I'm tired of cooking/preparing 3 meals a day. It's just the two of us but boy oh boy can that woman eat!! She stays slimish, I get fattish. It's bad enough I do everything here much less start making her one thing and me the other. At times I feel guilty when I buy her fast food cuz of the nutritional value....not to mention I eat it too.
Breakfast and lunch together is called brunch. What is lunch and dinner together called? The only thing that I have seen early dinners called on menus are ‘early bird’ specials.
I haven’t shopped yet so it will be one of those, ‘open the fridge and get creative’ kind of meals!
I will call the doctor tomorrow to see if she can give her some medicines.
It is so hard seeing her in pain without being able to do anything to take away the pain.
We have shared similar situations in our lives. I connect to your posts. 😊
Welcome and vent away! We all have done lots of venting!
I sympathize. Large muscle cramps can be some of the worst pain I've ever felt. I hope you find a remedy. Please let me know if the vinegar helps. I used to drink some ACV but that habit was short lived. I couldn't see that it was helping anything, though I'll still drink some for upset stomach.
Shimmeringsun, sometimes all one can do is vent amongst friends who've been there. You're not alone. But as Golden points out, it's important to think about how long your situation is sustainable and what changes you need to make. You've got one life and your parents care may become overwhelming. Sure sounds like you're on that track to where you start breaking down trying to help them. If siblings can't/won't help, look into outside care. It could help your parents and help you. You can't do it all by yourself. Please let go of the guilt. You're trying, and your stress levels are telling you that you need to take care of yourself, too.
sun - sounds like you need some boundaries - unwilling sibs don't change, in my experience. As you are living at your parents house it is easier to get enmeshed with all the chores than if you live independently. They will need more and more care. Are you considering doing that too? Can someone be hired with their money to do chores for them? You can't keep doing it all and not get burnt out. It's too much for one person. You will have to be the one to make changes to make life better for you. You need some time off for your own life. Your local agency for aging may have some suggestions fore you.
Are your parents disabled? I am nearly 84 and do my own shopping, laundry, cleaning etc. and will hire people when I can't.
I live with my 80 year old parents and I guess because I do my siblings think it’s automatically my responsibility to do everything for them. Today I feel exhausted, cranky and miserable, then I get snappy with my parents and feel guilty afterwords that I do. I’m working full time, come home to do things I can’t do while I’m at work. Friday nights I do groceries for myself and my parents, Saturday’s are errands for them, laundry, beddings, cleaning, cooking. Then Sunday I’m exhausted and don’t want to do anything but there are still things to be done.
Like a lot of people I have two siblings who do absolutely nothing. My sister “offered” to do groceries once and I guess because she “offered” she did her duty. I get frustrated as she lives 5 minutes away, will be off the whole summer but will let me slug away this summer without even taking groceries off the list for me. As for my brother, I don’t even consider him in the mix because he lives about 45 mins away and has never even offered anything. Even if I told my sister she could help she would find reasons not to. For example my parents have a cottage that she spends a lot of time there in the summer so I mentioned to her that she could do their groceries for them while they were at the cottage this summer and all of the sudden she didn’t know when she would be there as her son will be working and she needs to get him to work. But it’s funny as last summer he worked and she had no problem handling that and spending every weekend at the cottage. Priorities I know….I think what bothers me the most is the lack of consideration, my parents did a lot for my sister when she left her husband but she can’t even go pick them up a few things from Costco, I guess I’ll never understand how some people can be so selfish.
Anyways, I just needed this little vent/whine moment, 99% of the time I’m fine with handling things. I think the humid heat we are having is just making me extra cranky (I don’t handle humid muggy heat well…aka I’m a miserable baby dealing with it), on top of not sleeping, stress of a new job and just feeling down and out is bringing me to a bit of a breaking point. I know things can be a lot worse and people are dealing with much worse things, so I feel bad posting my little vent.
I think I just need to hear from other people who are dealing with caretaking also , who feel or have felt the same way will help me not feel so guilty and not feel like I’m a horrible daughter for feeling this way today.
Thanks for listening (aka reading my post).
https://www.google.com/search?q=nocturnal+leg+cramps+and+statins&oq=leg+cramps+and+ststins&aqs=chrome.2.69i57j0i13j0i5i13i30j0i390l2.11509j0j4&client=ms-android-tmus-us-revc&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8
However, I had the mother of all leg cramps the other night and my thigh muscle still hurts. With the weather so hot here, I am not making appointments till it cools down. I have a hair appointment which I made before I knew it was going to be so hot and I may cancel that. I can't be running around outside at 100+ F (38+C) at my age.
Ex, who gets bad leg cramps, told me that vinegar helps. I now have the bottle of vinegar by my bedside. Wish me well. Prayers appreciated. I need to get to the bottom of this.
Like the story about the cabbage. I love cabbage too. It is one of my favorite vegetables. I make a delicious cabbage soup and boiled dinner.
I love the story about your mom dressing in her best nightgown for a visit from family. How cute is that.
I love the hymns from when I was a kid. My mom and I sang in the church choir for five years together. One of our favorites is How Great Thou Art. It brings tears to my eyes when I sing it or hear it on the radio for it reminds me of a simpler time with my dear mother .Those were the days my friend we thought they would never end. We take life for grated don't we? Oh those younger days with family.
It must have been so sad when your mom lost everything but I am glad she survived. She seemed like a very strong person.
I remember the ice cream truck. We have one here in our town. Love to hear it coming, I still run out and get ice cream of some sort. Brings back memories. That is so nice your dog got a free ice cream. Dogs love ice cream too.
Every Saturday night family would get together and watch The Lawrence Welk Show. My parents loved the show. We used to watch the reruns. I agree that era had great music and style.
You have fun and interesting stories. Keep them coming, NeedHelp. Love reading them!
My mom went to Catholic school. So did I. I think I told you before that I had some of the same nuns that mom had. They were quite young when they taught mom. They have marvelous memories. I loved hearing stories about my mom as a young girl from the nuns.
Mom and I liked the same hymns sung at Mass. Catholic Churches are absolutely beautiful. I love the stained glass windows. So many of our historical churches were destroyed in hurricane Katrina. I probably mentioned it before but my mother was christened at St. Louis Cathedral.
I have been to a few outdoor Masses too. They are nice when the weather is nice. It gets so hot here! We have a fair amount of rainfall too. We have short winters and long summers, hardly any spring or fall!
One cute story that mom told me was that grandma wanted her to try cabbage as a young child. Mom didn’t want to eat it. Grandma told her that she would give her a nickel if she tasted it. Mom wanted the nickel so she tried it and to her surprise, she liked it! Back then, you could actually buy something with a nickel!
Even when I was a child I remember buying penny candies, either a tootsie roll, a piece of bubblegum, those little wax bottles filled with liquid, etc. I remember an ice cream from the ice cream truck was only 7 cents! I always wanted the popsicle. My dog got one for free! My dog got a small vanilla cup of ice cream. The ice cream man loved my dog.
I am the only one who ate cabbage of my siblings. No one else liked it. My husband hates it! Yet, he eats egg rolls in Chinese restaurants which has cabbage in them. Go figure!
I have just read your story about your mom and dad dancing while I was waiting for coffee to be ready (Italian style with a "caffettiera"). I just had the impression to see your family just like in a movie! What a nice way to start my day! So thank you so much for sharing!
I smiled as I read those stories. My parents danced to Frank Sinatra, Glen Miller, The Andrew Sisters and more. That era had great music!
All of mom’s old photos were destroyed in hurricane Katrina but you are right, they were beautiful in their fancy dresses, dancing beautifully! They had phenomenal figures! I still say that the 40’s had the best fashion!
My mom was very close to her mom too. My dad loved my grandmother too. Grandma was was like your grandmother, very independent and healthy. She lived in her own home too. She was 85.
My dad’s parents died before I was born but daddy always told me that I look like his mom.
My mother and father fell in love at age 15. They were married for sixty years. My mom was the girl next door. They lived 2 minutes away from each other. My mothers mom used to get a big stick and go looking for my mother. She never used it on my mother, but my father was scared to death of her. She was a little Irish short woman but she was strict. My father grew to love her very much and always invited her over for dinner. He told me once if she ever needed help he would have her live with us, but she was independent and capable up to the time she passed.
My mother would visit her mom every day in her own home.. My parents took her on almost every vacation. My grandmother passed in her own home around 80 years old. My mother was very close to her mother .She still asks for her and misses her. I told her she will see her again some day. It gives her much comfort knowing she will be reunited with her loved ones.
I attended catholic school and one time my mother went to an outdoor mass. My mother was going to communion and she smiled and waved to me, a classmate asked who the beautiful woman was and I told her she was my mother. She seemed so surprised I had such a beautiful mother. She said "that is your mother?"
My mother may be beautiful but her heart is too.
Your mom sounds so very sweet. It’s amazing to think about living as long as she has. Do you have any particular favorite stories that she has told you? I wish that I had written down stories from my mom, but we don’t always think to fo that.
Your mom knows without a doubt how much you love her and how much she means to you.
I am sorry that your mom said that to you. Your mom adores you. You had a right to express your feelings and I think that it’s important that you did so. It’s not good to bottle things up. You are lucky that you can tell your feelings to her and she listens. Some moms aren’t willing to listen and don’t care if they hurt their children.
The fact that she apologized to you speaks volumes. So many people are offended when their behavior is criticized, even if it is done lovingly. Your mom graciously accepted your assessment of the situation and acknowledged her wrongdoing and made sure that she apologized to you.
I have always felt that your mom was a sweetheart. She proves it over and over again. Good for you for accepting her sincere apology. Some people hold grudges. Obviously, you don’t. People hurt themselves and others by holding grudges.
I am not always pleasant in the morning if I haven’t had my coffee yet! Hahaha, I can be grumpy too. Once I heard my daughter say to her friend the morning after a sleepover, “Don’t expect my mom to speak to anyone until she has her coffee. She is nice after she has coffee.” 😆 Her friend said, “My mom is the same way!” Why on earth is it called a sleepover? Kids don’t sleep, they talk and giggle all night! Parents don’t get any sleep when friends sleep over. Come to think of it, I don’t remember sleeping at sleepovers either. 🤣
Most people who are still sleepy and not quite ready to get up are going to be grumpy. I wouldn’t be too upset with your mom. She honestly didn’t mean to upset you. We have all snapped at others. Hopefully, most people care enough to apologize for their behavior.
I don’t think it’s good for us to place anyone on a pedestal because no one can remain on a pedestal. We all fall off occasionally. Plus, it places a lot of pressure on them. It’s important for us to realize that a slip here and there doesn’t matter all that much when the majority of the time it is wonderful. I love knowing that my husband and children love and accept me even when I slip. After my morning coffee, I am fine again! 😊
It works best if you take it though....
Golden, I think I was just ill for a bit, and that was why it got so bad for me. Stress compounds that for me, my mental fog flares up drastically. Divo's care for several weeks, following right after the terrible roommate situation, didn't help. Had a few nights of waking up drenched. Could be hormones changing, too. I can get that sorted with some tests, maybe. Was going to do the blood draw today that was asked for 4 months ago, but I have to do it in the morning after fasting.
I'm getting things ticked off the to-do list, and my grades look good. If I can keep this up there's no reason to take a break from school. I could take a 4 week break if I feel that's best. It's good to have options.
I hear you about the challenges I've undertaken with school and career choice. The reason I picked OT to begin with had to do with recognizing my own limitations. OT work-week is relatively short compared to other professions. I saw PTs/OTs in action during caregiving and think it would be great work for me, a balance of things I think I'm good at: interpersonal skills + analysis. Plus, fulfillment of helping others have more meaningful lives. It's a great fit for me but I may find something else I can do with my psych degree that I think is more of a passion and weigh those options. I think I could do the school part, though I might have to focus only on grad school and not work at same time. I'll cross that bridge later and my current classes give me some things to reflect on and may steer me in a different direction.
I've seen you mention inositol a couple of times in comments and happy you've put it on my radar as I'd never heard of it. I take vitamins/supplements daily now but always figuring out what could help and what doesn't help.
I'm not sure a Dx of CFS/ME/FM could help me much but I'd like to pursue that again now, see where it leads. I don't have the same pressure points as FM and my pain seems different. I stopped looking into this some years ago but want to try again. I don't know why, with all my doc visits for myself during caregiving years, they never tested for things like Lyme disease to rule that out. I chalked up so many of my problems to the obvious mold problems and just figured maybe I'd get better someday with exercise, diet, and the end of caregiving.
It's a journey. Eternal thanks to you, Golden, and everyone who's been supportive. (((((hugs)))))
I am glad you are working to get a break. You have chosen a very challenging academic path and then also a challenging career. To survive both of those you need to take very good care of yourself. Inevitably life brings additional stresses like that room mate and Divo. It looks to me that you have something like CFS/FM and those conditions are limiting mental/ physical and emotional energy-wise, Emotional stability can be compromised at times. I managed to teach till i was 73 with that condition and also in the latter years do distance caregiving for mother. It was a stretch at times.
I hear that you are doing very well outwardly, but struggling some inwardly. I agree therapy with the right person would help. I also agree that lifestyle and therapy is safer than meds. Having said that I a, finding that inositol ( 2-4 grams a day and vitamin B1 (thiamine) are helping my mood, sleep and energy. I guess I consider them more supplements than drugs though there is not a clear line between those groups of substances. Finding the right way through these issues is not easy. Sounds like you are going in the right direction., (((((hugs)))))
When I started grad school at 39, I was a mess. Had three fairly young kids and a disolving marriage.
I was in the library late one night and glanced across the table and saw a classmate having what looked like similar panicky symptoms.
I will never know what prompted me to say to her "did you go to x school?"
We later said that we picked up the total anxiety in each other of being "mature students", from a snooty private college where neither of us had been successful.
We supported each other through many panic attacks, career moves, the birth of her kids, my divorce and eventual remarriage.
You need a team to get through school!
I emailed my advisor about taking a leave of absence. The next term starts one week after finals. I need to take a break and focus on my health. I'll explore my options with that, figure out something reasonable where I continue asap but I don't keep jamming myself through this right now.
So far today, I re-read the chapter in psych and made myself a study guide. I'm doing so much better than the past few days of extreme brain fog. Golden, have you ever experienced some days where you don't remember what happened or what you did...? That was a few days this past week for me. So it's been extreme but today is much, much better.
Glands are still swollen and hurting, I have a lot of body ache but ibuprofen and a little gabapentin is helping. The insomnia this past week has been terrible. I'm going to cut back on zolpidem, it's not helping me right now and there are side effects of short-term memory loss. There are so many factors, it's hard to know what's causing my issues lately. Today I'm much better. I'm optimistic that will continue.
My anxiety at times causes so much interference with school work. No one else is criticizing my work and I'm getting good grades. I'm done in two weeks and expect I'll make Chancellor's list again, and... I'll go from there.
I could benefit from therapy. I'll see what options I have there. I need some help learning and practicing mood management techniques. Meds have too many side effects for me and don't help a thing. I think they compound the issues.
Sorry for the long post!! I really need to take all this to my PCP and a therapist, see what help I can get.
ali - the recent stresses as well as the ongoing stress of meeting academic deadlines is enough to send anyone into a tail spin, Swollen glands etc. are familiar to me. Are you having brain fog? They all are signals you need to rest and rest and rest. Hope you will get a good break soon!
chris -those kitties rule the roost!!!
As I’ve been writing this, my own tabby cat got onto my chair behind me, and has managed to literally push me off my seat, with claws into my back to ensure I got up, buzzed off and gave him the whole seat. Charming. They are tyrants but I too will be devastated when my cats depart this life.
The cliff notes: I had by far the worst week in school I've ever had. I will be fine and I will re-read the material but I was shocked. I didn't realize I left so much to do until the last day and that's very unusual. I usually know how to pace my week, and comprehend the material better.
Radar, you too!!!
I was able to get some work in and made my peace with turning some things in late this week. I've gotten 99% of work in on time and the exception was the day addict roommie N moved out. That Tuesday, I asked for an extra day and prof kindly gave me a week. It's been a really fast pace with school the past 8 months.
I may as well ask for another extension. The worst prof can say is no and then it's a 10% point deduction. My grades are very good and it shouldn't affect the overall grade.
I needed some downtime, some self care. Earlier I made turmeric ashwaghanda tea, took a long candlelit bath with Epsom salt and eucalyptus and rosemary oils, and then ordered food delivery. It is what it is; I needed some pampering. :-)
Extra thanks to you, golden, for being supportive and reminding me I have to take care of myself, too. Many (((((hugs))))). And some others have reached out in PMs to offer some input. I appreciate it so much. The encouragement really helps.