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I've been taking care of my dad since I was 12. He's a quadriplegic and I am now 30. He has six kids including me. He is way too much to take care of for most people because his level of care is so high. He has ran the other kids to the point of exhaustion and they started neglecting him and taking his money. That's why I have him by myself now. Going on 4 years with this new arrangement. He never told his kids thank you. He never told us we were doing a good job or even encouraged us to have our own lives. Our teenage years were robbed from us. Young adulthood also taken. He raised us to be his personal slaves. He never says thank you. Why?

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Google "narcissistic personality disorder".

I've met paralyzed folks who are grateful to be alive and who go out to work every day.

Does your dad have cognitive impairments in additional to his quadraplegia?
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yes, he does have cognitive impairments and is extremely stubborn. The speech therapist said his deductive reasoning is shot. For example, anytime I dont give him his way (closing the blinds because he hates daylight) he will say, "take me to California!" He cant feed himself and has to be diapered and no one is willing to care for him but me. But as a young girl, I remember him always being like this. He used to be very controlling, "do this, do that, turn the volume up one decible, now back down agian, scratch my head, do this, etc" his voice is gone now because he has asphagia. Im almost happy he cant boss people around that easily anymore. He also treats everyone else great but me. A random nurse will tell him hi and he will smile. He doesnt smile at me and I used to be his baby daughter. How can he treat a stranger better than me? And yes i will google narcissistic PD. It would make things so much eaiser if he said thank you even once a month would be wonderful.
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Cee, I hope that one day once this burden has shifted for you, you will give yourself permission to be joyous, adventurous and peaceful. Give yourself back all that time, when it's time. He has some nursing apparently, can you get their hours upped now? You'll get a lot out of reading material on narcissistic personality. Have you gone to any counseling over the years? It's sort of like hairdresser appts. for your heart :) and I highly recommend some of that if you haven't. It will be covered under your insurance. Many of us need and deserve coaching through why our parents didn't simply treat us kindly. I think nature can be a bit cruel... the love part isn't necessary for procreation, so she doesn't really care if it's there or not, it's not a given. Many people never look inside themselves as to what hurt them and how they can fix it, so they just repeat it. I've learned by reading on borderline personality that often the person was broken as a child, and is true in my mother's case... so I wish all sorts of things has been different with her, but I try to understand she just wasn't capable. I do believe that most of our parents would've given what we want if they had it to give. Please sort through what additional care services or facilities he can be prescribed, and perhaps let go a bit more. Bless you and good luck!
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Look up the web site out of the fog It may help with the personality disorder and how they think and how to react. Look at the blogs
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CeeCii, you have spent too much of your life taking care of your dad. No matter how much you do, he will not appreciate it. You can't change him and the way he treats you is because he wants to control you. Hopefully you can find a social worker who can help you out of this responsibility. You need to have your own life. Best of luck to you.
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Is he eligible or appropriate for a nursing home? If so, I'd say your karmic debt for having been born is paid. Let him deal with the consequences of his behavior (pushing everyone away).
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I know many people (without dementia) who seem embarrassed to say "thank you" - as if it would mean that if they said thank you, it is humbling, and they do not want to be humbled and they consider it lowering their rank..
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What Hillarious said! Your father should be in a nursing home. You need to be able to have a life.
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Momhelper has a point there. Her comment brings to mind an article I read a few years back about the ethics that apply to receiving (rather than giving) care. Here is an excerpt you might find useful:

"When we need care, we have to trust that the other is willing to act in our behalf—yet it is always possible that they will not. If I can escape acknowledging the legitimacy of the other’s needs because I take my own as more pressing, I can avoid recognizing the caregiver as a subject with a will independent of mine, a will I must depend upon. The caregiver’s agency is no more than an agency in the service of my will. Thus I can deceive myself into believing that I am not the dependent; instead the other is, since my will controls her actions: without my will she can’t act. "

It's a matter of pride, and a matter of control. If he can convince himself and you that you have no choice, then he stays in control, and doesn't have to feel the weakness of someone who is dependent on another for help, or the fear that maybe that person might stop helping, or stop helping as much as he wants. The author of the article views this as a moral failure, rather than a personality trait. I think parents fall prey to it more than most people because they're accustomed to being in control of us, as we started out completely dependent on them. It's easy for them to continue or resume this control later in life when we're adults and they need help.
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Start disconnecting from your father. Do the least you can get by with and pretend you don't hear him when he is barking out commands, don't respond to him, and don't take the bait when he says something mean to you. You will see how he starts being nicer when he can't command you or control you. I started doing this all with my mom, who can do just about everything for herself at 96, but wants someone to control. I now let her do her own cutting of everything she eats( I always had to cut EVERYTHING into tiny pieces and chop EVERYTHING. She rarely says thank you. She would complain it was too cold or too hot, there was always something wrong with my delicious, savory, organic, healthy, and VERY TASTY meals! I use to make an organic fresh meal every single day for breakfast lunch and diner and she only complained and rarely said it was good. I'm an excellent cook and baker by the way. And I was always making what SHE liked and asked for. My older sister would stop and pic up some ready made food and drop it off and my mom would act like it was 5 star food and couldn't thank her enough. :-/( all while I bought, cooked, served, and then cleaned up. I spent 1/2 of my day cooking for her and the other half cleaning and running errands for her and bringing her to the doctor. This went on for 4 years. I finally said ENOUGH! All this I was doing for her when I myself have terrible health problems and can hardly walk because of nerve problems with my feet!!!!! Things are better now that I layed down rules and started to disconnect and started caring more for ME! Please start finding ways to treat yourself better. Just think of what you would say to a friend in this situation. And then treat yourself the way you think a friend should be treating herself. Stop punishing yourself, you do not deserve this treatment. Your dad has had his life. YOU have not. Please start living your life and DONT FEEL GUILTY! YOU have done ENOUGH!!!! God bless you and I will be praying for you!
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Oh I forgot to mention the meals I made were GOURMET!
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CeeCii, this situation has to stop.

Your father needs care. He has treated all his caregivers rather badly and burned all of you out. At this point, he really shouldn't be receiving family care.

Your father definitely needs a caseworker / care coordinator. This is usually either an advanced practitioner nurse or a social worker. You can hire one privately, but they are expensive. You are in a difficult situation and change needs to happen NOW. Most elder care coordinators provide consultation services--that is, for a fee, you can meet with one for 90 minutes and review your father's situation with that person. You can then pick the brains of the elder care coordinator, such as, where can you turn for help and how to get him Medicaid.

Have you talked to his primary care physician about this? He needs care and, because of bad behavior and mistreating relatives, he has burned out his family caregivers. Unless he has signed a release, it's limited as to what information your father's PCP can give you. However, this person needs to know what is going on. Your father's PCP might be able to put you in touch with a caseworker and begin the process of getting him non-family care from a home health care agency.

If he is old enough to be considered a senior citizen (in my state that's 55), I would contact your Council for the Aging or nearby Senior Center. Council for the Agings or Senior Centers generally do have at least one social worker on staff. These are generally traditional social workers (and not psychotherapists), whose job is to help elders and their families connect with service providers within the community, so that the elder can remain at home. If your father lives in a rural / semi-rural area, it might be difficult to find out who does this. I would try calling your state's Elder Affairs office and have them put you in touch with the local organization that handles this sort of problem. If you are a member, or a regular member of a faith community, I would ask someone in leadership. Most good religious leaders are quite knowledgable when it comes to where to turn when someone in your family needs more care than you can provide. Also, if you really don't know where to turn for information and help, consider calling your elected officials, especially your state senator or representative and talk to their constituent services representative. Many times, they know where to turn and know how to cut through the bureaucracy.

You really should read the book _Stop Walking on Eggshells: Taking Your LIfe Back When Someone You Care About Has Borderline Personality Disorder_, by Paul S Mason, MS and Randi Kreger. Many, many people who are have relatives who are personality disordered, who are abusive and who have burned out caregivers find this book very useful. This book talks a lot about setting reasonable limits and caring for yourself.

Since this has been going on since you were 12, I would *strongly* recommend that you receive high quality mental health services. A lot is changing in mental health, because it's becoming more informed by the work done by cognitive neuroscientists. At this time, you would want someone who is trained to work with people with mental health problems that arise from caring for a relative with a personality disorder who has abused family. You want someone who has specific training geared to working with child abuse survivors. Also, make it clear that you want the focus of your work together to deal with problems in the here and now, and not from the past (you don't want insight oriented therapy or long-term therapy right now...) I would favor someone who takes more of a cognitive-behavioral approach, who will help you while you and your father are going through major transitions. It's likely you're going to be doing a lot of work learning about boundaries and limit setting.

Your father is probably going to need some big doses of tough love. He's not going to like it that he's no longer going to get family caregiving and that it's going to cost money. Depending on how nasty / bad behaved he is, he might have to go into some sort of care facility. He won't like the idea of seeing a psychiatrist or getting behavioral medicine--and that's tough. You might have to call Adult Protective Services on his behalf especially if he's abusive to his home health aides / workers--and he's not going to like this at all.

I was in a nasty situation. My doctor had me get a consultation from a elder care coordinator, who is an advanced practitioner nurse who oversaw an geriatric psychiatry unit in a brand-name mental hospital. I picked her brains for 90 minutes. It was not cheap, but she helped me develop a game plan. She gave me an overview of what to expect--and recommended that I not provide any sort of hands-on care to my severely personality disordered parents. She told me how to create an elder care resources binder and to keep it updated, so I knew who to call when I got 'the call'. She recommended that we set-up a family meeting to discuss elder care, but my parents and brother always found convenient excuses to escape / cancel it. This was telling. With my permission, she gave her assessment of my elder care situation to my doctor--which was helpful. I am no contact with my functioning sociopath brother and very low contact with my severely personality disordered mother--and it's for the best.

How do I know these things? Been there, done that. I can assure you that things will get better for you... they did for me.

DoN
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CeeCii--
You posted some other questions on here--ones that many of us have taken time to address.

You have a small family, and a super demanding father whom you allow to run roughshod over you---I don't know why. (Why he does is, why you take it) Human interractions never cease to amaze me.

You have done FAR MORE than any child should have to do for a parent--yet you continue to take care of this mean, unappreciative man. Detach? He needs to leave. I know how cruel that sounds, but sometimes, actually, often times, that is the answer.

Have you looked into placing dad in a NH where all his needs can be met? It sounds like his personality disorder is pretty squarely laid on you. Your kids will see it and may likely mimic him. You want that negativity coming from both generations?

I KNOW people say "Oh, but your parents cared for you for XX many years, you OWE them." I personally believe you owe them respect and love and a safe clean place to live, but you do NOT need to live your life for them.

Your posts break my heart. Perhaps, it's as if you finally are "Seeing" your father as the person he is. Talk therapy may be helpful in guiding YOU to a sense of calm, it won't change him one bit.

I'm sure you have been an excellent caregiver---and dad doesn't care. Only now that my mother is sliding into dementia does she say thank you with any real meaning. It is what it is. Your dad will use you use, wear out and complain all the way to the NH what a lousy daughter you are/were. I hope you aren't hanging on to keeping him home so you can finally have some "justice", or "closure". We do not always get that.

Good luck.
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Wow, sounds like my hus! He is 65 and was diag.
w/mult.sclerosis in 1987. Our son was 3, dau 6 mos.
We've been married 38 yrs. The times he's said
thanks, please or sorry I could count on one hand
and have three fingers left over. Many times I
considered leaving but it's too late now. He would
expect the kids to dance to his tune 24/7. My kids
missed out on a lot as kids and deserve to make
their adult lives less stressful. Nothing is ever
done right, micromanages everything. We have an
aide who comes three hrs three am a week. Bit
of time to get groceries and errands done. Fortunatelyy
finances are good....he's just frugal (cheap, lol)
It is difficult for both of us. I have my own health
issues and just cannot deliver the quality of care
required.

Some small verbal recognition would be so greatly
appreciated. Some people just are not able to
say thanks, sorry or please. I'm glad I've raised my
Children to be different.

Expect nothing and you won't be disappointed. Sigh!
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And you need to get away from him. You've been
caregiving for a very long time. Get on with your life
and treat yourself with kindness and respect!!
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CeeCii - As I explained on another of your threads, you are in an abusive relationship with your father. We teach people how to treat us i.e. you have to lie down for him to walk all over you.

Seek counseling for self esteem and seek family counseling with your husband and children who undoubtedly are traumatized by what they have seen and heard between you and your father.

Your father is a toxic parent. Period. Your problem is not that he is an ungrateful SOB but rather that you lack self esteem. And I recall you writing that you and your husband want more children.
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And.......once you have the situation with your dad
remidied get some therapy for yourself. You seem
to be "the responsible one, the caregiver and fixer".
If you are not married you need to be able to avoid
choosing a partner who needs you to fix and care
for them all the time. If you are married I hope
you get the support and simple kindness you do
deserve. We all do, but don't a lot of the time.v
Hopping down from my soap box. Good Luck!!
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I think many times its the way we were raised. If not reminded as child to say thank you it's just not even thought of. I'm wondering if you could get eye level to your dad & ask him when he was growing up what did his parents say to him & how when they wanted something. Ask if they ever corrected their children about speach. They were probably spanked w hand & belt or switch. Also when people are handicapped for long time were waited on so it later becomes normal for them. Now say dad I really need you to thank me as I feel like a servant & that takes away my love of helping you. God bless you & He will be there for you just ask God for guidance. My heart goes out to you & those in same situation. My hubby has alz & is so much more loving & thankful since he got it. Go figure. Sure takes the negative away.
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I have found that people who have to depend on others for long periods of time tend to take advantage without really realizing they are doing it. Your Dad he no one else to rely on and probably hates being the way he is and takes it out on them. My Mom was told a person will take it out on someone they love before a stranger. I don't think it's being narcissistic I think it's trying to have some control. Dad is not going to get better. You may want to look into a good nursing home. Medicaid may pay for it.
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Agree Agree Agree.....if you can't transfer his care to a facility or a service, be SURE to get respite for yourself. It truly helps to take a day, an evening, or a few days off.
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Dear CeeCii,

You have a such a good heart. I know you are doing all you can for your dad. I'm so sorry he hasn't shown you any acknowledgement for your efforts to care for him. I hear you.

My dad passed away almost 11 months ago. And since my dad passed I asked myself the same question, why didn't my dad ever say a simple thank you, or I know you are doing your best for me. Without that simple acknowledgement it does lead to a lot of anger and resentment.

You are young woman. I feel like its not fair for you to carry all the responsibility. Given your dad's level of care, I wonder if you will consider assisted living or nursing home. Maybe consider talking to social worker and see what resources are available in the community.

I never knew if it was just the way my dad grew up. Or a failure on my part to not be more honest with my dad. I wished now I had said to my dad "am I not good enough?" or "it would really help me, if you said please and thank you." Maybe it would have sounded silly, but in hindsight I wish I learned how to communicate better with him.
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Dear, tough love is a necessary thing in this situation. Please don't think that every nursing facility is a horror show. I've been in many myself. Some not so nice and most very nice. So don't feel you are doing some mortal sin to have your father in a place where he receives proper care. Baby, you don't want to wake up one day and find yourself at the end of your life and realizing you wasted your time here. Now taking care of someone you love is not wasting your time but being treated brutally even though you give your all... well that is why I said wasting your time. Your dad sounds like an apathetic ass and he needs a does of reality. Nurses do not take that abuse they may let you get away with it once or twice but after that he will get bare minimum on the nice things most nurses will do like run to the store for you and get you something or some nurses care about the lonely patients so much they will spend some personal one on one time and truly visit with you or bring you little gifts. Seriusly baby, I recommend you just go online looking up not only nursing homes but also assisted living homes which is more apartment like living. after you print out a few of these just leave them laying around where you know he will see them. that's called giving him a hint about what is about to happen. Maybe make a few calls right in front of him. asking all the important questions like how do I get this man into your care because I am exhausted and I am feeling VERY abused and USED. I need to think of myself right now. THAT IS OKAY TO DO BABY! You are a human being and deserve RESPECT first then Love. Sometimes people can think that just saying, "i love you" is enough but it is NOTHING without respect. That's tough love in some people's eyes but I call it REAL LOVE. It doesn't mean you have to leave him there for ever. YOu can take him home for the weekend if you feel you want to. Just do it babe. and DON"T you dare feel guilty!!! Does he feel guilty when he's frankly being an ass? No! I seriously doubt it. In fact I bet he thinks he has the right just because he's your father. Remind him you are a grown adult who DESERVES respect ESPECIALLY considering the level of care. I do know what it's like to care for a paraplegic. I can't believe someone in his condition would be so tactless. I'm so sorry for you babe!!! Go to the mirror right now and look in those eyes and remind that person how INCREDIBLY AWESOME YOU ARE!!! xoxoxoxo
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Please get professionals involved in his care. What he really needs is a nursing facility where his needs can be met. Then you can get a therapist to help you work through your issues that were created by your dad when you where a child. A therapist will help you make the most out of your life. You did your best with your dad. He won't be happy being with being in a nursing home but he won't be happy anywhere and with anything you do. If he gets angry, walk away from him. You can look over your shoulder and tell him, "I am not going to deal or take care of an angry, ungrateful ass like you. I demand to be treated better than that." and let him stew.
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