixed feelings about it. I did it as employment for 25 years. I grew up being parentified by my mother who was very immature and has a long history of untreated mental illness.
It's hard to watch someone's bad life choices, addictions, and lack or helping themselves for their own sake destroy them. This does not mean their family has to go down with them.
I have always told families that I've worked for that caregiving only works when it's done on the caregiver's terms, not the care recipient's.
It has to be on your terms. If this isn't possible, then it always results in resentment and caregiver burnout. No one has to allow the care of a senior family member to monopolize their life or ruin their lives. There are always options. These options are assisted living facilities, nursing homes, memory care, live-in caregivers.
Don't take it on. In reality no one has to.
You may have guilt or feel bad about refusing, but you're an adult and you can deal with these feelings like an adult.
I do actually understand addiction. I had urged her many times to stop the behaviors that led to her compromised state. Accordingly, I provided full support and resources for her to access to break the addictions. She had complete support. She was inconsistent as many with addictions often are. She ended up continuing until a hospitalization where she was told by an MD she would not survive more than a few weeks if she continued. She had to take the advice to live. She did, and I do commend her for doing so.
She may not have much time left (it is appearing that way); so I have made the decision to be with her until the end. Many other caregivers have made that decision as well, so I am asking advice not to place her somewhere but how to get through the moments of resentment that naturally occur in caregivers in situations like this when their life is an around the clock slog of caregiving and matters pertaining to an LO. Caregivers who are in my situation who find ways to self-manage their feelings are handling their feelings like an adult. That is why I am asking advice from caregivers what they do to self-manage difficult moments.
I think it’s normal for caregivers to estimate how long they will be in the trenches, or how long they even CAN be in the trenches. I did that when I was taking care of my father. I underestimated how long I would be caring for him by a couple of years. However, his need for caregiving (quadriplegia after a fall) wasn’t as a result of discrete, bad choices so I didn’t have that element to cope with psychologically.
How long do you think you can last?
Realistically due to the condition of her lungs, I am going to be honest in saying I doubt she would survive another hospitalization. The MDs all say her lungs are horribly damaged. She is being released on oxygen (never had to have that before). However, we have been here a month at the hospital now and she has been quite unstable. Obviously I am not sure how long she would have. What I do know is we are likely nearing the end. I didn't feel that way a year ago, but due to the decline I have seen recently I think that may be the case. Time will tell, but I think I can hold out until the end. It is just a lot to be someone's caregiver around the clock. That's why I am trying to find out what caregivers in similar situations as mine do to deal with the moments that are difficult and horribly stressful. Again, it's also frustrating that our lives could have been very different and much better had she made wiser choices. I don't want to make her feel bad in her last days though about it. I am just looking for a way to self-manage my own thoughts and feelings about it while I try to provide her the best care possible as she is nearing her life's end.
Get mother placed in long term care for both of your sakes. Apply for Medicaid if necessary. Living your life full of resentment for the choice you're making to care for her is unhealthy for both of you.
Good luck to you and to mom.
You should not be paying any of their bills. If they go into debt they go in debt. You just tell the providers " can't get blood out of a stone". As a child you are not responsible for a parents bills.
Unfortunately we are in a state where the "healthcare" is awful and dangerous. For example, we have been in the hospital and some nurse was leaving her for hours with a malfunctioning O2 monitor that kept dropping signal for minutes at a time, while her oxygen was desaturating repeatedly into the 60s, 70s, and low 80s. The nurse told us that if the signal drops out they would come into the room to check it. Not once did that happen with the signal going out over and over and being completely off the grid for minutes at a time.
Another time in the hospital an MD removed an infected toenail at her bed then with blood and fungal spores all over the dirty gloves, rummaged through the supplies cabinet (with alcohol pads, cups, bandaids, etc.) WITHOUT changing her gloves, and never even sanitizing anything prior to leaving. I had to throw out the alcohol pads and sanitize or the nurses would have been none the wiser.
Another thing I have seen are staff (nurses, techs, etc.) getting right up into her face completely unmasked and talking so close she can feel their expectorant in her face, while she is immunocompromised. She was in the hospital around a month ago for the toenail to be removed (has history of sepsis happening very quick so was admitted). Then the getting up in her face nonsense continued, putting signs on the door does not help, because you can't manage everyone. A cleaning staff member entered her room (and I guess in an awkward odd way of trying to cheer her) started singing, and got right up in her face unmasked. LO ended up leaving the hospital, and going right back literally days later, as she had contracted pneumonia from someone during her the hospital stay.
We had another incident last night. The portable O2 monitor bell was not sounding when her oxygen would drop into the low 80s. I was planning to leave the hospital, so I told the nurse I want it reset so she can audibly hear the alarm sound if her O2 desaturates to an unsafe level (she has history of desaturating into the high 60s, 70s, and low 80s). Nurse argued with me saying the alarm "will" sound at 87, I had to keep reiterating to her YES, that is SUPPOSED to happen but I have been in the room all night and it is not sounding while dropping below that. She then proceeded to tell me that LO will "be fine" because "they will know" if her O2 desaturates. To clarify how (since the audible alarm wasn't working and the O2 monitor appeared to be portable and not a remote monitored one) I asked, "oh, so this O2 monitor has a remote monitoring feature so you know at the desk when her O2 levels drop to a dangerously low level, then?" Her response was no, but they will know if it is low because periodically they come into the room to check on the patient. So I asked, "okay, so to clarify, if the patient's O2 levels are desaturating while you are not in the room you will NOT know, and the only way you will know is if it happens to be occurring at the time you decide to stop in to check in on the patient?" I then mentioned how she could be desaturating to life-threatening levels and no one would have any clue while it is happening, and that it would be dangerous. Nurse visibly became annoyed and huffed that the technician to fix it would only be able to come in at 7 am the next day (it was about 10:30 pm when this was happening), so she would have to wait with that O2 monitoring device. I ended up not leaving the hospital out of fear for her safety. I kid you not, now when I hear "code blue" for specific floors being spoken over the loud speaker I wonder how many of them are related to nurse / staff negligence. This is why I have facility trust issues.
There is also this article: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/13/business/nursing-homes-ratings-medicare-covid.html Basically, nursing homes have a perverse incentive to underreport issues, and inflate ratings for financial kickbacks. A nursing home is where the LO would go as sh
I always think that everyone, even the person who never touched a drink or drug should go to AA/Al-Anon. First thing you learn is that you cannot fix or control others. You can only choose to stay or go. IF you choose to stay, and constantly suggest, monitor, control, nag the other person as to what THEY should do, then you're a CO: part of a lethal partnership. Like the partner of an alcoholic, you have one choice. That is to stay or to go.
But you DON'T have choice about the personal choices of OTHERS, past, present or future. It is up to THEM what to eat, what to drink, what to smoke, whether or not to work, what to weigh, who to marry, and on and on and on.
All their choices belong to them. Just as yours belong to you.
You have real problems now. Financial and caregiving problems. You can't afford to ruminate, to regurgitate the past. That doesn't help and it's draining for everyone. You need to figure out YOUR OWN LIFE:
1. Can I be a caregiver.
2. If I choose not to be the caregiver, who do I refer my loved one to.
3. If I choose not to be a caregiver, what do I do with my own life.
Those are your choices.
People often ask on this Forum: "Mom used to be my best friend. Now she's always mad at me, and I do EVERYTHING for her". Truth is that mom doesn't like you anymore because you aren't a daughter. You're a caregiver. That's the answer. And caregivers are always nagging about something. Who would like them?
It's bad enough you have to nag the one you care for about what she does NOW. But to nag her about what she DID? Wow, that would really be exhausting. That adds a whole other level.
Most anger is grief. You admit you love the person you care for. So isn't it a shrug, a few tears, and "Oh, hon. Look what you did to yourself" muttered so low she can't hear it. It's sad.
Yet you chose to give care despite her limitations. Despite her human failures. And a part of you concentrating on HER and wanting to be mad at HER is that you want secretly to be mad at YOU.
You want to shake yourself and say "SHE DID THIS TO HERSELF! Why should YOU waste your life on it? THAT'S not fair!"
And no. That's not fair. You have no way to fix the past and no way to fix the present. You have choices for your own life. And spending time in BLAME is going to rob you of time you need to consider your own life choices. So that someday you don't look at you OWN past choices and say of YOURSELF: "Look what you did to your life. Look how you wasted your life".
I am sorry. This stuff has no really easy answers. Much of life doesn't. It is good times and bad times. And no one ever found a way to make them all good.