The Caregiver & Dysfunctional Families: How are you doing?

Surprise - are you asking "where did I go wrong?" Seriously?!

Any parent reading about your boy who is NOT thinking "there but for the grace of God…" deserves everything he or she will one day surely get.

You didn't choose his horrible girlfriend. If he'd consulted you, I assume you would have advised him not to propose after only one month; but he didn't. I further assume that the former best friend only told you about this (very brief, by the way) phase because she thought it made a good story with, thank God, a happy ending.

You've shown your son that imperfect people, when faced with a difficult decision, are capable of thinking things through and taking constructive action. You've told him the truth about your memories: in my experience, it's secrets and lies that cause real, lasting damage and destroy trust. You've advised him appropriately to seek help when necessary. You may have passed on some disagreeable genes (as well as positive ones) - did you ask to be given them yourself?

Jumping to different churches… well. Can I assume you've never claimed to your son that any one of them definitely had all the answers? Hilaire Belloc wrote a particularly lovely line addressed to children in his foreword to "Cautionary Tales": "… your little hands were made to take the better things, and leave the worse ones…" Speaking only for myself, I'll take wisdom and blessings from any church or any religion that offers them; and I don't believe that any has a monopoly. And not burning people for apostasy nowadays is one of the things that Western civilisation has got right.

Of course you feel sad - one's children's pain is always awful, that's how you know you're a normal parent.

Embarrassed? Why? In front of whom? It wasn't you who hitched up with a crazed jealous princess! I know embarrassment is an emotion it's hard to ignore, though: in times like this I bring to mind the late, very wonderful Peg Bracken's marvellous consolation for when you are feeling like a jackass: "… and at the VERY least, you've served as a bad example." This thought comforts me when nothing else does!

Are you sad because your son is angry with your mother? He's very young to have got the hang of forgiving, of hating the sin and not the sinner, of doing the right thing IN SPITE of the person you're doing it for and not because of it. He'll learn.

Internet porn is vile. I've seen images I don't want in my head, sent in technicolor straight to my email address, and I wasn't even curious thank you very much. So if I don't want it and don't go looking and still can't avoid it, I have no idea how young men can be protected from it. Its enormities and its ubiquity are a huge social ill, I agree. But stolen innocence? I don't remember young men being all that innocent even before the internet; or parents being much less horrified at what they sometimes found out about (and often didn't). I share your sorrow about the sheer volume of sewage that pours down on them and through every modern household; but don't even begin to think it's your fault.

And defeated, yes, I know that one… I hesitate. But. I spent my daughter's 15th birthday by her hospital bed with my heart in my mouth hoping she wouldn't need a liver transplant. I didn't even have the excuse that I hadn't known she was depressed; I just hadn't been able to get anyone to listen and intervene effectively. And she'd conspired with a schoolfriend to take simultaneous overdoses - calling the friend's mother to suggest she take her daughter to the nearest ER wasn't an experience I ever wish to repeat. Did I blame myself? Of course I did. Should I have? Other people will tell me no, I will always say yes. Perhaps that's what being a parent means.

Look, I think what we've both tried to do is break a cycle. You could just have told your son nothing and let him find his own way; I could have continued our family tradition of blithe denial; instead we've tried to equip our children to face their demons and win. It's unreasonable to think they'll manage it without a struggle; but at least we haven't left them ignorant and defenceless.

Be comforted. Nowhere to go but on...

Emjo, I often wonder if I have also been damaged by the previous years of dysfuntion and drama. I has got to take a toll and I feel often like I have adhd and focus issues....I have always had the tendencies/issues in this area a bit but not to the degree I have now after going thru all we did on top of it the stress of the 24/7...
I'll call it the Dysf. in the CG life, cocktail: It comprises of adhd depression burnout and ptsd with a splash of menopause for us extra lucky ones!

Seriously though i don't know how you all do it without losing your mind and doing what i did....disown them all...but i guess not everyone is in a position to do that....i surely would be in the looney bin....I know i am just now able to acknowledge/accept/confront all the pain and damage from all the past drama. I kinda just dealt with it in the physical and moved away, denying/burying it all. all it did there is fester into an unhealthy mindset. anyway better days ahead for us all!!!
You Joan (and everyone) deserve a special thanks for going up n above for someone who does not welcome or appreciate it, all i can say is i had to always reason it is not me it is them it is not personal they have no clue how disruptive they are being...cant say i was good at it tho!!!
Please all of you dealing with the drama on a daily basis....pat yourself on the back and hold your head high, you are doing good!!!

Things here progressing a bit everyday. some setbacks and some good news...
Had an awful vision, so realistic the other night was very disturbing, of my life after MOMMA....very very disturbing...a wake up call i needed i hope!
We will do the best we can and pray, that is all i can do, day by day, hour by hour sometimes, but i have to try!

Well hello to everyone out there! May you be blessed today with a moment of joy in your day whenever possible and take care, stay warm safe and hopeful!
XOXOX to all!
Peace Juju

and i have to add disowning them has it setbacks too, i am completely alone and without any support structure...I sometimes wonder if I made a mistake....
maybe some mind bending drama is par for the course....is the positives outweigh the negatives..idk... I tend to think not but at those isolated lonely moments were i am at my wits end, i wish i had someone to call on to help even if it meant a fight. I did learn in the latter days with Brother, if i kept my visits to his home i could just get up and walk out when he would go into a tangent...so only issues were when i had him at my place.
Sorry not to go on but there are some serious con's to making the decision to not be a part of the madness....
K later lovely people!
Peace
Juju

A little on pins and needles...the real estate agent called sis...hasn't given a price yet because all the public records show my mom's house having 1,400 sq ft. Which is true as that is what it was sold to my parents as, however, they converted the garage to a family room. Did my parents do the conversion without permits?? I can't believe they would, but you never know. If they did, will we have to pay taxes for all those years after it was converted?? Anyway, The agent, AR, wants to measure the house this afternoon and then meet with us again but he will bring his wife with him because he has only been an agent for 2 years...his wife has been an agent for 25+ years. Plus sis threw out a figure to him yesterday which he said is way out of the ball park. We were going by what the other agent told us. AR said sometimes an agent will price a house really high to throw off certain buyers. Have to wait until we meet up with him again.

Hi Everyone! I posted the EXACT wordings below in the YOU thread. I thought you all may need a laugh from caregiving. I'm going to send this also to my siblings.

I just read an email from a friend. I read it and laughed so hard, my stomach was hurting and tears streaming down my eyes. I could NOT finish the rest of the Amazon reviewers' comments because the laughter was now turning to pain.

If you Google Amazon. Then on their Search, "haribo sugar free gummi bears 5-pound bag" . Very Important - click on the item with the Whole bag showing all over the packaging "haribo, haribo, haribo".

Read the very first review dated Oct 3, 2012, statement "Just Don't. Unless it's a gift for someone you hate"

This was the first one I read and I laughed the hardest:

By C. Torok on October 3, 2012
Amazon Verified Purchase

Oh man...words cannot express what happened to me after eating these. The Gummi Bear "Cleanse". If you are someone that can tolerate the sugar substitute, enjoy. If you are like the dozens of people that tried my order, RUN!

First of all, for taste I would rate these a 5. So good. Soft, true-to-taste fruit flavors like the sugar variety...I was a happy camper.

BUT (or should I say BUTT), not long after eating about 20 of these all hell broke loose. I had a gastrointestinal experience like nothing I've ever imagined. Cramps, sweating, bloating beyond my worst nightmare. I've had food poisoning from some bad shellfish and that was almost like a skip in the park compared to what was going on inside me.

Then came the, uh, flatulence. Heavens to Murgatroyd, the sounds, like trumpets calling the demons back to Hell...the stench, like 1,000 rotten corpses vomited. I couldn't stand to stay in one room for fear of succumbing to my own odors.

But wait; there's more. What came out of me felt like someone tried to funnel Niagara Falls through a coffee straw. I swear my sphincters were screaming. It felt like my delicate starfish was a gaping maw projectile vomiting a torrential flood of toxic waste. 100% liquid. Flammable liquid. NAPALM. It was actually a bit humorous (for a nanosecond)as it was just beyond anything I could imagine possible.

AND IT WENT ON FOR HOURS.

I felt violated when it was over, which I think might have been sometime in the early morning of the next day. There was stuff coming out of me that I ate at my wedding in 2005.

I had FIVE POUNDS of these innocent-looking delicious-tasting HELLBEARS so I told a friend about what happened to me, thinking it HAD to be some type of sensitivity I had to the sugar substitute, and in spite of my warnings and graphic descriptions, she decided to take her chances and take them off my hands.

Silly woman. All of the same for her, and a phone call from her while on the toilet (because you kinda end up living in the bathroom for a spell) telling me she really wished she would have listened. I think she was crying.

Her sister was skeptical and suspected that we were exaggerating. She took them to work, since there was still 99% of a 5 pound bag left. She works for a construction company, where there are builders, roofers, house painters, landscapers, etc. Lots of people who generally have limited access to toilets on a given day. I can't imagine where all of those poor men (and women) pooped that day. I keep envisioning men on roofs, crossing their legs and trying to decide if they can make it down the ladder, or if they should just jump.

If you order these, best of luck to you. And please, don't post a video review during the aftershocks.

Book-very funny! You would think they wouldn't sellthem with reviews like that.

My brother is still in the hospital. I've been in touch with my sister, and she tells me that they didn't release him, because he was running a fever. It sounds as if the hospital was ready to release him yesterday, but my sister talked to the doctor and expressed, she didn't think they should send him home, if he had the fever, of which I agreed. But she did tell me, that she sensed a bit of resistance from the doctor.

So late yesterday, she was telling me it looks like the fever broke, and that my brother sounded way better, than he had been a day ago. He is on a liquid diet right now, and it's now day five today, so I can't imagine aside from the gallbladder surgery, then this infection he's been having......how this affects his stamina.

Anyway, I was glad to hear the fever is subsiding, he'll probably be released today. So my sister and me got to talking about how he's going to have to be super careful about food. I was talking from the aspect, he's been on a liquid diet the last few days. I'm aware that after a fast, people have to introduce food very carefully, then on top of the kind of surgery he had, that's paramount.
So as I'm saying this to my sister, she got rather defensive w/me, saying something like, "Oh, I'm sure he's going to do that." In other words, as if he's learned his lesson, blah di blah! I almost continued to try and express, the breaking the fast aspect, but immediately gave it up. I was irked by her attitude,
she love's to act as if she knows everything, and has all the answers.

This is "golden boy," having all these health problems.
Some of you here have been talking about son's, well he's the eldest (son),
my sister and me are older than he. But in our family, since he was the son
he got all the strokes, promise for the future, favored by both parents, and even a narcissistic aunt, (mom's sis-who had no kids). My parents idolized my brother, while we were growing up. I who was the eldest, and had the babysitting responsibility big time (both parents worked f.t.), at some point thought, I do lot's of work, yet my brother gets tons of credit, for what? Because he's male?
He also has always been hyperactive, never ever has had good focus about anything in his life. I'm very sure he probably has undiagnosed ADHD.

Anyway, I hope for nothing but the best for him. It's interesting, too because he's the one who used to be in charge with POA re: mother and our aunt, and their assets, etc. Later it was revoked, because our aunt got into a fight with him, basically for being negligent about the responsibilities as POA. Then of course,
this is when narcissistic aunt started to do her flip flopping decisions and her favorite activity which was to fight.

He did damage too in the sense to his own reputation as a trustworthy POA, in our eyes the other three siblings. We even went for about a 3 and half year period not communicating much w/him. We the siblings, never told him he wasn't welcome or anything like that, but he'd been taking advantage, and being such a bully about things for a long time, this part we didn't like.

So It's interesting once things became real hairy, because he and his wife had such a poor marriage. He started to have his Prostate issues. His wife wasn't even talking to him anymore, even though they lived together. Much less was she there for him, now that he needed her. Does anyone think, that my brother has ever told us he was sorry about his questionable behavior while he was still POA? Never!

Yet, my sister and I have managed to try to overlook some of this.
But I don't know how to coin this kind of behavior by my brother, would this be cavalier? I must say, that I think about this at times, as I see who's showing up at that hospital to support him in his time of need.

I think this is why I became annoyed at my sister for her comment/insinuation about his diet! You all ought to see her, it's as if my sister is his mommy. I'm kind of disgusted with this part of it right now. I saw it coming, too.

Margeaux

Margeaux, I'm glad that your brother came out of it okay. We will see if this recent health scare is enough to change his eating habits. Maybe, maybe not. As for your sister, I guess she will never change. Can you just imagine her in her old age...

New profile format. It no longer has Activities. Gives us a bit more privacy.

I always get topic to me ....when I started to post earlier to Emjo...I meant to convey I'm sure the thoughts of having brain damage from the dysfunctional environment it is valid concern and especially coming from a maternal it has to have reprocussions and effects. Anyone would have these concerns I would think!!! I admire how well you handle things with your situation, however stressful you seem to stay level!!
Margeaux, prayers, glad brother is doing better! the rest oy!
Book, too funny...its like the pass the milk carton....here taste this tell me if it is bad, hahaha....
Hello to everyone! have a good day!
Peace,
Juju

Surprise,

You know, I think about the times when I was younger.....and I was on the verge of doing something that wasn't right! I was aware of it, and sometimes I went ahead and did something immature, wrong, but I knew that was my choice.

You need to give yourself way more credit that your are doing right now.
Certainly, if your're saying that you rescued your mom out of the squalor,
and you got your son into counseling......he may not look at the bigger picture about any of that, but you could focus some energy there, it would be good for you.
Besides, be careful.....this is the moment when I often think some well meaning parents give their power away, to a self absorbed son, or daughter.

You can't be less than a parent, and daughter who cares!

Much Love & Light! Margeaux

Book,

Thank you. What you said about my sister in her old age.....one day my cousin and I were talking about that. Actually, it's kind of scary if you ask me.

The Gummie Bears article was too funny! It sounds like it gets the job done, then some! HAAH!
How is your dad doing these days?

Hugs,
Much Love & Light! Margeaux

Juju,

As we can see.....definitely it's not all of us who can jump in there and do what we do, and then put up with lots of difficult people in our families. I've in some way have done this with respect to how much time I give towards caregiving and mother. If I get more involved, then I have to not only deal with mom's ALZ situation, but then I'd have to deal w/my very difficult sister, then she has the difficult daughter who lives there too. I'm not willing to do that, and since I wasn't elected by mom since a long time before any of this happened, places me in a very iffy situation that doesn't benefit me whatsoever. Some of this decision on my part is totally self preservation.

I realize too, that in a case such as yours, electing to disown them does cut off some kind of support systems. But the other side at least in dysfunctional families many of us who still maintain contact w/siblings, we are all dogpaddling to stay afloat. This is what I hear a friend who had super bad dysfunction in her family.
Poor thing, she was a servant to them, and got beat up on top of it. Her mom's narcissism runs super deep to this day, so she's opted to divorce herself from it.
On the one hand kind of out of sight out of mind. But she suffers a lot from the shall I call it the illusion of the support she's missing out on, at times. As a result of it,
she's had terrible high blood pressure, and her menopause is giving her a hard time. Actually, she's coming over here today for a much needed sleep over, gf hangout time much needed by both of us. Can't wait. When we get together we sure do talk, and laugh. I'm really up for that at the moment. It was full moon last night, and I was feeling it. AAAAououououou, said the big good/bad wolf!

Hugs,
Hang in there!
Much Love & Light! Margeaux

That is the funniest story ever, I thought that experience was only reserved for IBS sufferers, but I know that was a painful experience, the question is would 10 suffice...because I have to take medicine for that...

Wow what a wonderful gift for the dysfunctional children of my 87 year old, sure beats coal for Christmas... just kidding

What's scary as I read more of the reviews, it was the same description over and over. Severe stomach pains, liquid poop, very very Awful stench and very powerful Nonstop explosion of pooping for a minimum of one hour to several hours (depending how much you ate.) One reviewer came on and said when he was done, something (I forgot the name but I have seen an actual picture of it online years ago) and was poking out of his butt. Those hours of sitting and having powerful non-stop bowel movement loosened something inside and he had to have surgery to reattach it.

People are actually buying that to lose weight. I don't think it's worth it if you end up damaging your insides.

Father is fine. He's been up and talking while I tried to sleep until the alarm goes off. Well, time to get up.

Hmmm. Since last night and then this morning, AC has added "answers" to the profile. I guess it's still a work in progress.

you can't make the answers private, it will change it back to public.

In answer to my post above, AC sent me an email...they were not aware of the glitch, so they are working on it. We will get to be as familiar with the new format in time. Thank you AC!

Margeaux~I hope your brother got home today. Introducing solid foods too soon (from my own experience after my first c-section), causes much distress from trapped gas. It is very painful, hopefully he will take it slow. Once he is home, maybe your sister will back off a little.

I did some research yesterday regarding the permits on the additional sq.ft. on my parents house. The city said if they had permits the sq.ft. would have been recorded with the county. We will have to pay for the permit..$720 to correct the problem, plus we have to provide 2 covered parking spaces which means we will have to buy a carport. This will look so unattractive right in front of the house. I am hoping we can get around it somehow.

Take care everyone!!

I do not like what they have done to this website. There had been an area where you could see what the current topics for discussion were. It is gone. I read those nightly, and sometimes able to chat almost real time. Now the scroll is not even working correctly for me.

Book, I will never get those gummy bears! What a through and through review!:-O

Sharyn, other than CNN and HLN, is the HGTV home channel. They were remodeling this home, and found that the homeowner made the loft into a bedroom. They checked the city’s permit and found that it was done illegally. So, they had to knock out walls to open it back up as a loft. I think the same applied to the garage – made into an extra room for guests. =) So, it seems a lot of do-it-yourself-homeowners did shortcuts. My sis did that in their home. She said that when it comes to selling their home, they would have to knock it down because they didn’t apply for a permit change the garage to an extra bedroom. Anyway, in the HGTV, another remodeling home, the owner added a trellis to the front. No permit. To knock it down would have cost thousands of dollars! They, uhm, used concrete for the columns…. I wonder how much you all will end up spending for this “shortcut.”

Glad – Avoid anything that is Sugar-Free is NOT good to eat too much. I believe diabetics learned this the hard way, by trial –and – error. They’ve had to learn how much their body can handle it. I would have innocently bought those sugar-free candies for diabetic and not know Not to eat so many! Whew! Now we know.

Book-we do have the option to reconvert it back to a garage but that will cost thousands of $$ plus we would have to buy a permit for that too. A carport with a canvas top costs around $350 plus the $720 for the permit. This will come out of mom's account...it is her mistake. The carport will ruin the curb appeal...but that is the loss my parents now have to deal with.

The only way I believe you can make your conversation private, but what would be the point, is to give your thoughts, as a hug...

Sharyn-
As a former land planner, hope to get back to it one day, check to see if the City has a variance procedure to waive the requirement for two covered parking spaces. That is where I would start.

Glad~Thank you, I will look into that with city. We meet later this morning again with the real estate agents.

It turns out the measurements the agent took are very close to what county records are reporting, that means they did get a permit. The agent said not to worry about the carport either.

Sharynmarie,

Well I'm glad that the realtor's measurements figure in this extra room.

I spoke to my brother today, he's home finally. He sounds good, but admitted this was quite an ordeal. I did remind him to be careful, too. I'm just trying to not get on a soap box about it either. Yes, hopefully now my sister will just back off.
People have to just let things gel, too. Some people have a tremendously hard time not becoming a Hovercraft! HAAH!

O.K., good luck w/the realtor and the sale.

Much Love & Light! Margeaux

Is it the moon phase? My mom has been a real handful this week. Crabby to beat the band. Rebellious. Panicky over super insignificant things. Confused.

The first month she lived at the complex, the food was great! Yum Yum! Now, every single thing is "hog slop crap". Crap food that tastes like crap and it's all crap. And in the next breath she'll say "Supper was so good!" Ok mom.

I'm waiting on the complex head nurse to setup a meeting where we need to decide if mom needs to move to the 24/7 unit or just add on services. She refuses to take her insulin. I can't figure out if it's "won't" or "can't". Doesn't matter - Rx non compliance will not be ignored. Not taking insulin is dangerous, especially when your liver & kidneys are on their way out. Sheesh.

She's also very irritable about every single other person within a cane's reach.

Heck of a week! Furnace went out, safety switch went, they could repair the switch but until they did that they wouldn't be able to find our what caused the furnace to overheat in the first place. But definitely more repair. And on an 18 year old furnace, I think not. So trying to get new furnace in with conservator that is still trying to work with sister, took awhile. Had to buy space heaters to keep things warm. Thank goodness it didn't happen during our last cold snap! Things are all warm now.

Met with conservator today with bank statements and 98% of receipts from the last year. Sisters will finally find out that I have been completely above board and honest! tit is wonderful to be to this point after two years of crap now finally a third party will look at everything and maybe sisters will believe what they are told. But they had been told by me, then mom's hubby through her sister (because my sister wouldn't have the discussion), then still nonbelievers called APS to have me investigated for financial exploitation, APS told them there is nothing to investigate. That still wasn't good enough, then I realized, finally perhaps, I needed an attorney. So off to court we went, but mediated an agreement. The thing that is most hurtful is how sisters could question my integrity, especially when I was being so careful! Now all the money for attorneys is absolutely unbelieveable its so frustrating. All sisters were concerned about was how much would be left for them on mom's passing! I hate to think of how much sister has spent with the hope that I was taking money! So completely unnecessary!

Yes, Gladim, it's so stupid and so unnecessary. They projected onto you what They Would have been doing if they were in your shoes. That's why they truly could not believe that you did Not touch any of your mom's money. Because they would have - using all kinds of reasons why they should.

It was like when my dad was in the hospital. My oldest bro-of-next-door (whom him and his wife make much more than me and renting out their home and also the upper duplex apartment) told me to let's have dinner and use dad's money to pay for it. I said that that's not what his money is for. It's for his expenses. My bro said that he's in the hospital and we've been watching him by shifts. Therefore he should pay for our meals. Even his wife agreed. So we went to eat at a real restaurant (not MacD or Burger King). I Knew that it was wrong to use dad's money for this. So, I used my credit card to pay for our dinner. After that, when bro would invite me to go and eat with them, I said No. I was not going to abuse father's money nor was I going to keep paying for all of our meals out of my own measly income.

So, I think your sisters truly believed you were abusing your mom's money because they would have done it if they were in your place. And like my brother, they would have found all kinds of reason Why father should pay for this or that.

And now that you need the money for repairs, you're in a bind until you get approval. By the way, if your siblings are like this while your mom is alive, it will be even worse when she passes. Like scavengers. I didn't believe my siblings would have done what they did when my mom died last year. I have never been so disillusioned. My relationship with them has changed since then. Their true self showed.

Glad and Book, what I find most depressing of all is being faced with what my siblings think of me. I keep telling myself that if I didn't care it wouldn't matter, so all I have to do is not care what they think; but the fact is I do care, otherwise I wouldn't give a damn, and I think it's the groundless accusations and the unfairness that puts my back up most. That and the persistent irritation I feel with my mother and her lawyer (also family) who set up this idiotic pain-in-the-ass arrangement in the first place.

Sister is off to Burma for three weeks. She's going to send me a cheque (as long as I get an itemised account and projected spending to her by Monday) to cover foreseeables until she gets back; and leave further cheques with my brother (who isn't speaking to me) in case of unforeseeables. In her email she says: "I hope life progresses smoothly in my absence."

Well, now. I try not to think how much more smoothly life would progress in the permanent absence of both of them, because it would make my mother sad and puts me on dodgy moral ground. But oh boy...