I set boundaries and the claws come out. I’m tired, very tired. I have to deal with payback from my mother for setting boundaries.
Last night I hear her call my younger brother. Today she calls my older brother, all to trash me! Sickening!
She knows they will take her side and then it’s three against one. I can’t win! She stirs the pot! Doesn’t fight fair.
Involves them in my business that doesn’t concern them. I told her she needs to think about what she did and should feel bad about it and she says, “They are family and I want to speak to them.” Yeah, right! That’s fine but I don’t speak to them about her and she shouldn’t speak to them about me!
They do nothing while I wipe her a**, bathe her from head to toe, change soiled sheets, cook and clean, empty bedside commode, etc. I take her to doctor appointments. I do everything! They get respect and I don’t! I must be the biggest idiot on the face of the earth!
Boundary setting doesn’t work all the time! She has a mean streak when she wants to show it. I sacrifice so much for her and this is how she repays me.
Just need to vent. I think I am losing it. I really do. I can’t have a logical conversation with her anymore. She wants to blame me for everything! I need a break so badly.
This is what scares me. I want her out of my house. I wish she had never moved in. It added an enormous amount of stress in our lives.
If I find a place for her to live I don’t know if I could even visit right now because I am so upset. What the hell is happening to me? I am my mother’s biggest advocate. Why am I feeling this way? I don’t know what to think about her or myself. Too much togetherness for way too long. It just isn’t healthy. I’m so empty that I can’t even cry. Is that bad?
Also, is it bad not to eat? So hard to eat. I get nauseous if I try so why bother, right? I cook for my husband and mom. I get sick to my stomach just smelling the food. Is that normal? I drink coffee and diluted juice, water with a splash of juice. My clothes are baggy. Who cares...Where do I go? My house is a prison. What does it matter if I lose weight and have baggy clothes?
Leave a note for the nurse telling her about your mom's increased OCD and anxiety. Ask for her to arrange for a mental health assessment for your mom, that you are at the end of your tether!
Thank you for understanding about home health. For the most part they are good but the nurse accused me of speaking for mom. I was only trying to correct the info to have accurate information in her iPad. The nurse got upset and mom got upset. I just felt like crawling under the table.
Also, please tell me did your appetite go away? Couldn’t that be stress? You know, the nausea? Queasy feeling? Stress or emptying her bedside commode. I just don’t do well with that kind of stuff.
How can the liver effect an appetite? I don’t understand.
Wait, Tacy...one more thing please. I’m begging for help because I am so upset by yesterday. My daughter takes CBD oil and asked if I wanted to try it. Is this a good idea?
I feel confused. My mom and brothers are making me feel like I am overreacting to everything.
Maybe, it’s the Irish from daddy’s side. Very melancholy lately.
I wonder if mom’s Parkinson’s is taking a new turn. She wasn’t as neurotic about stuff as much as now. Perfectionist? Yes, that’s just her. The underwear thing was just weird. The statue of Mary too, the photos. Why all of a sudden does she have to know where her underwear with the fancy elastic waistband is. I’m sorry that I can’t find them but she has other underwear. She wears poise pads during the day. Pull-ups at night.
Do they realize what they say? I’m serious. It boggles my mind to see what people say to their families and caregivers.
I appreciate your kind words. I’m having a hard time processing everything. I feel foolish because I realize I have been in denial or making excuses for mom.
I stopped therapy awhile back because mom needed me. He told me that mom was becoming too much of a burden. I wasn’t ready to hear that. I kind of shut down at that time.
He said I deserved to have a life with my husband and children. That lack of socialization was taking a toll on me. He tried to open my mind to a lot of important issues. Know what? He was right. He said I had to start making choices.
Before that, at a GYN appointment that doctor put me on anxiety meds. He could see a change in me. They ask what’s up with the weight loss. Hard to eat though if you aren’t feeling hungry. But primary doctor told me I had to get off of the meds because I could become addicted. I can’t win. I get stressed out. My doctors don’t agree. My therapist was a social worker. Do they prescribe meds? I’m not sure. Or does it have to be a psychiatrist?
I am still filling out paperwork for aid and assistance. It’s taking awhile because mom lost her home in Katrina so I have to get military records from archives. Then it will be fairly close to what I need if she qualifies for AL. AL said they do accept Parkinson’s patients but she needs to be assessed before entering.
Mom’s neurology doctor says no dementia either but why does she act so nutty? Unless a UTI like Barb says. She says they make the elderly act goofy. So she will have to get that checked out.
Okay. I see. I’ll check out more info with CBD oil. Your patient sounds like she was an interesting challenge, huh?
That’s me. You nailed it with all the cooking from scratch, every day! By the time I am done I don’t want to eat. I cook all of my husband’s and mom’s favorite meals for them.
My husband and I used to have dinner out somewhere and it was a welcome change. Something different from my cooking.
Yeah, meat gets to me too. I like soups, salad, hummus and a couple of triscut crackers once in awhile and fruit. Louisiana has great strawberries, blueberries, blackberries and navel oranges. My husband will pick them up at the farmers market for me. I like fruit on top of yogurt. That’s a good meal when I can eat. Weekend mornings my husband does breakfast.
Nothing heavy like some of our New Orleans food because of the nausea that I get from dumping the commode. It makes me gag.
But you can’t take care of others if you don’t take care of yourself
with that said...
you need to find a group or a counselor or both
for yourself ...
so you have a safe place to vent and to be heard.
Also, start looking for a aid to come your home
or look for a nearby nursing home....
easy said then done
but this needs to be done
something needs to change
only you can change it.
you’ll visit on your terms and hopefully your siblings will also
but that is not your concern
thats their choice.
Keep plugging away at those forms for Medicaid eligibility. Getting your mother into a facility will be the single best thing you can do for your health.
You’re right about everything but the line that jumps out at me is, “setting boundaries without consequences won’t work.” Guess I only went half way but I was so upset that I wasn’t thinking clearly. Thanks for pointing that out to me.
I am not even going to ask her what the nurse said. Oh, I am sure she will tell me but not today because I am not speaking to her today except to tell her I have her food ready, just what is necessary to say and do, no more. I’m taking a mental break from it all.
I really feel for you, it all starts off congenially, and slowly it takes over every aspect of your life until you cannot take it any longer, little did I know that he was also a complete Narcissist, which slowly revealed itself as time went on.
When my FIL first moved in, he was almost immediately diagnosed with Mantle Cell Lymphoma, and he went through a year of Chemotherapy, and did very well, putting him into remission, and then the slow and natural age progression, where he lost his ability to manage his own affairs, his Dr appointments, medication management, driving, preparing his own food and doing his own laundry, and slowly but surely we were doing Everything for him, and all he did was watch TV and be waited on.
Knowing that he was always in the home, never being alone with my husband, having to drag him along to every family function, never being able to leave him at home because he was a fall risk, the loss of our personal space, it just takes over your entire life, and soon you are going crazy and want to pull your hair out, you feel you have completely changed from the person you used to be, and your lives are not your own.
That is when I found this website, looking for answers and support just like you. I was given all of the same suggestions, all extremely helpful, but so difficult to implement, as he wasn't MY Dad, and so it was that much more difficult to work towards change, my husband being the one who had been "programmed" throughout his life to put up with his antics and demands.
In the 13th year, we Finally did place him into an Assisted Living facility right near our home ( this lasted about 12 weeks), and things were going along pretty well, until he fell one evening and was finally discovered the next day around noon by my husband, he was transported to hospital where it was found that he had Pneumonia, and that he had a Cancerous golf ball sized lung tumor which was spreading to his rib bones, and it was decided he was too weak and too ill to do Chemotherapy, plus he did not wish to go through the treatment, he (now 88) was done fighting and ready to leave this earth.
So we brought him back home with us, on Hospice and he lasted another 9 weeks, where he died in our home.
We waited Way to long to implement the move to Assisted Living. That should have been done years before, long before our Complete Caregiver Burnout, but all I can say is that change is hard, and many mistakes were made, but that doesn't mean that you cannot learn from my mistakes!
My FIL really did fairly well in AL, and he wasn't really there long enough truly settle in, as I'm quite sure he would have done great! You will never know until you "Just Do It"! My guess is that in time, your Mom will settle in given the opportunity, and slowly your life will return to a New Normal. Sure, you will still be doing A Lot for her, as we were, but it will be much better than what you are doing now! You will be able to resume your interests, enjoy your husband and your children again, and you will be a better person for it!
It's time, re-claim your life, get healthy again, both physically and emotionally, your family will surely appreciate it and so will you! You have my greatest admiration and support! Bit by bit, you can do this!
Did your FIL appreciate your help? Mom tells me that she does. But then she starts with the digs and it surely doesn’t seem like she appreciates me. That has made it harder.
Wow, you had it hard with your FIL. My mom used to go out sometimes. I could get her to go to a restaurant so I could take a break from cooking.
Now all she says is that it’s too hard to get in and out of the car, too many bathroom trips and it’s too difficult to go out, blah blah, blah. I bought the ‘car cane’. She uses it. It helps for doctor’s appointments so why can’t she use it for other places.
She refuses to leave the house. She would rather see me slave over a stove. I want to wipe the smirk off her face when she smiles at me cooking and cleaning and wait on her hand and foot.
She is so unreasonable lately that the last doctor appointment she told me as she always does, “Sign me in.” So I do. They call her name and she gets upset that I am not standing by her. So when I walk over she tells me that I should have been there when her name was called. I said to her that I was signing her in when they called. I asked her why couldn’t she just follow the nurse and I would join her a second later. She can’t hear well so I have to join her. Or so she tells me.
So I told the nurse to clone me so I could be in both places. It was a joke that she didn’t find funny. I joke to break the tension. She thinks nothing of embarrassing me by scolding me like a two year old.
This bathroom stuff is nonsense. I told her that she had to wear a pull-up to the doctor and no visits to the bathroom and she gets to complain that her name was called while she is in bathroom. I told her to go to the bathroom at home before because it’s only a five minute drive.
After the visit, I did not allow her to drag me to the bathroom. I practically ran past her saying, “Going to get the car! Sit on that chair so you can see when I pull up by the door.” She did it. I parked and got out, led her towards the car, got her seated and loaded up her walker in the back seat. Off we went!
She made it home which takes 5 minutes. Before leaving home for doctor appointment she tried to tell me that she would wet the car seat so I put a towel down on the seat. She said a towel wouldn’t hold it so I put a plastic garbage bag under the towel. I am determined that she won’t overrule me.
We get home. She sat at the table and had her snack, tea and never used the bathroom until an hour later!
So, she uses the potty trips to manipulate. I told her if she went to the bathroom in her pull up that we would change it immediately at home. I’m sick to death of her trying to control everything.
I realize sometimes she does have bathroom issues but sometimes it’s in her head or wants attention for it. Oh, but let me mention the constant peeing to her doctor and she won’t hear of taking a script to control incontinence.
Your posts always make me smile. I adore your sense of humor. I’m so sorry about your auntie. You provided good care for her for a long time. She’s smiling from heaven at you. I just know that she is.
My brothers aren’t all that helpful. I do understand what you mean though.
I’m hoping to get aid and assistance from a veterans program. Daddy was in WW11. That will help. I found a suitable AL. I looked at three of them. She will need an assessment. She may not qualify. We’ll see.
I have to hire help or place her in a nursing home.
She went to a nursing home for rehab so it won’t be a shock how it goes. She wasn’t too thrilled to be there at times because of a few issues.
Everywhere will have something. She sort of acts like she should be first. I had to keep reminding her that she was not the only resident.
I do have a particular priest in mind that would be well suited to speak to. He’s a super nice guy and well educated on this topic. He used to be a chaplain at a hospital.
I am going to get out Saturday. My daughter is going to take me to my favorite coffee house and we can visit. My husband is insisting that I have a change of scenery. He says he will cook for mom.
He makes terrific breakfast on the weekends and he said he would grill fish for their lunch and throw veggies on the grill as well. She loves his grilled food.
My daughter is on her last year at LSU so she’s busy but she is concerned about me. She’s a sweet young woman and I love my daughters dearly. If my other daughter is free we are going to pick her up to join us.
As far as relatives and their scoffing and pointy fingers- refuse it. Simply no longer accept the role of being anybody’s whipping post, receiver of pointy fingers, excuse, blame or reason for ANY of their crap. Have you reached the point to where you mumble and or talk to yourself ? If not, no worries, you’ll be there soon. Use it to practice making your stand- go in front of a mirror hold your head high and confidently and firmly say that you no longer accept those roles that they need to find someone else to persecute. Practice until you can face each of them and let them know you’re no longer the one. If that doesn’t work, I suggest the phone suddenly and mysteriously has outage issues- get creative.
XOXOXO
susan
ps- I may have found a place that sells sage bundles the size of a body pillow...
Great posting and oh so true! I find absolute truth in your answer. Thanks for getting it.
I especially like the part about refusing negative comments from others. My mother stirred up things so badly that my brothers now think a ‘family meeting’ is in order. I don’t think so right now. The only meeting I am going to have is telling them either take mom or shut up!
For one thing. It’s sort of, too little, too late. I’ve been at this since 2005. Where were they? I don’t think I need instructions from them. What experience do they have?
Hey, you’re a great cheerleader! I needed that!
I didn’t even speak to mom today other than to tell her, here is breakfast, here is lunch, here is dinner.
She egged on my brother so much that he called and he rarely calls. Constantly stirred the pot yesterday, gaslighting me.
I picked up the phone and told him that she was snoring which she was. It’s awful to criticize others when they don’t help out. It’s even worse for mom to criticize me to them. So now they feel like they can continue to trash me. How dare they be offended that I got angry with them about their foolishness.
I am still angry. Not that I like being angry but I suppose I reached my threshold. I blew up. I’m not proud of that. But I am not going to beat myself up over it either. They had it coming. Long overdue. I bury my emotions because it’s a waste of time reasoning but everything just overflowed yesterday. Know what I mean? I will get over it or not let it get to me. I guess I needed a day to blow off steam. I do feel comforted from those who posted. That helped a lot. Because I was on the verge of cracking up.
I have to hire help or place her in a nursing home."
Get her that assessment.
You do not want to hire help -- you want her in a facility.
And what is wrong with a family meeting? That is when you tell your brothers that you will be placing your mother in a facility. If they don't like it, she can go to live with one of them.
I think you get involved with winning minor skirmishes, while meanwhile you are losing the war (the war being your mental and physical health).
"Mom, I can't do this anymore; this isn't working out for me" is a hard conversation to have. You need to have it with mom and with your brothers.
If you come from the kind of family that it seems like you do (lots of gossip, playing kids against one another, etc., you will be accused of being selfish, ungodly, whatever.
Just nod. Say "yes, I guess that's true; I need to take care of myself. My doctor tells me that this is having a dreadful impact on my health and I'd rather not die young; I want to be able to live to an old and fruitful age and enjoy my kids and grandkids".
Non-emotional. Just a statement of fact.
On what basis does the neuro say mom has no dementia? Has there been any cognitive testing? Has she seen a psychiatrist?
Wishing you peace and wellness, dear one.
I said things I should have never said. I’m sorry but it’s what I felt and I unleashed on her. Now I am on my patio crying my eyes out.
I did so well yesterday by not speaking to her. Then she attacked me today and I simply lost it!
I want control of my life again. It’s all I want. I told her she has to be assessed. She freaked out! How do I handle this? Please give me an answer. Please.
I can’t make her happy. I do want the years left that I have to be joyful for me, my husband and my daughters. I deserve that.
Maybe I am going nuts too now! This is so embarrassing not to be in control but it has gone on for too long. I suppose like people say about a bad marriage or something. I have friends who told me they didn’t truly see how unhealthy their marriage was until they got away from it. Is that what has happened to mom and me?
One time my aunt took me for just about the whole summer because I couldn’t handle being at home anymore. Mom called her sister near the end of summer and asked her to bring me back home.
I shouldn’t say this but I was happier with my aunt. She made me feel important as a kid. There wasn’t a junkie brother at her house. I got to just play like a real kid with my cousins. It was nice while it lasted.
I always felt that I had to love family no matter what but it’s kind of hard.
The criticism is getting too hard. Ha! One brother who was a junkie. The other went into law enforcement so it isn’t a good conversation really. He is jaded from all his years on the force. So, it’s more like an interrogation than a conversation and I am not strong enough emotionally to go up against that. The younger brother is sort of devil may care attitude. It’s just a rough patch right now. I fantasize about a vacation!
I think I need to lie down. My head is throbbing. Maybe I can sleep after taking Advil. I told mom something nasty awhile ago. I told her if she needed help she could call 911 because I needed a break. Mean, I suppose but everyone has a threshold of pain and frustration.
Again, at some point the choice is to live like this and tell the same story over and over...
OR
to change living like this.
Ultimately those are the only two choices.
When people go to Al-Anon their first visit is one in which they describe how victimized they are by their drinking loved one. They are quickly told that they have only two choices. Stay (and know they cannot change a thing but themselves) or go and make another life. It is a dreadfully difficult concept to take in. Because initially they really want to be there to "tell their story" which they think is unique, and to hear what a good and long-suffering person they are. You might look up their serenity prayer. It is a good one, for believers.
It sounds cruel to say, but people will tire of hearing the same story when it goes in a circular pattern of harm to all involved, including your Mom and yourself. And your family.
I read below that you did have a therapist and that you stopped going when the therapist suggested that your mother be placed in care. You said "I didn't go there to hear that", which says that you went there ONLY to hear what you wanted to hear. When you heard anything other from a professional, you left. That's very common and would indicate to your counselor that you were not really wanting an answer and help, but rather wanting to vent. To tell your story. To be sympathized with.
So you can continue on, and I see below that there is a lot of exceptionally loving support for you when you do vent. That is good, if your choice is to stay in this unchanging situation. Things become a habitual pattern, and people who seem to be the "victim" of an awful situation are sometimes actually getting a benefit from it that isn't initially apparent. They seem to be a victim, when really they are getting what they need most at the time.
I so wish you the best. I wish that for your Mom, too; I believe she is suffering every bit as much as you are. I think you BOTH cry over your cruelty to one another, but the war is joined, and no one seems to want a peace treaty. Some wars never end. I wish the best most of all for the family, your own primary family, especially if there are children involved, who depend on having a strong, wholly together wife and Mom role model.
As for me, I won't comment anymore on your threads--reason to celebrate today if nothing else. Everyone loves it when I shut up!
I hope someday I will see a post from you telling us you are taking the difficult steps to move forward to a happier life. On that day I will be there to tell you I think you the bravest woman on the planet (If I am here at all. At 77 one never knows!). My best out to you Needs. Please take care.
If you didnt get along with mom as a kid, what made you think being her fulltime caregiver was going to work?
I understand that this all happened because of Katrina. But there has been time since to make a plan, yes?
Yes, mom needs an assessment and to go to a facility. So, she's shocked. So, what?
You are NOT responsible for making your mom happy.
You don't get to treat your only daughter like $hit all her life and then expect your old age to be spent in her loving care.
Did the home care nurse test for a UTI? If mom is acting off, if ahes had a change in mental status, you may need to get her to the ER. And dont take her back into your home.