Please stop using the term "loved one". I have done much of my caregiving for family members who have been rude, angry and cruel for years. I have done this out of obligation.
I have been handed a club sandwich - 3 generations to care for, so there's been a revolving door of people to take care of and people with problems. After our daughter died, my wife, now ex-wife, abandoned me with our surviving kids. Before that, my brother went to prison 12,000 miles away, and I supported him as best I could, which included working with the US Embassy to get him out of a cell with 6 members of that country's organized crime syndicate.
My youngest sister became psychotic when she went off her medicine, and stopped working for 3 months to take care of her, and spent significant time thereafter when I finally was able to get her into treatment.
My brother rewarded me with an explosion as soon as I saw him when he returned to the USA, and he has been rude and angry (and unemployed) in the 10 years since.
My sister was furious throughout her treatment, and is still rude and entitled (she also has borderline personality or narcissistic personality disorder, depending on the diagnosis).
My father developed cancer while she was psychotic and my mother had developed Alzheimers, and I've had to manage my father's healthcare (he died, leaving records that took me almost 2 years to sort through), and my mother throughout this period. I have one sane sister, and she is also overwhelmed.
I really wish my brother and youngest sister didn't exist.
So please, in the future, be wary of plastering this page with the term "loved ones". Many people are caregiving out of obligation, are feeling punished, and seeing "loved ones" everywhere makes us feel worse.
You have far more to deal with than many people, and I hope you can find peace in the middle of this storm you didn't create.
It does rankle a little when the person you have to care for IS a LO yet you feel nothing but anger or frustration about them.
I am afraid I am missing the gene for "obligation". I have always fully recognized my limitations, and I stay within them. I will never get any nominations for Sainthood; no one will ever pray to me as a fallen Martyr.
It is my one life. I do what I can for people I consider "loved ones" (funny as that phrase is to me since the book and the movie). The doing of what little I am capable of doing has filled my heart.
I might wish I were a better person. I might, but in fact I usually don't.
Most of my advice on this forum has been along the lines of recognizing our own humanity, our own flaws, and most of all our own limitations: cautions not to take on more than can be accomplished and still allow ourselves a good life.
Sorry that it is so tough for you, and for your sister as well.
Maybe you can try to mentally translate one for your situation when we forget?
Just substitute what the letters stand for, which may vary based on your current frustration level.
DS can be dear, dependent, defective, or da#n.
LO might be limited, linked, Limpet-like, or loathed.
I respect your sense of responsibility.
Remember to use the techniques that work for you and feel free to set aside the ones that don't. Trying to stay positive is effective for many, a sense of humor can work for me, but defining boundaries with family that are semi-functional or worse may only look doable after you've done it (sometimes over and over and over again ... <sigh>).
You don't say if Mom is still alive. And if so, how she is being cared for. If in someones home, there will, if not already, come a time when she needs more care than you can give. Then it will be time for LTC. No money, apply for Medicaid. Once in nice LTC facility, a lot of burden will be lifted. All their needs met. Other than clothing. Toiletries are provided, Depends, laundry, etc. You just visit.
When all is said and done, you have done your share. The rest of your life is yours. The two unappreciative siblings just write off. You did for them, now its time for them to find their way. I may point them in the right direction but I wouldn't do it for them or care for them. Or, give them money. If they are hungry feed them. Need shoes, clothes buy them.
You have done your time.
I would try to let the little frustrations, like the use of LO, flow right over you so that don't add stress to your life over one of those many things that you can not control.
Please take care of yourself, somehow. You need a break. You don't need to care about the crappy people in your life. Don't let them hurt you anymore.
I know, I know - easier said than done. But it's something to work towards!
People make a lot of assumptions about caregiving, and about family relations in general. Assigning responsibility for care to family members is justified because you love them and you want to do it. And it you don't love them or don't want to do it, then there's something wrong with you since you should love them and want to do it.
It bites. No doubt about it.
Your life sounds like an example of why I don’t like the phrase “ what goes around, comes around.” Sounds like you have done all the right things, even when dealing with your own personal tragedies, the loss of a child and desertion of a spouse. Your brother and sister have their own issues and you tried to help and support them to only get kicked in the teeth.
I hope it helps to know others recognize your pain and hope better days are ahead for you.
Love is not always a benign emotion, let alone a tender or joyous one, and I can't agree that terming relatives, dependents, family members or whatever "loved ones" implies that one must necessarily have happy or positive feelings towards them.
But if this happens to grate on you - and I will agree that it annoys the bejasus out of me when it's used as a lazy anodyne virtue-signalling patronising piece of hooey by one of the Great and Good, certainly - then tell whoever's using it to switch to whichever term you're more comfortable with.
If you don't mind my observation, though - are there not rather a lot of bigger and sharper burrs in your bustle? You are most welcome to discuss those, or vent about them, in any way that you please.
I have no love for my brother (who is about as irresponsible as they come), and sometimes tolerate my psychotic sister, because she finally did agree to go through treatment (after she moved into her landlord's house while it was being remodeled and caused $20,000 in damage in a day while attempting to evade the imaginary people who were pursuing her). Hopefully, this time, she'll stay medication and treatment compliant, and hopefully some day will be less snotty.
My ex-wife deserves nothing but disdain, after abandoning our kids, and for the punishment she dished out on me after our daughter died - I wasn't responsible in any way, but that didn't stop her.
My parents were good to me and my mother, who is alive but whose memory is failing, were good to me, so I do love them, as I love my kids. It's not fair to dump my mother into a nursing home. She's amazingly physically fit, plays golf and tennis a few times a week, and one day when alone walked to the drug store (an 8-mile round trip), which terrified us. Unfortunately, she can't remember a conversation she had 15 minutes ago.
And yes, there is another problem. I have no life, and I barely have time to work. I'd like to retire some day, rather than work and manage my sister until I'm 80 or 85.
But, I'm still there every Monday with a smile on my face (and a grumble under my breath) to take her to town and hear her fuss at me because I'm not doing something right. I've told DH that honestly, when she dies, the only reason I will be at her funeral is so that he doesn't have to field a bunch of questions from others about why I'm not there. I have no care for her and see her only as a negative and hateful obligation that I have to tend to. I'd rather scrape out the cat box!
"Where does the obligation come from if not love?" For me, just that need to "do the right/expected thing" the desire to "not disappoint", not love I can promise you.
Take care.
You can pick your nose, you can pick your friends, but you can’t pick your family!
I’m so sorry for all you’ve been through juggling life & being taken advantage of. Sometimes we just have to learn to say no for our own sanity. I’ll take care of my sweet husband when he needs it but that’s it! Our children have good support systems within their families but I’d be there to support if needed.
You cant do it all, take care of YOU! You didn’t say but is your mom in a facility or with you?
We should just refer to them as "the parent/aunt/uncle/brother/sister I'm taking care of" The reference doesn't become incorrect or inappropriate this way.
this forum. I am so sorry as I see in your case, it definitely does not apply! Good grief - you've been through he##. Prayers this very second sent to you.