What is the one thing that bothers you the most about caregiving?

Thank you, Earlybird, for reminding me that

Why are you looking after your brother?? Besides being lazy and entitled, is he mentally or physically challenged? Does he work, do you work??
If he doesn't, tell him to get a life and p***off.
Are you POA for your elderly parents.? Sorry about all the questions but its one thing to be saddled looking after them but not your brother who clearly does nothing to help you.
The reason I'm angry about your plight is, because I'm angry with my siblings who do bugger all to help me with my father, and just give useless platitudes that do nothing to solve the situation. I don't know your circumstances but I feel terrible for you.
Please look after you. 🙏

I can relate to some of this. Treating you one way and then being overly kind to someone else who stops by to visit. When you do everything for them and nothing is ever good enough. Don't understand it much but it is what it is.

You seriously need to find a place to be yourself & breath!!! I was in your shoes a few years back and like you, I had to go outside to clear my head and it didn't matter if it was a -10 outside. I knew I had to make some changes! I made my bedroom a place that I could relax and just breath!

I really hope you are able to find ways to help you not to just cope but flourish in. If not, you may have to re-think your circumstances and come up with a new strategy! Remember that you count too. Sometimes we forget in the midst of the storm that we matter too!

Sending you hugs!!!

I hear you, piper - the lifetime of emotional and verbal abuse but they do need help. The decisions are not easy ones.

Oh this is so true for me too. Even if I just want to go for a walk my mother wants to walk with me. Before the pandemic she met some of my friends. She would always be nice to them for a few minutes, then she would suddenly get restless and want to leave. She always found fault with them. I think she wants me to have no friends.

pBubblegum, I know exactly what you mean about your father. That's called 'showtiming'. It's when a person with dementia is still lucid enough to keep it together and put on an act for short periods of time like around medical professionals, different family members, or their friends.
It sounds to me like you have exactly the same relationship with your father that I have with my mother who I am caregiver to. The constant complaining and total misery all the time no matter what. It's only for us though. We're their whipping posts. They're nice as pie to everyone else. All the nasty, vicious, downright mean BS is saved for us. You know what else? I got treated like this all my life by my mother and you probably did too by your father. It's called being the family scapegoat. They take it out on someone and it's us. We're the family dumping ground. I find it to be an irony that most of the time we're the ones who end as their caregivers with all the responsibility of them put on us. Not on our siblings that they jumped through hoops for all their lives, but on the one they really couldn't care less about. Life can be a real pisser sometimes and don't people like us know it.
Many times in this group, I say that caregiving can only work if it's done on the caregiver's terms and not on the elderly parent's. You don't have to put up with as much as you think if you don't want to.
I asked several of my mother's numerous doctors and specialists (the list is like the Mayo Clinic up in here) if she has dementia. I had reason to ask. None of them think so. In fact, one of them took me aside and said he's seen in many seniors with total mental clarity, a kind of 'selective dementia' that's a piece of performance art for their family caregiver. An act like they don't understand and can't comprehend when it comes to something they simply don't want to do themselves. Like being put on hold during a telephone call. Or paying attention themselves to what the doctor is telling them during an appointment. Or getting themselves something to eat because they want to be waited on by you instead. I make my mother do for herself in the ways she's able to. She can't drive anymore and has some mobility issues so I help with things like this. I won't wait on hold with the insurance company for an hour to straighten out her coverage. She can still do that.
You're not alone in your situation. So many of us in this group are exactly where you are.

When I look at pictures, I feel I miss life

Oh, that sounds AWFUL! Sending love, Exsister!

Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes! I've posted the number for one of the local cab companies ALL OVER the house, put it on his desk, nailed it to three walls, put in the big red binder I keep on the kitchen table. He says he can't drive some days because he's "too dizzy".

He often asks, "How am I going to get to...?" And I say, "I have to work, so please call a cab."
"But will they charge me?"
"Yes, Dad, but only a few dollars because it's only two blocks away."
"Oh, ok. I'll do that..."

Three days later, we do that again. He has NEVER called the cab. He calls me and asks me to call him a cab or an Uber, becuase he knows if I do it will be on my credit card. Meanwhile, he gets a lot of government help and has a lot of money in the bank...and under his mattress. Cheap bastard. He never sent my mom one cent in child support in 18 years either, but always tries to convince me she's the one who is lying. Ugh!

Oh you aren’t a Mind Reader?! Lol
Yup I get that very much. My dad waits for me to notice or figure out that he needs/wants something. I’ve developed a seventh sense tuned just to him; my “Spidey sense” has saved his life more than 5 times at least. My bf has lived with us about a year and a half now and he still doesn’t always engage with my dad in a way that works. He’ll speak too softly for my dad to hear when greeting him or not see that he needs help with something because he’s looking at his phone. I told my bf he will never learn to see my dad if he doesn’t really look at him. He takes care of him only if I ask. I think it’s because his grandparents were very self sufficient until into their 90s and he doesn’t see my dad as needing much help as long as he’s up and walking about.

It is their guilty conscience. I am going through a similar situation. Because you are doing what they should be doing. Pitching in to help... taking even an hour out of their busy lives to give you a break... no they can’t do that. So to try to make themselves feel better, they bash you. I would just ignore them and focus on your Mom. God Bless You.

I hate that blank look from my dad. Or repeating myself multiple times. Or yeah, him answering or talking about something that has nothing to do with what I just said. Sometimes it can be funny, but mostly these days, I don’t laugh much about it.

My situation mirrors yours. I have played the adult role since I was 16 when my father left my mother and moved out of our home. She was a mess and depressed...never got over her love for him as dysfunctional as they both are. For years I gave up so much (relocating out of state and out of country for career moves to be around her.) Now decades later she just lost her independent living situation and is in a SNF with many chronic health conditions. As POA, she now punishes me because I did not take her in (we tried her visiting with us for a week at a time and it ended up in many arguments and her demands on our time.) Every phone conversation ends in an argument as she is jealous of my career successes, good health and great marriage. She is very ungrateful for all that I have sacrificed for her and continues to lie and manipulate and demands more, more, more!

Beautiful.

Carolann2244-
I get that very much! When I decided to help out with my dad over 10 years ago, it was understood that my dad didn’t want assisted living but wanted to live comfortably at home until his death. He knew that his kidneys were going to fail him at some point but since he had dialysis four yrs prior in 2007 he said he never wanted to be on it again. I thought this would mean that when they failed again, he’d decline quickly and pass and I’d get to living my life again. But 2018 we were told his kidneys were decline and his dr strongly suggested we try a different form of dialysis: Peritoneal dialysis was supposed to be less stress on him and done while he slept at night. We watched the videos, did research online and I asked him if he would be ok trying this out and if he felt he would want to continue living this way. He said he wasn’t ready to die yet and he’d be willing to try it. By the end of that year, double pneumonia took him hard and I was forced into a position of starting him on hemodialysis months before his kidneys would have failed naturally and he was oxygen deprived on multiple occasions for that hospital stay and had to be in isolation and developed strong confusion and distrust of most things medical and even somewhat with me. Longer story shortened...I never anticipated at almost 34, when I agreed to care for him after my mom died that he would live to do dialysis again and I am at almost 44. He thought last year he could get off dialysis and still live (he had been repeatedly told by drs and myself that dialysis would be for the rest of his life, his kidney function wasn’t going to miraculously come back and he was too old & frail to do a transplant); imagine if I was an unscrupulous person, I could have told him ok let’s try you off dialysis for a few weeks. But I sat crushed & explained once again he could not live long without dialysis. We had been told a month at most once off dialysis. Trouble is, he isn’t “living” his life just existing. Watches tv and ignores that his legs are wasting away and that he will lose mobility(he’s an amputee missing his lower right leg already) & be bedridden. PT/OT are harder because he has worsening COPD. But yes, he could live for years yet. I reached my near breaking point back in January and started looking into assisted living. I explained to him why and he seemed to understand but he still relies heavily on me to get him going in any activity. But I’m so done waiting for my life to restart. My brain is fried from doing his thinking plus my own and I have no wish to wait until he’s gone to refresh. Like some of responders here that are in their 60s,70s...I’d take myself out of this life (if that was the only option left!) vs keeping on caring for him another two decades. I have so much to give to the world ( I used to be a massage therapist and want to work in the medical field to better help people worldwide) and I’m tired of wasting it on one person who barely acknowledges that I’m his daughter, uses any excuse not to do something to help himself, psychosomatically gets sick when new changes are presented and waits until I’m screaming and/or crying before realizing I’m not ok. Plus his doctors fail to recognize the burden it is on me being his sole caregiver. They just look to me to keep him alive so they can get paid; they are decent drs but clueless of how hard doing caregiving on my own really is.
Now I’m supposed to have respite care in a couple weeks...if I can keep him healthy enough to get and stay there for 2 weeks. Only the cosmos knows if I’ll get what I need..but I’ve stopped thinking my own wishes to live life are selfish. It’s self preservation. I miss my dad when he’s passed, but I will work to savor and live my life to its fullest possibilities after him.