I've been apart of this community for some time. And I've read many posts that has been comforting or helpful in some way. And yet I wonder does anyone else out there who is a caregiver get frustrated or just fed up with the clinical/textbook responses on how to deal with a sick/disabled loved one? Today my mom went into a full blown rage. And she started to accuse me of tampering with her catheters and hiding some of her personal things. All the while screaming and crying and claiming that I was physically harming her. So I begin a Google search on how to cope with an emotionally unstable parent. And the responses were for the most part the most unhelpful, ignorant, just plain stupid answers that cannot help anyone. This is real life. Day in and day out. And I almost lost it when one of the responses read "have a conversation with your elderly parent. And establish boundaries". Now how in the world can anyone have a conversation with someone who is seeing and hearing things that are not even real or there? I would have better luck talking to Clifford the big red dog. Don't these doctors and all these people who make more money than I'll ever see know or understand that being a caregiver is the most challenging job anyone can have? We were the essential workers before COVID. Before the world shifted. And we are still overlooked, overwhelmed, overworked and under appreciated. We have no benefits or retirement plans. We suffer from poor health ourselves. We are prone to high levels of stress, depression, anxiety and everything else that falls in between. And the best you can do is to suggest or advise me to have a conversation with my elderly parent who by the way is erratic and confused. We are nothing, but we carry everything.
I needed specific and practical steps to take and methods to try to control my son when behavior was out of control. You just can't find that online, perhaps because of concern that sharing information some people could find unacceptable. I ended up having to use "basket hold" and "containment" to keep him from hurting us, himself or furniture. And I only knew how to do this from previous experience in teaching and in a prison. Most people would have no idea how to keep yourself safe while keeping your family member safe. Later on, I spoke with a counselor for dementia care and she assured me that is what staff would have had to do.
Now we have no problems of this sort because my son was started on a medication. And he may be past this part of a stage. But seriously, it's hard to find practical suggestions online. That's support caregivers need and only hear platitudes about. And general "nice" lists of steps that are so general as to be useless.
I tell my Dad’s dialysis nurse all the time, these doctors may know their field but He is my only patient and I know him across the board. I’ve bathed him, wiped his butt when he was too weak to, and all sorts of things in between. I’ve dealt with crude jokes and sexist behavior; complaints of every sort. There is No text book way of dealing with a parent. Period.
He did an ok job of being a parent in that he told me he just wanted me to be happy doing whatever made me so, but never defended me against my hypocritical, alcoholic, abusive mother and apparently loved being yelled at by her sooo much that sometimes raising my voice to him is the only way he will legitimately respond to me. I never feel ok with this, understand, but if I’ve said it 20x in a week and yelling makes it stick, it’s a sickly sacrifice I’ll take. I apologize for a raised voice every time, which is more than my mom ever did. She’d just blame the alcohol. Sorry this went a bit off topic.