Hi all,
I want to ask a question and I recognize that in a lot of ways I have an embarrassment of riches and have been very lucky, really, really lucky.
When my mother passed I inherited some property, sold it a few years later and woke up a millionaire. I have a job that pays reasonably well, and it’s a marketable skill, although it’s kind of a specific niche. Finding work isn’t a problem, where it is, could be a small problem.
I’m 57, my father is 91. He’s healthy but blind and really needy. When I talk about getting a new job he clams up. He worries about how he’ll read his mail, how he’ll survive, this, that and the other. His financial situation is better than mine, but he kind of freaks out when I talk about getting a new job because I’ll probably have to move.
I live about 30 minutes away and work 5 minutes from him.
He’s just incredibly needy and worries a ton. He used to call my mother multiple times/day. He freaks out if I don’t call him at 5:00 while driving home from work. He once called a welfare check on me when I didn’t answer my phone.
Thing is, I’m just done with my job. I like it, I like the place I work at, hell, I live in a fantastic place, but the job, it went crazy over the last year. I’m not going to try to describe it, I will sound crazy. Crazy stuff really happened. It’s not like the crazy homeless people yelling at friends, explaining it just sounds like that. I was really frustrated, so I sounded like them too. I gained 10 pounds although fitness is a mixed bag, it’s not all worse. Maybe, I just needed some Zoloft, as I hit the overload point.
Anyways, I want to work until 62 and I’m tired of being angry every day that I go to work. I need to change, but as many have experienced, the guilt. Maybe, I could swing something different in the job and stay in the same place but I’m not getting that vibe and I solve problems. I just can’t solve this one.
Anyways, I guess I just wanted to write it out. If I got a new job he’d be fine, I could get to him in 3 hours, just not 10 minutes during the day and 45 at other times. He’d be fine and I’d be better than fine.
It’s funny, when I post here, which is relatively rarely. I usually write some advice to the effect of not to let an elderly parent consume you, yet here I am.
Thanks for any replies and reading.
Take care!
Practically speaking, if you're the DPoA for your father, who is 91, the fact is that his care needs will increase, not decrease. And not because "he's needy", but because he's elderly and declining on all fronts. This is a fact for all elders his age and older.
If I were in your shoes I'd discuss with him the options: you're going to switch jobs, move and be working another 5 years. You're happy to help him (if this is true) but he will either need to relocate to a care community near where you relocate or he stay put and you set up caregivers or he downsizes into a care community. There is no 3rd option. Tell him you'll help him every step of the way, helping him to tour and pick out a great new home (care facility). His generation has a very bad memory of nursing homes (and rightfully so). He needs to see the new places for himself.
Him calling you incessantly won't stop just because you move away. Maybe he's the one who needs some Zoloft? I'm serious. Many elderly in facilities are on something for mood or anxiety or aggression due to dementia. Dementia causes people to lose their abilities of reason and logic. That's why you'll have to have tempered expectations about his ability to adjust to whatever changes occur. They are very big changes in his world.
Try to think of your feelings as grief, not guilt. It is very difficult to watch the changes overtake our LOs -- and mostly nothing can be done about it. Aging decline and demenia is hard for everyone. I wish you much wisdom and peace in your heart as you move forward with your life!
Dad will have to adjust, as difficult as that may be. You can't be tied down to him and stuck in a job you don't want just to make him happy. If you have to move, he can move too or he will have to go into a facility. If you move further away you will NOT be going there every day or even during the work week.
Move him with you to the new area, but into an Assisted Living Facility nearby, that's my suggestion. He can afford it, he'll be served 3 meals a day there, he'll have help available at a moment's notice, activities, entertainment, doctors, etc. You won't be stressed out, he won't be *as* stressed out, and voila, the problem is taken care of.
You deserve to change jobs now and to move on with your life. You also need to recognize the fact that dad isn't going to improve as he ages; he's only going to require more of your time and effort, let's face it. Being 3 hours away will wind up to be a bigger burden for YOU in the long run. I know; I had 2 parents to care for for 10.5 years myself and moved them 4 miles away from me, into Independent Living and then Assisted Living when required. Had they been 3 hours away, I would have wound up ripping my hair out of my head driving back and forth for ALL THE EMERGENCIES that cropped up, and there were TONS OF THEM over the years. At 91, your dad likely has many to face himself, meaning so do YOU.
Wishing you the best of luck with your future; I hope it's bright and full of happiness!
I don't believe you should stay in a job you hate, but Dad isn't going to adapt in spite of what others say, nor is he going to improve from where he is right now. The one absolute given is that Dad is going to decline, so that's the biggest thing you have to factor into any decisions you make.
As long as you factor Dad into the quotient instead of making rationalizations about his situation, you should be able to do what you want.
I did not use the word guilt in the title. The Moderators put that there. What I feel is something else regarding my father. It's a lot of things good and bad. He's very tough to help, refuses most of it, fights the rest, sometimes comes around months later but he's also my father.
He has some friends, I have his finances dialed in and a financial and medical POA. He's really hung up on his mail right now. He can't read it and is really worked up about that. The problem isn't really the mail, it's sitting around all day getting worked up about what he can't do well, see, and he pokes at it like it's a scab. Also, anxiety issues, but no dementia that I see.
I did get him on Zoloft, for a month, it's how I sold the property, but he did what I always knew he would, found an excuse to quit. He's never faced any of this, aging, eyesight, my mother's death, etc.. His whole identity is about doing things, fixing things, and he just can't. When I went out to the farm we sold, and he maintained, that became crystal clear to me although some of his stuff was genius actually.
But, he also doesn't have dementia, although, his mother, and 4 siblings that lived past 70 all had it. He's healthy as a rock, right now, with better blood work than I have. Not everyone at 91 is a physical wreck although that can turn almost instantly as it seemingly did with my mother.
Me being 3 hours away, in his current situation won't change anything. He's just as safe with me here or away. And he will not go into any kind of assisted living and that is his choice and he gets to make it, even if it is a bad choice.
In my case, I simply can't continue where I work. I have a decent skillset where I could work and travel. I've met every goal I had with my job.
However, the last year has been crazy, interim boss (trying to sell his services to my org), interim boss above him who is vindictive as hell, and now a new director with a new mandate. Two Sr people lost promised promotions (I'm one of those) and another Sr. position was eliminated. I also went way beyond my job description by taking on a ton of responsibility. In other words, more work and more responsibility and not a cent more pay. Actually I lost, they took my office and gave me a greeter cube between 2 doors.
To top it off, we hired a bunch of Jr. people and it's likely I'll be put under one of them because I refused to supervise them, do my regular job, do the additional responsibilities I took on after the promotion was taken away and the other crap. I also refused because there was no plan for them. The plan was do something with them, which I'd have failed at, and been blamed for.
I'm only missing a red stapler.
Ironically, most of this is going to be outsourced, probably to the interim director's company, and the people there now will follow us eventually.
It's .gov, they can't just fire me, but they can make me hate the job while I make them hate me for refusing to leave. You can drag a termination out for years, not a damn thing they can do about it, and you just need a 6 months stretch where you play by the rules, a lawyer (which I can afford) and it's pure hell for everyone for years.
But who wants that? And I'm good enough to leave. And I also have to face a fact, everyone in my blood line, got dementia, many in their early 80's. That isn't a long way away any more.
Hence, the conundrum.
Also, I'm so sorry the moderators reworded your question. We participants are struggling with their misguided and unnecessary editing.
Then ask them to put it back.
Consider hiring a housekeeper.
Use Dad's money, or contact The Braille Institute
For our blind and low vision patrons in the community who have difficulty making it into our centers, we provide in-home services. We come to you, when necessary, to understand and to help you remove barriers to living a fulfilling life. By focusing on your specific goals, degree of sight loss, and home environment, our in-home consultants can help you address:
Quality of life changes resulting from vision loss
Kitchen confidence and safety
Marking and labeling of household items
Using adaptive and assistive technology
Orientation and mobility, helping you get around your community
Low vision services (selecting the right magnification device)
Caregivers and family members are a welcome part of this program. Many of our techniques are designed to help family and friends understand the continued capability of their loved ones. With simple solutions, people of all ages with vision loss can continue to live safely and independently in their homes and communities.
Contact the Braille Institute Center nearest you and ask about In-Home Services.
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Guilt and anger can be used to motivate oneself in a good way.
No need to self-medicate and become dependent on meds. You may feel better after losing some of the recent weight that many a caregiver has added during the pandemic.
If you do require meds to cope, it is best done with therapy.
You can have therapy without meds.
The need to know your whereabouts - what about location sharing on a smartphone?
About the toxic work environment - you have my sympathy. Similarly with the difficulties of weighing up the pros and cons of the security of a public sector related employer versus what people can get away with (the others, not you) without getting fired. And still be promoted, indeed.
Would the marketability of your skill set carry across to the purely commercial sector? Maybe there are other opportunities that wouldn't have to take you so far away.
You don't even know yet that you'll have to move.
Proceed with your job search and find the best possible position.
Dad has options. He can relocate to the new area. He can hire help. He can take the d@mn meds. Antidepressant meds allowed my mothercto deal with problems in a less panicky way too.
What you shouldn't do is let all these moving parts paralyze you.
Took my father on a ride and to lunch. He was surprisingly open to the fact that he's facing some difficulty. It's kind of a first for him. He won't go to any kind of assisted living but if I could get another person in to help he'll be fine. He has a group of friends that, for now, provide pretty good support but they aren't the youngest group either.
I was thinking Silver Bills for helping his finance concerns. It's the same service I provide for free but if they can help with providing records for taxes and some other things we're good. And he'll have someone to call.
Being blind isn't as easy as readers. I've looked at lots of things, he's a veteran and the VA gave him a ton of stuff, but you have to use it, and age + blindness create a lot of hurdles. Going blind is incredibly difficult and frustrating.
In my case, I want to stay in government. I have money but a few more years + SS, will give me a solid baseline. It's really not bad, most of the time, I just work for a org that doesn't have the usual lines you expect in government (no union, rules are more like guidelines, "take what you can, give nothing back") And the management change caused havoc with ethical and capability lines. There is a new big boss, so maybe that will change.
I have made the decision to get serious. It's long overdue and it will give me leverage, or comfort, if things don't rectify themselves.