This seems to be a question that is not asked enough or we think what we are feeling is not as important as what our loved one is going through. This job we have taken on is a tough one and there are days when I think my "stress rope" cannot be pulled any tighter. Then there are other times that make those bad days just a memory. Do you feel like banging your head against a wall one day? And then the next day your loved one is attentive and loving and comprehends whatever you say? There are some who keep those feelings bottled up within themselves; others take the time for outside resources and others who look at sites such as this for some understanding. I do better when I have someone else to bounce my feelings off of. Let's face it....we aren't superhuman and besides ourselves and perhaps a family to take care of we now have taken on the responsibility of another human who is incapable of taking care of themselves. Do you breeze through the care giving without a problem? If so, I would like to know how you do it, maybe you can offer some new ideas; do you have feelings of frustration and need to talk about those? Come and talk and know that you can speak freely and without judgement and without finger pointing.
I am caring for my mother-in-law and have been for about 1 1/2 years. She has moderate dementia and incontinence. Other than that she is very healthy. Sometimes that short amount of time feels like 10 years and I wonder how long I will be able to do this job. I get so very tired of hearing the same thing day in and day out, but I have to remind myself that to her, each time she sees me, she is offering new information. At times I have no problems communicating with her, but it seems like more and more she cannot retain a thought longer than 5 minutes. We have had to make signs for her so she will know what she can and cannot do. So far it's working, but for how long? Maybe I will have to end up making her a "Book of Do Nots". She is on memory drugs, which don't seem to make a difference. So why do I continue to dole them out to her? I guess I'm afraid of what might happen or how she might act without them. I might have to rent a boat or buy a helmet! Sometimes I see something in her that leads me to believe that she could get aggressive and what would be my reaction to that? At the end of each and every day, after she is tucked into bed, I breathe such a sigh of relief. The "inner beast" is quiet at last, or at least for a few hours.
Pull up a chair and visit........I would like to know how you are coping everyday..be it good or with handfuls of stress.
I'm not pretending cats like them, but they're very useful for owners who want to go away on holiday and can't find anyone to look after their pets. My doting cat-owner mother used to leave her two in the same place two or three times a year for up to three weeks while she went abroad. I think she secretly liked how glad the cats were to get home afterwards.
Both ladies are incontinent, confused, MEAN, and becoming less and less mobile. Home is no longer home. We are thinking we need to move them into a nursing home. Can we survive the guilt?
I strongly believe that having brought you into this world the parents have a duty to raise the child to adulthood and the their responsibility ends. The contract is over after that it is a choice whether the parents continue to look after the child or the child makes the choice to care for the parents. This leaves aside the love involved or lack of same and obligations people feel. You have both I assume freely taken on the care of these ladies so now must face the fact you can no longer do it. Why do you need to feel guilty. They were in an ALF prior to that did that make you feel guilty? You can still love them and visit and maybe take them out and most importantly make sure the facility they enter has a good standard of care (visit at different times of day) See what the food is like, are there sufficient aides to feed the helpless at meal times. Does the place smell fresh and clean. Pause outside a few rooms and use your nose. Are the residents dressed in clean clothes. Are they just parked in the corridor fast asleep during the day. is there a pleasant light dayroom for them to spend their time. How long do call bells take to get answers. Talk to other relatives. If you don't do things like that you certainly can fell guilty and you deserve to, but placing them NO you can only do what you are able and that includes not destroying your own lives. if you feel my answer is hard it is but i see it as acting responsibly not emotionally so apologies if my words hurt thet were not meant to. Blessings
The carpet in our front two rooms is worn down to the bare boards. It's revolting. I don't even like putting my feet on that 30+ year old carpet it's that disgusting. It needed replacing 15-20 years ago. My mom did have credit cards and could have gotten that carpet replaced. She refused. Too much money. Ok. Fine. Let me call the carpet guy and have him come over and at least steam clean it. No. Too much money. Really? Ok. Let's try again. Alright, for $50 I'll rent a cleaner and do it myself. No. Too much money. Seriously?
Then there were the yard issues... This yard is a monster. And it's a monster to keep up with. While my mom was still sound she refused to get a yard guy. Too much money. She wanted us, Sean, Dylan, and I to keep up the yard. I was already working full time, dealing with her and the house and now issues with the yard were in the mix. Again. There was no reasoning with her. She wanted the yard immaculate and she damn well expected me to keep it that way and we were all a bunch of lazy s***s because we never did anything, absolutely nothing. Ok. Trying to tell my mother that we had a couple of rusted, dull hand clippers, a weed eater that didn't work and a broken down riding mower weren't going to cut it, was absolutely impossible. She wasn't hearing it. Those tools were perfectly fine for doing the yard. I was making excuses. Yeah, sure. I tried to cut the branches of one of the skinnier, overgrown bushes and it took me about 15 minutes to hack one little branch off that thing , it would probably have taken me an hour to do the one bush, and there are a lot of them around our yard. I'm not working that damn hard for anyone. I'm not willing to kill myself to get work done. I don't mind doing the work, but I need the right tools, simple as that. I don't consider this unreasonable. It was to my mom. She wasn't buying it, wouldn't listen. No. We were lazy and worthless, the tools were stellar and we were all a bunch of useless, do nothing lumps.
I called the lawn guy, the one with all the power tools that gets things done real quick. It took HIM and all his tools about 3 days to finish this yard. My mom screamed and shrieked the whole time he was here. I didn't care. Mission accomplished. Sorry I wasn't willing to kill myself for you, mom.
Just thinking about this kind of mess and how much my mom just sucked the energy right out of me with her absolute lack of common sense and trying to reason with someone that doesn't know what 'reasonable' is scares me. I don't ever want to have to deal with another like her. It's such a huge relief not to have to deal with such a personality anymore... I guess getting your energy back after this kind of life long ordeal, that a whole lot of you know about, isn't going to happen over night...
Sorry, sometimes these thoughts assail me constantly and I can't get away from them no matter how hard I try. Writing them down here where people realize I'm not quite crazy yet is a huge relief. It helps a lot.
But anyway, yeah, the money thing with her was extreme. And these were only my ideas and thoughts she vetoed. My mom spent plenty of money herself on what she wanted. Like the sunroom we didn't need that was about 8-10 grand, but the carpet we did that would have been about 2 grand. Our ways of thinking never meshed. We couldn't agree on shit.
My blood pressure is high enough without these thoughts haunting me.
Bleh. Not one of my best days... :/
Tex, I think people should express themselves here and really let it all hang out. It's not whining, it's reality. A hard reality, but it needs discussing, people need to be real about how they're feeling, especially in such harsh, emotionally charged circumstances like being in the care giver role.
I understand where you're at totally. Sometimes my mind actually feels foggy I'm so worn out mentally. What you described, the begging, pleading, etc, to get an elderly person to cooperate is very draining. It takes a lot of energy to keep that kind of thing up to get every little thing done sometimes. Like I said before, my mom would still be energized at night and by 5 p.m I felt like an over cooked noodle. It was crazy.
My mom didn't assault me when I tried to change her, but I can only imagine how you must feel after yet another such episode. It would anger and frustrate me to no end, but after a certain age you can't EXPRESS that to the elderly person anymore. They probably don't even know what they're doing half the time, but that wouldn't make it any easier to deal with all the time either. I can only imagine. Care takers have to suppress a lot of strong emotion. It's probably part of why we all feel so damn sick now and again. Stress can make you physically and mentally sick as a dog.
If some people think it was a privilege for me to care for my mom, well, that's a privilege I really could have done without. Care takers need so much more help than they get sometimes.
And what you're doing IS enough. You must believe that. Unless you're mechanical, you're only human. You can only go as far as you can go, you can only do as much as you can do. You can beat yourself bloody for not being ABLE to do more, but that's pointless. You just accept what you can't change. You aren't mechanical. You have human needs. And that's normal. No need for guilt for being normal.
Yeah, I've been exactly where you are. I'm there now. Do whatever it takes, Tex, to make sure you get MORE of that much needed quiet, solitude, peace and downtime. It's not a luxury, it's a necessity if we want to continue being good care givers and avoid complete insanity. Being an only child sucks as far as the care giver role goes for sure. It's heavy duty. But then again, the more I read about siblings around here the happier I get that I don't have any... Anyway, yeah, when I cared for my mom bet I got my naps in the afternoon. Sometimes I didn't even sleep, just stayed in my room and chilled while Sean watched my mom for a couple hours. Those hours, every single day, kept me sane.
£5,000 on a holiday abroad - no worries, clearly a critical part of the budget. More than £20 for a pair of trousers? She had to lie down in a darkened room after I ordered two pairs of woollen flannel, half-lined warm winter trousers and didn't tell her until afterwards that they were £75 (whispers: each). Thank God, she does actually like them - big improvement on the last attempt.
Just to share. I once met a woman who was proudly telling everyone who would listen that her son was off to college in the Fall. She had woven yards and yards of wollen fabric enough to make him three suites to wear at school. I wonder if he is changing her Depends now!
Cindy - Everyone in this situation knows what you are going through. We hate to see our loved ones just exist. Take care of You as best you can!!!!
Book - I think of you a lot and thank God that Mom was not bed ridden. I really do not know how you handle it. It is even harder for you because your father is not helping. Take care of YOU!!!!!!!!!!!
SA - Get Sean to get different colors for the paint gun. Then the cat will look tye-dyed. LOL Taka care of YOU!!!!!!!
Red ) I remember cleaning up my mom. One time I came home and she had pooped sitting in her chair. It was all over the place. I do hope that you can get some rest. Take care of YOU!!!!!
LadeeM - No wonder you would feel a little jaded and un trusting. You have been though a lot. I hope the new job is better. Give a yourself a break and take care of YOU!!!!
CM- Yes, I wish I could stay in the house too. However, when something breaks I do not have the money to get it fixed. Although I had been living somewhere else for a while I still grew up in the house. Take care of YOU!!!!!
Hi - Well, no bites on the house yet but it has only been a week. I took a painting that my Great-Grandfather painted to see if I could put it up for auction. No go though. I also have my grandmothers china but no go on that. The China and the painting has been boxed up in my car for a month. I do not know what to do with it now. I have to bring some of Mom's clothes to be donated. I have no place to put my groceries. Bro is going to have to do something with them. I have enough on my hands. I am looking forward to seeing some parades this year without feeling guilty about Mom being home alone. She never wanted to go though. It will be in the high 60's which is perfect for the parades. Jazzy is doing about the same. I have stopped giving her the meds because she either gets sick or is off her food. I have not called her vet and told him yet. I feel like I am not a good mother for my cat. I started her on cosequin
and I can see the difference in her movements. I have to go so take care of You All!!!
SA, I love shopping. I’m a shop-a-holic. Put me online, and I can spend like crazy. No way am I Deleting those items from my cart. But, I can spend the whole day window-shopping at Macys, Ross, etc… and walk out without buying anything. I will take clothes, try it on in the dressing room, and then put it back on the rack. That is fun!
Texarkana, father only gets physical when I don’t do what he wants. He hasn’t reached the stage where he’s violent all the time (like mom at one stage). He truly knows that of his 8 children, I’m the only one willing to do the dirty work. Except, I’m also stealing from him, and a communist.
Red, glad you finally finished the chairs. I no longer give dad too much options. He either takes forever trying to choose, or changes his mind. I learned from watching Teepa Snow’s YouTube videos to limit the option. I experimented. And it’s true. There’s no need to feel guilty. You are doing the best you can. And compared to me, you have So Much Patience. Just a few days ago, father woke up early in the morning and started to call my name. I snapped and told him to go back to sleep. We have another 30 minutes of sleep. He muttered but waited until 630am, wake up time. He gets insomnia around 4am and can’t go back to sleep. He once started SINGING!
Father’s bedsore is healing. It’s so obviously improving. Whew! He’s been very good at lying on his back with a pillow below the butt with the sore. No, he doesn’t want to turn on his side. His rashes have mostly gone. And he’s no longer shedding skin. It’s so strange to see him without flaking skin and hot angry rashes. That’s because while he’s on antibiotics, he’s not taking most of his herbals. He is counting the days when the antibiotic is over, because he misses taking his herbals.
Thanks - everyone for your feedback, encouragements and tips. I am soooo stressed from work also. Today, I was super stress (trying to get a customer's Vietnam Visa approve and hotel confirmations before he leaves on 05March.) Through out the day, I felt myself overheating, my face was feverish, and I was getting lightheaded. This has been one of the most Stressful 2 weeks in my life - stress from home, from work and my heath scare. I have been doing a LOT of praying Fervently (for work - because we deal with thousands of dollars tickets and we darn well better know what we're doing.) I was miserable today. And am so glad I'm off tomorrow... except we're having a tropical depression (cyclone? storm?) which will bring Lots of rain/wind. I'm a terrible, terrible driver. Ugh! I do not want to stay home. Later.. I have a lousy headache, neckache, nausea, etc...
LadeeC, since you mentioned Ramen, I have been thinking of it. I'm going to make the soup and throw in an egg. Please let there be eggs in the fridge. No eggs, no Ramen. That's the ONLY way I like to eat my Ramen. Then, I'm taking my prescription painkiller for my aches/pain. Later!
When you are twelve, you want the same school sweater from the same shop as everyone else has got. Granny's home-made knits? I still bear the emotional scars.