
Many of us, myself included, come from a dysfunctional family which adds a lot of weight to the challenges of caregiving. I have read stores on various threads on other topics and decided it would be good to have a thread just for this topic for people to share, vent and discuss.
The idea for this thread originated on the thread named "The Caregiver....How are YOU doing today?"
You guys were mentioning not watching the depressing news and I think you're on to something. I notice that the guided meditations help me after only a day of listening to them, or any other positive, motivational message. What if I listen to those, instead of my usual real life murder mystery shows, for next 30 days? Think I'll be more positive?? I think so!! Habits are hard to change, but I'm at a good spot in my life to make some changes.
Upset, I don't know that the clinical meaning of the term "complicated grief" would apply to how you feel about your mom's passing, but... it is, actually, a very complicated form of grief when a dysfunctional, chaos-causing, hurtful parent dies. I think taking care of yourself, doing the positive and loving things you're doing - like getting married, yay! - is best course to overcome the lifetime of sad things you've been through due to your mom's behavior.
Stacey, I'm proud of you for everything you've done for FIL and you gave him as comfortable and caring an end-of-life as could be had. What are you going to do with all your free time now? ;-)
Take care, all. (((((hugs))))))
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Also, the home renovations, which we've put off for so long. My BIL is a flooring specialist, and will install our linoleum and carpeting, all we need to do is pick it out, and will be doing that, when my sister and her are back from their Badlands vacation.
I've chosen one set of furniture for our livingroom, and have loads of ideas and options for our family room, but are working out the timing of ordering and delivery, to the carpet install. We also are purchasing a new stove as last year when pulling out a huge turkey for Thanksgiving dinner, and single drop of perspiration fell from my husband's forehead onto the inner glass of the oven door and the glass shattered! It was a scary moment, but the glass stayed in place, and thankfully he was not hurt! So we haven't been able to use the auto-clean function for all this time, which means our oven is filthy, and researching and purchase of just a new door or glass is very expensive, so we'll just buy a whole new stove.
Bit by bit, well continue to update this house, and will continue to stay on here, with selling in the future in mind, so nothing crazy or too personal, just nice and neutral, so if it's 2 years or ten, we won't have to redo everything. With it being only the two of us, we aren't too hard on things, in fact we still have our original carpeting throughout the entire house, and it's 23 years old, and we raised 4 kids here! It's time for a replacement, for sure!
It really sucks when you know you are giving so much to a person just to keep peace while you are running around supplying information and other errands they could easily do for themselves. I stopped doing grunt work for family members who see themselves above doing it for themselves. My relationship with my sis ended.
I am working to find a new normal now that we moved. I don’t want to be
just Grammy or a BFF for my dd. I enjoy spending time with her and my grandsons, but I also have to be just me. Quiet, introverted me who has separate interests from these other parts of my life. It will come in time, but for right now, I struggle.
What are some of your very own separate interests?
When I get to that part, I don't even know anymore. I naturally want to help others, but apart from that, I don't know what I would be doing. Do you or anyone else struggle with that part, not knowing?
Sharyn, the clinical idea of "complicated grief" is a specific style of grieving loss of someone, but you probably know that, and I didn't know that, and to me... I think it should be used exactly like what it sounds like haha: I have grief, but it's complicated, so it's Complicated Grief! lol I know you'll find your new normal. It's good that you can express so succinctly what you're looking for, even if you haven't found it.
New Trust Officer called me just now. That was nice of her. She seems nice. She tells me she's working through the receipts on her own as best as she can, but this is going to take a bit due to circumstances. I didn't tell her that I'd called around to some local attorneys today to see if anyone thinks I have a case against the Trust. I'm not a greedy person, not an acrimonious person, but this has been one horrible, life altering experience and I don't want this Trust or any Trust to do to other families what they did to mine. I don't think I have grounds for a suit but I would also feel more than justified to bring one forward. I doubt anything will come of the legal angle but... it's good to get input from an independent, legal-savvy party.
No, I am not familiar with clinical complicated grief, sorry.
I don't miss my mother. I have a great sense of relief in knowing that she and my brother can no longer play their games. I don't miss the chaos they created on an ongoing basis for years. Maybe someday I'll feel something different or maybe not. I can't remember a time when they weren't up to something usually at my expense. I never wished they would die, just that I could have some peace.
I agree though that having some interests of your own is a good thing without husband and family. I've signed up to take a crochet class in December. I've taken before, but still can't read the patterns correctly. I want to meet some new people too. After the suicide of my best friend, Cathy, I want to meet some new people.
I'm confident your new friends or activities are right around the corner.
Golden, thank you for posting about AC rules and policies. I will never understand why some people think this is an appropriate forum to bully and demean others! So many find it so easy to take something wrong that was said by another. We are here to support one another and sometimes that is in the form of sharing our own stories hoping people will know they are not alone.
We can all use a reminder to give our best to this site and keep the space positive. But it's not any one person, or even a couple of people. All of us, if we are posting often enough, have moments of intolerance towards others. I've seen it from all of us. I've done it myself. Maybe it's a bit inevitable, given the subject matter and the sensitive nature of it all.
Perhaps removing the mote in our own eye is the best we can do day in and day out on this precious site.
Just some thoughts... nothing more.
I've been lying around for an hour or so, too wiped to work, too much to do to not work. So I finally decided I'm going to go to bed early. Three nights now (more like days, since I can't sleep at night past few nights) of bad dreams, noises, not sleeping well. I'm going to give one more good try to get tosleep on time tonight and hopefully rest well. I took a small dose of Benadryl to help get me off to sleep. Fingers crossed. I'm guessing the past few sleepless nights are largely just due to being in the new place.
...
My mom just called me. I'm exhausted after several nights without decent sleep, and she wants me to come down to their city tomorrow as her cousin is visiting from Florida and it's niece's 13th birthday, and there is a football game for high school senior nephew. I would like to drive down. I don't know if the timing is good but... this mess up here will wait one more weekend and my bro's kids are growing up fast. I told her if I got a decent night of sleep, I'd consider coming down.
I expressed some whining to my mom, some silly "woe is me" something something. I should know better by now. My mom has this way of biting my head off when I complain about hardship. She started in with a familiar theme -- why would I do XYZ if I didn't want trouble...? In other words, when I say "woe is me," my mom feels the need to say "that is your fault." lol It's a very familiar pattern. We locked horns over it but she managed to apologize and so did I, for yelling at her.
My relationship with her will never be good. On a good day, we manage to apologize to each other and I feel like... that's better than nothing.
ETA: I deleted some stuff from my previous post. Glad, I'm sorry for my comment. I don't know what else to say. Talk about "do as I say, not as I do"... I can be a real hypocrite sometimes. The only person's actions on AC that I need to be monitoring as within guidelines or not, bullying or not, are my own.
Have apologized to others privately, and will continue to do so.
Have appreciated Golden's reminder about the AC guidelines.
Have apologized to Glad. And to others who would like me to apologize privately.
Have apologized to DDDuck, she did not deserve what I had said in anger.
I made a horrible mistake, I am sorry.
Others have understood, but not taken sides for or against any issues.
Does anyone want to continue to rake me over the coals?
Or, now, to take it out on Ali, an innocent bystander, making her the scapegoat for a valid opinion?
Or, to upset the forum members further?
Making this an ongoing issue, a real division and dispute?
I have asked the admins to remove my post twice by reporting myself.
It will not happen again, because I don't read DDDuck, except in passing, saw my name mentioned. Please allow me to apologize further to her in private.
So very sorry to have offended everyone.
I'm not sleeping well either. I fell on the steps at the post office yesterday - slick, granite steps that are well worn. Raining and I was trying to hurry to the car. Fell flat on my butt. Anyway, about 1:00 am I started having pain in my left left hip, ankle and knee. Took some ibuprofen - hope that helps a little.
Stacy, How exciting - buying new furniture and decorating. Have fun - you deserve it! Hoping to do some of that when the additions are finished on my house and we move back there. Kid friendly furniture though or maybe new slipcovers. PJ thinks my LR furniture is too girly.
Upset, I don’t think there is a Y in the area but will google. I have the holidays to look forward to because our son is coming here the day after Christmas. I’m not sure if his wife is coming this time but it will be great to spend time with him.
Sharyn, that's exactly it. All I want is a little moral support from my mother, but she doesn't understand or cannot provide.
Dd was in tears when she arrived, she went on a big rant/vent and I just listened. Then I took the boys outside so she could get herself together again. I remember how stressful/challenging raising kids was, but I didn’t have twins.
We got the lumpia rolled and I fried it all. We split it up and she was ready to go home . She thanked me for doing most of the lumpia and I gave her a hug and told her she is a great mom, don’t ever doubt you are not.
It is so hard raising kids when you have a hubs who works the hours dd’s hubs works.
My message is to caregivers, (((hugs))) you are doing a great job and don’t doubt yourself!
So, what kind of lumpia did you make? The veggie one? Or the one with beef in it? Now, you have me craving the Filipino banana lumpia. If you’ve never tried this, oh, I strongly recommend it!!!
No worries....
My Filipino neighbor gave us limpia as he said a goodbye and returned to his homeland.
The lumpia was good! Thin long roll with something inside, like a vegetable paste +.
Although I could not say what the difference was from 'egg rolls', the egg rolls are different. The egg rolls are shorter, fatter, more layered roll, vegetable rougher consistency vegetables.
What I am trying to say is, Lumpia by any other name is not really Lumpia.
What do you think, Sharyn, since you can cook them?
Oops, did I also misspell LIMPIA or LUMPIA? It is spelled Lumpia.