We we just transferred my mother to a lovely nursing home. We live in a small town and the facility is no more than 15 minutes away from me. I can't seem to make myself go over more than once a week, if that. Even then, an hour is almost more than I can handle.
I have just spent the better part of 2 years living in her home and taking care of her by myself. I have two brothers and a sister who all live nearby, but simply because I am the only single child with no children, I moved out of my own home and in with her. This was of my own free will. I had no idea what it was going to be like!
She was not a warm and fuzzy person to begin with, but became cold and prickly before very long. I am also disabled so no longer employed, for good reason, but she thought that I could wait on her hand and foot without ever crashing. Wrong! Things got pretty bad between us before she agreed to go. I had to simply tell her I couldn't do it any more when she decided she was no longer going to walk, eat, or get out of bed.
Well, since she has moved the end of December, I have been to see her 3 times. Right after she moved I got covid, then my best friend took his own life. I did finally pull it together enough to go see her a couple of times and she didn't act like she cared whether I was there or not. Now that she is there, my siblings who couldn't go out of their way to come and sit with her for 2 hours once in a blue moon so I could go see my previously mentioned best friend. Thanks sibs, sure needed more guilt.
Now that she is at the nursing home, they are there very nearly every day. Super children at this point! Should I just suck it up and go over there more often. She has told me that she doesn't really care anyway. She has completely stopped eating and drinking, but that has been going on for at least 2 months. How long can someone hang on without eating anything at all? She says she just wants to die and go be with my dad. I do understand that he treated her like a queen her whole life and waited on her hand and foot and loved her with everything in him. I just want her to go to sleep and not wake up. Why can't life give us a break and let that happen. Maybe God is just giving Dad a break for a while. He passed in Aug of 2021. I miss him every minute of every day.
I don't know if I even have a question. Maybe just need to vent. Am I going to feel guilty forever if I don't go more often? She pretty much refuses to talk to me anyway.
I think you need to examine your own feelings and where they might be coming from. I would suggest a couple of therapy sessions with a Licensed Social Worker in private practice for therapy (they are often best at life transitions work).
There is truly no reason for this other than you are not allowing yourself to be happy. You seem to want to believe life is still punishing you when in fact it is showering you with bunches of roses. Do you think you don't deserve it.
As to GUILT, unless you are an evil felon who made your Mom not only ill but made her a pain in the bottom, unless you caused her illness and take delight in it, guilt isn't for you.
The word is grief. Grief that your Mom is ill and helpless. Grief that no matter how hard you try no one acknowledges that you are an A-OK daughter. Grief that your siblings let you down when you needed them, and hey now there they are! GRIEF. Pure and simple.
Not everything can be fixed, can be dressed up in a pretty gown and made palatable. Some things just are awful. And have to be endured.
As to that newfound freedom, please, for the love of heaven, embrace it. It is time to stop telling everyone the awful story; it's over. YOU FIXED IT! Break out the champagne (and call me when it's uncorked).
I had a beautiful relationship with my mom and still hated visiting her at the nursing home. She seemed happy to see me sometimes but other times I could tell she just wanted me to leave so she could go back to sleep. I think once they've decided they are ready to leave this earthly plane there isn't much anyone can do to give them that will to stick around, no matter how much they may or may not love us. I think there is a certain amount of selfishness that comes into play when people are sick or dying and know they only have a short time left. The effort it takes to sound and look interested or happy to see someone is probably in short supply. I wouldn't take it personally.
Don't feel guilty. Go when you are able.
Being related by blood doesn't guarantee that they will recognize efforts or show an ounce of appreciation. Often friends and even strangers are better at that.
You did above-and-beyond, but guilt is a very bad motivator, especially guilt for what?
You said that your mom wasn't a warm and fuzzy person to begin with and in your profile you say that your father apologized to you for having created a monster for you. You also mention that you suffer from a boat load of painful ailments that would have put even a saint in a justifiably major crusty mood. And you mentioned that you enjoy being alone. You sound like me :). This cocktail of ingredients has me reeling trying to imagine how you thought this would work.
There are some not nice people that have a neon sign on their forehead that reads "I'm a tried and true selfish a**h*le. If you don't want your feelings hurt keep at a safe distance." And then idiots like you and me step into it, trying to help when some things should be handed over to someone else.
Maybe you weren't motivated by guilt. Perhaps instead you were motivated by a need to be loved, recognized, or get a kind word, or you thought you could come to the rescue. Maybe you thought you could feel good by being heroic.
Finally, here's your chance to be appreciated by such a sweet bunny rabbit, as your mom?
Perhaps there was a selfish motivation that you were ignoring, and that always backfires. Maybe when you were a little girl you were affected by your mom sucking the air out of the room and took all the love that should've been shared with you. Maybe you loved your dad so much you thought you could replace your dad with your mom and somehow you might be the recipient of some of the crumbs of appreciation you saw her give your dad for his servitude.
You will feel guilty if somehow you rationalize it, and even though it doesn't make sense to kind of self-flagellate by seeing her.
See her when you want to. If she dies the day you were going to see her but changed you mind and didn't, that happens. It's not the cherry on top of your guilt-fest, unless you want it so. If you siblings give you a jab about anything, dont' engage.
Everyone wishes that they had a nurturing mom. As a nurse you made it a career of being a caregiver. Kind of like your dad.
Parents can become a nagging haunting chronic illness. You may want to look into finding a therapist to learn how to stop ruminating about your parents otherwise you will feel guilty the rest of your life and I might add that, as you know, translates to physical ills.
Forgive me if this was too straight forward. I really do know you're hurting, but have you ever watched crazy YouTubes videos of dogs biting their own tails and getting angry that they're being hurt?
Practice being mindful of your thoughts.
Warm good wishes.
That is so great that your siblings are now visiting your mother a lot. PLEASE let yourself off the hook. You did for 2 years what they refused to do.
Sounds like a good compromise to me.
Think about what would hit the right balance, if 1 x week is not.
Less = feelings of guilt.
More = damage your own neeeds. If not physically, what I call 'emotional hangover'.
Mom has her needs met. Your visit is a little social addition. Maybe something she looks forward to..? Can discuss the week. Think of it like a gift. It's the quality, not the quantity that matters. One pleasant hour is better than three drawn out awkward ones.
I've met folk that are all day or multi day a week visitors. That's ok. That suits them & their relationship. My MIL would sit all day with her husband if he was in hospital.
My DH dislikes visits & so do I. We pop in & leave.
Sometimes bringing a 'prop' can help ASA talking point. A book or photos to show, a bunch of flowers, a slice of cake etc.
My siblings would visit mom every time she went into the hospital or rehab but hardly visited her at all during the time she lived with me.
As for not eating, my mother was never a big eater and as she aged she barely ate. She claimed that she wasn’t hungry. Some older people seem to lose their appetites.
My mother was skin and bones but lived to be 95. So, who knows how long your mother will last not eating very much.
I don’t think that you should force yourself to go to the nursing home any more than you are if you don’t want to. Go when you feel like it. You don’t have to stay long. She has your siblings and an entire staff looking after her.
You sound like you may be a bit depressed. Use this time away from her to do something fun just you.
We can’t ever get back the time we lost being full time caregivers. You do have now. Time is precious, so don’t waste it. The past is gone. You have today.
You don’t have to have a question to chat on this forum. Lots of people have come here only to vent. So go ahead and vent if you need to.
One thing that I would do when I wanted to express my feelings was to journal my thoughts. It helped. Start anywhere and work through your emotions.
Finally, if you feel that you are stuck, look for a licensed therapist to help you move forward in your life.
Best wishes to you. Take care.
That 1/2 hour visit is enough. When the dementia progresses to the point where the person cannot interact or respond on any level there's no reason to stay any longer than that. What amount of time does someone have to sit and watch another person stare off into space to prove they love them?
Another reason why people cannot bring themselves to visit an elderly LO in care is because the second they walk in the complaining, gloom and doom, misery, negativity, and hysterics gets turned on.
I have a good friend who was a co-worker with me years ago. She has three kids (now grown) and worked a full-time job. She moved her mother in when she could no longer live alone. It got to the point where she had to put her in AL. She put her into the AL I worked in.
Her mother was the life of the party. Never bored. Had all kinds of friends, and used to join in the famous 'after-hours' parties the old folks used to have going on in one of their rooms every night. Sweetest old lady you ever knew.
The second her daughter (my friend) showed up, the curtain would go up and act one of the misery, negativity, guilt-tripping, begging to go home, crying, ridiculous drama show would start.
This was every time she visited. I remember one time right before Christmas she had my friend in tears. So I took both of them into my office for a private word and called her mother out on her crap.
I told her (in front of her daughter) that I see her every single day and a few nights a week and she is far from being miserable and lonely. That I have never heard her make one complaint about the food and that she always takes seconds and even thirds, so it must not be so bad.
Her mother was mortified that she was called out on her nonsense, and rightly so.
She temporarily villified her daughter and refused to let her visit. Then she'd go around telling everyone that her daughter wouldn't come. I called her out often on those lies as well and eventually she stopped the lying and her daughter started visiting again.
She never spoke to me again though. Not that I cared she was just another resident to me.
There are many reasons why a person does not visit an elderly LO in care.
Oh, and by the way...she has not "completely stopped eating and drinking for the last 2 months". That's just her manipulation tactics she's using to guilt you for "putting her in such a place." In general, the human body can go without water for 2-3 days and without food for 30-40 days. Check her drawers and cupboards for snacks and don't rely on HER to tell you the truth.
My mother was "dying" and/or playing the I'm waiting to die game for decades with me. She lived to 95. She also "wasn't eating a thing" just barely managing to hang onto her 185 lb figure the entire time. 🙄
You're being played. Let your siblings take over the steering wheel now.
See All Answers