How do I handle siblings who not only do not help, but who are now having family functions and excluding me?
I care for my elderly parents, my mother has end stage MS, and I moved back home to provide the 24 hour care my mother needs and to help my elderly father. My older sister lives two houses down, and works maximum three days a week from her home. My younger sister was fired three months ago and is receiving unemployment. They have come to help with my parents zero times, and in fact enjoy very active social lives. They have never offered to give me any break, they have been consistently absent when I have asked for help during times my mother has had crises (her catheter leaking and soaking through the bed, etc.). I have two nieces and a nephew and because they avoid coming over, I am isolated from them. They are now engaging in family functions like going out to lunch as a family and not even inviting me to join them. When I found out about their latest day of fun today which included lunch nearby that I could have come, I expressed my hurt at being excluded. This is at least the second time this has happened, and both times so far their first approach is to lie to my father who sees I was upset about missing seeing the kids, and tell him I was invited but that I refused to join them. I had all the texts and confronted them with the facts that they had not invited me, they got angry and reprimanded me for being upset and "making a big deal out of it." They almost seem to derive pleasure from knowingly hurting me. It is as if they are sociopathic in their total lack of any empathy not only for the unpleasant and difficult task I have every day, but also for how I would feel knowing they are literally abandoning any and all responsibility and concern for my parents' well-being, but also hurting me by excluding me from their fun activities. I am devastated that they don't even try to make their lies believable, that they seem to enjoy rubbing my nose in the exclusion, and now treat me literally as if I am no longer their sibling but instead as their way to justify doing nothing by dumping all on me. I don't know what to do, i used to have a very close relationship with them, especially the kids, and even my sister in law treats me like I am a stranger who has no relevance. Any advice?
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I agree with pstegman that you need respite. EVERY caregiver needs to get away from the situation regularly. Obviously you can't count on family helping you out by taking over, so forget about them and spend your energy arranging something else.
You apparently decided to move and to devote yourself to your parents. Good for you! If seeing the actual situation and the experience of 24/7 responsibility has given you second thoughts, that is perfectly understandable. It happens more than you might think. If you want to continue with the full responsibility, that is great. If you want to change your mind and make some other arrangements for your parents, that is OK too. Focus on your own decisions. Give up thinking that your siblings are going to help you out. Maybe they "should" but that doesn't do you any good.
So if your siblings have lunch and don't invite you, just say "So what." You certainly wouldn't want to spend time with someone who didn't want to be with you. Jeanne's advice on focusing on yourself and what you are doing is excellent. Your siblings don't seem to want to be involved.
I, too, have two siblings nearby one takes mom to church most Sundays, the other a therapist has done absolutely nothing in 2.5 years. Some of us have what it takes to do this job, but most people don't. That is why waiting lists at facilities are so long. You should take pride in being able to do everything for your mom.
Often, and it is my case as well, siblings just do not know what to say or how to act with the sibling providing the care while they go on with their lives. Whether it is embarrassment of out and out guilt, they just cannot handle it. It causes them stress and they do not know what to do to help or most importantly, understand what a fun, carefree time away would do for our morale. You need to stop beating yourself up over this, and as others have said, detach. I have not been asked to do anything with them including holidays, I had to do the inviting. One six does not even respond to invitations and wields her influence towards my grown children in determining how they should plan their holidays. Two of my kiddos see and understand what is going on. I'm still waiting to see if the third will wake up.
Sure it hurts, but I have had to rise above it, sure its hard. But when it comes down to it I enjoy my own company much better than theirs. They are the ones that will lose out on the precious time our mother has left. One day they will be sorry that only they have made things this way.
Parents, especially good ones, may have no time to themselves at certain development stages. Children can be extremely time consuming, particularly if they have special needs of their own. I raised a special needs child, and there were times my wife and I could not even care for ourselves properly because we had nothing left. We could not have handled both kids and parents at the time. I do not have siblings, but I am very grateful for help from anyone, no matter how small. To keep them engaged I need to be positive about what they do, not negative about what they don't do.
Maybe putting things with your siblings in a positive light might help. For example, instead of talking about how hard it is to change the sheets, let your siblings know your parents were asking about the kids and you talked about Johnny's success at the spelling bee last year or Mary working as a lifeguard. Hard to keep up the positive when you are rightfully resentful, but people naturally avoid negative situations. You probably cannot raise them to your level of humanity, but maybe you can help them improve.
And pstegman is so right. Give yourself a break!
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