I read a recent post here where the writer said she couldn't stand people saying "Your mom looks great!" I completely understand that!
I also feel like screaming when someone says to me, "You're such a good daughter." That's the worst comment for me to handle. And the person saying it is so well-meaning. I want to yell at them! I'm doing what needs to be done, and not always with a loving disposition. Yes, I love my mother. This situation, however, is a pile of doo-doo and I hate it.
Another comment that gets me hot under the collar: "You're so blessed that your mother is still with you. My mother died."
Yes. Years of dying and being tortured by your own brain is such a blessing, Cousin Thelma. (Eyeroll)And we smile. And we are nice. And we are good.
Raised me right? That was over 50 years ago. I am the way I am because I made myself this way ....well, that and obligation and guilt dealing with an aging parent. LOL.
Still, the notion that all of my time and energy spent managing Mom's finances and business affairs, as well as managing her healthcare, stems from lessons she and Dad taught me when I was a kid puts my teeth on edge. Don't get me wrong: I had a good/happy childhood, but there are millions of people in the world who were taught to be nice, mind your manners, respect your elders, and were taken to Sunday School--and you dont see them caring for aging parents.
Are you kidding. Just the opposite. I would like to FORGET EVERYTHING about the caregiving ‘journey’ with my mom, which took years.
Thank you for this post!
I take issue with who are the ones should be blessed in this miserable situation. My response now is no, God bless his daughters and skilled nurses. They are the ones keeping him going.
Can’t you quit work and move in with her ?”
A few months later that same retired SIL removed her own mother from her mother’s own home and placed her straight into memory care .
Oh, hell no.
(Yeah, you handle caregiving for four family members over a period of 15 years, and then you get back to me on that. If you're not dead already.)
Personally, I think I enjoy the verbal abuse, manipulative tactics, lying, and downright bullying the most. Cleaning up the poop and the hoard is just that much icing on the cake. So much enjoying. It's a wonder we don't see more caregivers laughing and smiling like idiots everywhere we go.
'I don't want to hear it'.
That's it for me. My siblings has said that one to me when I asked for help with our mother and needed someone to talk to about it. I would have struck her if my cousin wasn't there to hold me back.
Sure, nobody wants to hear it. That's a fact. The person living in that miserable caregiver situation being robbed of their own life doesn't want to hear it. They really don't want to be DOING it either.
I've told many family caregivers living the drudgery life of caregiver to always tell the other family members that YOU are the one making their lives possible. YOU the family caregiver are the reason why they can earn, go on vacations, hang out with friends, and have a life. YOU are the reason they will get an inheritance too. All family caregivers with non-helping siblings need to press the point with them that if they go, their inheritances get spent-down on care.
Know what I say to a family caregiver? Not your parent looks great or insult someone with the you're such a good daughter/son. No. I look someone in the eye and ask them sincerely how they're coping. Then I listen. I remind others that caregiving only works when it's done on the caregiver's terms and no one else's. I always try to encourage family caregivers to not guilt-trip themselves if they have to place someone. Or if they put their own health and life first.
You know, I had a bit of a laugh reading this post and remembering. A friend of my mother's who she hadn't seen in a long time visited. I was still living in the house and caregiving. She gave me the 'You're such a good daughter' nonsense. I told her plainly, that I was not a good daughter and my mother wasn't a good parent. That I was only there because it beat sleeping in my car and am leaving at the first opportunity which is what I did.
Another one. It makes me sick to my stomach when I hear someone say 'caregiving journey'. Which is probably why I cannot stomach that flake Teepa Snow. I did homecare for 25 years. It's not what she thinks at all.
…sickening for sure