For some background, I'm 24 years old and I care for my 73 year old father who has diabetes, Stage 3 CKD on dialysis and has mild heart disease. My mother, who was his wife, died suddenly 2 years ago in an accident and I've been his primary caregiver ever since. I live in his home and I make sure and take care of the monthly utilities, other bills, his doctor's appointments and his pills/prescriptions.
Lately in the past 3 weeks, my father has been having outbursts of anger towards me that are random and personal. Often I'll be sitting at the dining room table studying and he'll angrily tell me I'm lazy, useless, stupid, dirty, or that I'm leaving him in financial ruin. All of this behavior is very new to him as he is usually a calm and friendly person. We no longer speak at all.. not even to exchange pleasantries such as 'Good Morning' and 'How are you'. I feel stressed, unhappy and frustrated to be on the end of such verbal abuse. With strict quarantine in place and high numbers of COVID cases where we live, I can't really leave my home to go see my friends or even get an outside job for fear of being exposed to the virus and bringing it home to him.
Why is he having these outbursts of anger and what should I do to alleviate the stress put on me? Please help, thank you.
One of the things to think about is whether this is new. If so, ‘medical’ becomes more likely. If he has always been domineering, that’s when you need to be very clear about what you will put up with. We have many posters whose mothers cow-towed to father for decades, and father expects the same from daughter when his wife is gone. If it’s a case of setting up some rules, there are many people who can give you referrals to Teepa Snow videos and various books about setting boundaries. You are 24, please don’t tolerate this from a 73 year old man who may live for over another 20 years.