Hello from the 7th circle of hell! My mom was an only-child, and I am an only-child. My mom ghosted 15 years ago. I have been my grandma's only caregiver on 24/7 duty for the last 10 years.
I didn't know then what I know now. "Caregiver" was not a job I applied for & accepted with a full understanding of the job's requirements, the employer's requirements, and a mutual understanding of employment termination processes.
I was just a granddaughter that truly cared and adored her grandma in the years before I learned the term "covert/vulnerable narcissist" and that my grandma is one.
My grandma's an 88-year-old with Congestive Heart Failure & Atrial Fibrillation. No history of stroke or heart attack. And I'd argue her heart has failed her in more than one way... zero empathy. Zero compassion. But she's ever so diligent at assigning me the worst character with the worst motivations... especially around anyone else that can offer her pity. She loves herself some pity.
And in our MANY "conversations" about her poor hygiene and stubborn refusals to exercise, I've gotten the privilege of learning how every positive memory I've ever shared with her was a gaslight. She hated every dinner at a fine restaurant where I would treat her... every shopping trip... every movie that had always been my treat.
It's great learning that someone you've served for 10 years and befriended your whole adult life... hates you and has always hated you.
And I'm just loving her daily habit of taking a sharp knife to all the war wound scars of all my life's traumas to tell me what a POS I've always been in response to me requesting her take some personal responsibility for her strength and hygiene.
It's so nice to have someone that knows every single thing about me since the day I was born never let me live down anything while giving me the full credit for every disaster. Of course it was my fault my dad abandoned me when I was 6-years-old! I was a "demon in the womb".
Me: "Grandma you should brush your teeth. You've been complaining about that toothache. It might help."
Grandma: "You've always been a demon."
Awww. Such sweet memories we're building.
She's not been diagnosed with dementia. In fact, her last hospital stay I was told she had a pretty clear mind & "didn't need to go to a nursing home". But I must've got 5 calls making sure I was going to come get her.
I. Want. Out. Of. This.
I'm not her power of attorney (except on her bank account to pay her bills, buy her groceries, etc..). I'm not her legal guardian, and I don't want to be either.
She's refusing to go to doctor's appointments. She's refusing to go to a dentist. She's refusing personal hygiene. But she doesn't refuse a daily temper tantrum response to the slightest pressure put upon her for all of the above.
Our "communication" is pretty much reduced to the silent treatment or rage in response to my calm middle-ground.
I. Want. Out. Of. This.
I threw my great-grandma (my grandma's mom) her 90th birthday party. She was not like this. She could drive & wanted to go dancing at the VFW after sprinting up the porch steps.
My grandma can barely walk for no other reason than stubborn refusals. She screams at me she wants to die (a guilt trip measure) to get me off her back about just standing and walking every now and then.
And I got the medical establishment putting pressure on me to get her to do what she refusing to do, but she doesn't tell them she's refusing. She will blame anything and everything else except the fact that she just doesn't want to do anything.
One doctor. Her cardiologist... told her I was not responsible for her and that she could be more help to herself and me...and she got to see a taste of the rage as my grandma shouted: "What do you want me to do... mow the yard?"
The cardiologist called it: "You're dealing with a personality issue. I have many patients your age that are thriving."
Grandma doesn't want to go back to her.
Your grandma IS NOT your responsibility, and it's only YOU that can make the necessary changes to get your life back on track.
And if that means you have to move into a homeless shelter for the time being, surely that will be better than what you're going through now.
You can call 211 to see what resources are available to help you in your city as well.
Time to take your life back and let the chips fall where they may with your grandma, as like I already said, she IS NOT your responsibility.
You need to get out of this . Do you live in grandmas house , or she with you ? Are you feeling stuck due to the need for a roof over your head ? Answers to these questions , will potentially get you more useful answers here .
You are correct that the hospital pushed you to take her home .
I’m going to suggest the next time she is in the hospital , you refuse to take her home . Tell them you can no longer care for her . Then do not visit or answer the phone . They will then have to get social services involved to place her .
Do not accept POA .
If possible , and it’s grandma’s home , move out and call APS .
Yes. It's her house. A 100-year-old house with all the 100-year-old house problems plus 30 years lack of maintenance to boot. We have no running water. There was a minor toilet leak. I had the water shut-off while saving for a plumber to fix what I couldn't repair myself (tank removal). And I about had enough money saved to get a proper plumber to fix the minor leak.
She called her sister & had her drug-addicted 65-year-old nephew we hadn't seen in a decade come "fix" the problem. He decided to get real helpful & mess with the hot water tank plumbing too. Basically, he messed everything up, turned the water back on... resulting in a 100,000 gallon leak (in one month) and a $2,000 water bill just before ghosting us with the entire mess.
I've been hauling water for a year. Roughly 30 gallons a week (in addition to 6 cases of 40 pack bottled water) and now the repairs would be way to expensive...in addition to other problems the leak created that I've feared could maybe have the house condemned.
Furthermore, grandma made an insurance claim about 12 years ago on the roof. They gave her more than enough money to get a new roof. Did she get a new roof? No. She blew that money paying on old credit card debts, but it wasn't enough to pay them off.
Her credit still went bad & home insurance lapsed with economic inflation. She couldn't afford it.
The roof is now horrible. And because she refuses to walk... I can't even get her to the bank to get some kind of a loan on a paid off property to get a roof and to fix the plumbing. I have rebuilt her credit. She could get a loan now. I could get a job and pay on the loan.
I can't get a loan in my own name currently, because I'm not employed. And I have already spent my $50k life savings floating us through many other messes and emergencies. Besides, I'm not the property owner. I have no collateral for the kind of loan it would take.
Every time I tell her: "This is it! I'm getting a job whether you can walk or not, so do your exercises!" Something ALWAYS happens to sabotage that where she has to go to the hospital & her doctors remind me that when she gets home I need to do this for her and that for her. And I've felt like I had to do it lest I meet some liability for neglect.
I am completely isolated with no concept of boundaries & no unbiased 3rd party to assist with even comprehending boundaries while living with a grandma that has an insatiable need for CONSTANT attention.
She is jealous of anything that takes my attention which includes sleep. So, I'm often running on fumes. While I'm awake she sleeps. Then, when I sleep she wakes & only allows me 3... 4 hours if I'm lucky before she's making as much noise as possible to wake me up... like banging her walker into the floor as loudly as possible.
Many times I go more than 24 hours with no sleep, not just because of her demands... but the demands of the household. Cleaning with no running water takes a lot more time. I have to go do laundry at outside facilities & A LOT of it, because she's constantly soiling her clothes and sheets refusing to use her bedside potty chair and/or oversoiling Depends she refuses to frequently change.
That and in the summer I'm push mowing and weed-eating 4 acres.
So, why don't I just leave? For one, I didn't think I could. For two, animals. I have 2 dogs. One had been dropped off/dumped near our property. Took me a month just to get it to trust me enough to feed it.
I also rescued a momma cat and her kittens. I love these animals wholeheartedly. I have no place to take them, and can't stand the thought of them ending up in a shelter just like I couldn't stand the thought (for many years) of my grandma ending-up in a nursing home.
I am assuming you know where the door is.
Your grandmother has been assessed as competent. But do leave her these numbers: 1) 911
2) APS in your area
3) local council on aging
4) any caregiving agency in your area or care.com.
Pack a suitcase, get a job, get a nice little efficiency apartment, get good friends, have a great life.
I agree with the cardiologist.
As to the yard? Granny will have to hire some nice young person in the neighborhood with a good lawn mower, won't she.
You know there are many of us living a life without any children OR grandchildren. Granny will have lots of time to become acquainted with such facts while you are out building a solid life, hopefully about 1,000 miles from Granny.
Good luck.
And hey, just in CASE you choose to stay and bicker with granny?
DO get a solid care contract in place where you get some pay, OK?
I mean, really, you are a grownup now. Time to take care of yourSELF rather than telling Granny what to do with HER exercises, and etc. She already HAD her life.
You have a good grasp of the situation, you're articulate, you can find another situation and get on with your life. I hope you have a job. I hope that if you don't have a job, you can get one.
This is more than a personality issue. It's probably dementia, perhaps mid-stage. There's no getting better, there's no "I love you to pieces, sweet granddaughter," there's no change on her part. You'd be doing her a favor if you stepped away and let someone else do what has to be done - APS is a start.
I'm so sorry, but sometimes we have to cut our losses and run. That's where you are now, and I hope you're angry enough to do it. Good luck.
I read your responses below.
You are living dependent on your grandmother in her home.
You are going to have to call APS, tell them she is a senior at risk and that you cannot/will not be managing her care, and that you are leaving.
Your grandmother will need to be a ward of the state if other family doesn't step up.
I don't know what funds you have; it sounds like nothing. Your grandmother will soon no longer be with us. You will have to address the issue at some point and it might as well be now.
If you have no funds you will need to start at a shelter.
There are many jobs out there, some even in caregiving, and you are somewhat experienced in that already. You can start at kitchen help or whatever level and work your way up. A diligence will see you succeed as you work slowly toward saving to rent a room, then a small efficiency apartment, then an apartment. You can then proceed with education. I was already working as I attended classes working toward my RN. I never stopped working while I earned it.
If there is a free ride in life I haven't seen it; and I know your grandmother isn't it. She needs application to help herself. The state will handle that as you pursue the authorities in wellness checks on her that will get her into care.
I am sorry. I don't know another answer. I am well aware this isn't easy as it may sound written out; not easy at all. But in light of your additional response below I have no other answer. And a refusal to face the hard facts today is going to make tomorrow a nightmare. Our streets are lined with the tents of the homeless to prove that.
Your life matters too and you can no longer do this and you know it.
Read other threads here under caregiver burnout. You need to get your life back.
I know it's so difficult to break from this when you have been told you had to keep grandma home. It is a problem as you know of how unsupportive many can be to the caregiver. I'm including a link of a recent discussion about how tragic it ended for one caregiver. I wish you strength and clarity, You need to walk away call APS and get your own life on track. Grandma will be cared for in a facility. You need to find housing and a job and take care of yourself. Stubborn, abusive, uncooperative elders can not be cared for at home by family.
https://www.agingcare.com/discussions/tragic-end-to-caregiving-491949.htm
If cruise ship recruiters are reading this: "I am fantastic at taking Vitals, calmly handling emergencies, and taking bad attitudes on the chin! I can make and serve a mean cup of coffee, and have advanced skills in being a personal servant on the Titanic!" Lol 😊
Then stop making excuses for why you can't get out and build a life for yourself, and just do it. The animals will be fine somewhere else, so give them to a shelter or other families while you get started on improving things for yourself. You're obviously very intelligent, so please start using your intelligence, skills, and energy in productive ways to rescue yourself. You deserve so much better than this.
While it is simple; it's not is it? In my original post I spoke to my mom ghosting & my dad abandoning me when I was 6. I know what it is to be abandoned and that has given me an incredible tenacity toward striving to make things work and not abandoning others. Not doing to others what was done to me... especially where any kind of abandonment is involved.
And this is where my own personality issues have added to the problem including my "where there's a will there's a way" can-do attitude that all-too-often focuses on the sparkle of a raindrop on a rose petal, rather than viewing the harsh reality that the petal has fallen and is rotting.
It's just that this situation has finally gotten so bad that I can't help but see the rot. And it's sad that it had to get this bad for me to see it. I'll definitely admit that.
My personality is: "We can get a roof. We can get the plumbing fixed. You were just in a physical therapy center... they gave you a walker... not a wheelchair. You can walk! I can work 24 hours day and night to make what's needed happen! Come on! We can do this!"
And my grandma's personality is: "We can't get a roof. We can't get the plumbing fixed. You can't get a job. I can't walk. Why bother? What does it matter? Nothing matters!"
I have always been this way. And she has always been that way.
And my can-do attitude couldn't see her can't do attitude and accept it, because it's a can-do attitude that would have to see and acknowledge "can't" when it's programmed for "can".
This while I'm obviously wanting to leave & have my own life while feeling for years like I really couldn't leave and all the emotions around the failure to be of any real help to someone I've loved that can and WILL result in my abandonment of her to the proper professionals that will absolutely include me having to go no contact while knowing my mom has already ghosted her.
Lots of emotions to process while I set these wheels in motion. But I agree! They need to be set in motion.
Sounds like she should be in a setting where professionals are responsible for addressing her needs. Tell her doctor or staff there and any relatives that may be (if any) that you can’t and won’t be responsible for her anymore. That you have a deadline of May 1st (or whatever date of your choosing) to get her settled. Failing that, wait until she has some crisis like a fall and has to go to the emergency room. Then tell anyone who speaks to you about her that she is an unsafe discharge. You can’t and won’t be able to care for her. You are not her POA. You are in the process of moving elsewhere and setting up your own life. They need to find somewhere else to send her.
Good luck!
No one should have to live like the OP and her grandmother are living.
Tragic for sure, but more tragic that the OP doesn't believe that they deserve better, and doesn't want to take the steps to make things better.
You must have saved some money without paying rent so many years? You can rent a room in someone's home. Use your obvious intelligence to get a JOB somewhere, with regular pay and benefits. Try the Post Office, they are always hiring. I'd leave the state and get far away from your Grandmother! She is the DEMON, not you.
She appears good at "show timing" to her Drs, otherwise she's just a selfish, spoiled Senior Brat. No miracles will ever happen. Nobody that old will ever change, or "see the light." She has an old rundown house you think you may inherit? Nothing good is in this for you. Take your life back and LEAVE.
If you are young enough, you can always enlist in the US Military. You'll have a place to stay, training and education, meet new people and travel. The cruise ship idea is great! Imagine waiting on people and getting paid (and tipped) for it! With total appreciation from normal people!
Find a way out of the trap you are in, notify her Doctors and APS, and make your plan....THEN LEAVE. You are smart enough to do this!
I was a homecare worker for 25 years and now am in the business of it. So I've seen my share of the asinine stubbornness, the orneriness, the caregiver abuse, the lies, confabulation, drama, and instigating. I've told many an uncooperative elder and their family that nothing gets a senior a one-way ticket to a nursing home faster than being stubborn.
You don't have your grandmother's POA. You are not her legal conservator/guardian. You also believe that she's lied to you and despised you your whole life.
Believe me, you remaining with her is not healthy for either of you. Clearly you are both a trigger for each other. You basically described my relationship with my mother my whole life. The guilt-tripping, scapegoating, blaming, instigating, drama, manipulation, and abuse. She only pulls this behavior with me. For some reason I trigger her and she triggers me. That's why I stopped being her caregiver and since I've left and brought in homecare, out relationship has improved somewhat. She knows that when she starts up, the visit or phone call ends abruptly and I stay away.
You have to leave and let your grandmother rot in her own stubbornness. Don't jump to her rescue anymore and allow yourself to be manipulated by her. Stop being there for her. You need to go. There are only two things that you should be concerned with.
1) Getting a job
2) Moving out of your grandmother's house.
Nothing you do for your grandmother is going to change her behavior or get her to respond differently to you. She is never going to be grateful to you for anything. This is the facts.
You can change though. You can control and choose what your responses to her will be. You can choose and control your behavior too. Your grandmother probably has dementia and is going to need homecare or facility placement. Not your problem.
Walk away.
As an aside, your writing is incredible, your phrasing, painting of the picture, turn of phrase, dark humor (coffee on the titanic?? ☕😜). I look forward to reading your next article in Vanity Fair and your debut novel. Or your HGTV debut fixing old houses! The list goes on.
Seriously, once you get yourself extricated from this impossible situation I predict great things ahead for you. The world needs your talents!
I have worked SO hard in a largely thankless job where I'm constantly reminded I'm not enough and not doing enough. I've poured my life, money, time, and energy into painting and taping this house of cards hoping to help it stand with nothing in it for me, but making sure my grandma knew she was loved and trying to do the honorable thing by caring for a loved one.
My dad "abandoned" me after my mom held a loaded gun to his head threatening to kill him over a recliner and after having placed me on the look-out for his arrival when I was 6-years-old. Narcissism to the point of psychopathy is sadly a family trait in addition to alcoholism and drug addiction (all on my grandma's side of the family).
I've always been the clean and sober "responsible" one picking drunk up off the floor... even as a child.
From an early age and in one of the most awful ways... I learned my mom only cared about things and not people (grandma shares that in common with her in way more covert and passive aggressive ways). So, I decided, from a very young age, people would always matter more to me than things. I've always prioritized people and those I love over money... over anything.
That was a conscious choice I remember making in my childhood while a recliner sat in my mom's front yard, and I watched my dad drive away. I knew then that a recliner (she never used) meant more to my mom, than me or my dad.
Unfortunately, that conscious choice has also not served me here, because I'm used to very one-sided relationships where it's perfectly "natural" for me to do all the giving and all the work with little expectation of reciprocation having no history of a healthier dynamic.
I've spent the last 2 years, but especially the last year really trying to educate myself on this subject and to heal long-held traumas that allows for some self-esteem. I've only wanted to do what was right in a situation with such confusing dynamics that even 50,000 words would struggle to fully explain.
Besides, I've done enough trauma-dumping on this site where I know many are dealing with their own struggles and have already been overly generous with their time and free counsel on my problems.
So, I want to thank you for insightfully reading between some lines and compassionately getting it. I've tried very hard to be responsibly self-aware in this crisis and to do what is right and best for my grandma given the many complications involved.
You don’t have to stay there. I suggest giving notice to any/all family members that you are leaving whenever you are ready to go—they will have to deal with her. She is not your responsibility. BurntCaregiver is correct. Pack up and go asap.