Upstream Posted November 2017
Burned out and a long way to go. Anyone else feel this way and can relate?
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Only child here, dealing with my parents' decline for about 6 years. This weekend I have come to accept that things are only going to get worse with each passing week, month, year. It's very demoralizing. They are each likely to live at least another decade. I'm only 50, married, working way more than 40 hours a week in my business. I'm becoming afraid that I am losing control of my own life. The situation seems to finally be getting under my husband's skin. My work is suffering and I've given up on even attempting to keep up with friends. I feel like I have no future. I'm really only here commenting to reach out and vent. Anyone else feel this way and can relate?
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What is causing you to be burned out? Do you have options?
Your mother lives at home? Would she be a good candidate for assisted living? You say that her main impairment is depression. Is she following a treatment plan? Does she need hands-on care? Can she perform the activities of daily living?
You need to get control of your own life! You need to nurture your marriage! Something has to change.
Can you tell us more specifically what you do for each of your parents? People here will have some suggestions about how to detach and still have your parents cared for.
This is a common problem our generation is facing. Earlier generations didn't have to worry about this because they died younger. 100 years ago, no one had Alzheimer's (or at least not in the numbers we have now), so everyone got to live their own lives.
I'm an only child too (actually a lot of us on this board are-I should take a poll!)
We, as onlies, have no siblings to turn to. (Lots of sibs don't pitch in to help either, I'm told.)
Your dad has Alz and is in AL, your mom lives with you suffering from depression. (My ex had depression-it's extremely hard as it brings everyone down with them.)
I tried to have my 94 year old narcissistic mom live with us but only lasted 3 months. We would have had to be committed to an insane asylum if we kept her any longer! Let alone get new bodies for the physical strain of lifting, etc.
I suggest you find a way to get your mom into AL also. Visit both of them once or twice a week. You will be able to carry on with your business and your relationship with your husband will improve.
Good luck 😊
(Did you mean she has depression or that she causes it in other people?)
Since your dad is in a facility that is "going downhill", could you move him to a better facility farther away? Maybe Mom would want to live in the AL part and Dad could stay in AL with her until he needs memory care.
Just a thought.
If moving him doesn't work, you have to weigh HOW bad the facility he's in really is (call APS if conditions are bad) or hire caregivers and take him back to the verbally abusive wife at their home. Gosh, no easy choices.
Ha, and I thought this time of our lives would get easier!!! 😝
If she's still competent, to care for herself, then, I'd let her do it without getting pulled in to her drama. Some adult children can't seem to let that happen and get played like a fiddle. If that is the case, I"d get professional help like counseling to gain strength and support to stand up for yourself. And if she's not competent, is she really able to run her own household without help? I might get a legal consult with an Elder Law attorney to see what the standard is in your jurisdiction. At least, you'll know what has to be proven, if you take it to court.
If she can't take care of herself, then, I'd either file for a Guardian to be appointed or report her to adult protective services. Sometimes, seniors need too much help to stay in their home. It's not safe and the work required constitutes too much for a person who works another full time job. That's why the family member trying to give care gets overwhelmed and burned out.
Only you can decided what you are willing to do. I am often reminded by reading stories on this site that no good deed goes unpunished. lol
I am also an only child, and my parents couldn't understand why I was so tired trying to help them. I lived literally around the corner. I was working full-time, and taking time off to run them here and there as they had stopped driving. They had no idea how terribly stressful it was for me to ask for time off at work.
This was all before I found Aging Care website and found out that I could have set boundaries. But I was already into too many years of helping my parents. If only someone would have told me how difficult this phase of life was going to be, as I never saw my grandparents aged as they lived quite a distance away... and had dozens of relatives to help them. I tried to explain that to my parents I am the only one doing all the work but it fell on deaf ears.
My Mom refused professional caregivers. The first day a caregiver was there and was making dinner for them, when they were served their meals Mom got up grabbed Dad's plate and dumped the meal into the trash. The caregiver tried to reason with Mom with no luck, apparently Mom didn't want any other woman makes dinner for Dad. If he was hungry, Mom would cook. But Mom was a major fall risk at 97.
Time to set boundaries, one at a time. I realize one's parents will try the guilt approach, my Mom did.
I remember my Mom telling a caregiver "I don't need any help, I have my husband and my daughter who will help me". Earth to Mom, Dad is 94 and I am pushing 70. I just wanted to curl up in a ball and cry, I was so emotionally drained.
Usually us grown children have to wait for a major medical situation before we can get more control. With my Mom, she eventually had a major fall with serious head injury. Thus she spent her final months in long-term-care.
Dad immediately asked me to call back the caregivers to help him. He was a sweetheart and knew he was aging and needed more help then I could give. He saved for this rainy day, and it was pouring.
Upstream,
I feel ya. Years ago my sister and I tried to get Mom and Dad (in their eighties, Mom with dementia) to give up housekeeping and start looking at senior living options. We were especially concerned about their driving and begged them to give up their driver's licenses before they killed themselves or someone else. Sis and I were told under no uncertain terms to take a hike, mind our own business, back off, etc. So we did. We backed off and waited for the inevitable. And of course, the phone call came last year, just days before Christmas. Sis and I put our lives on hold for months to try to put Humpty Dumpty back together again, but of course, we couldn't. Dad died. Mom went to memory care. And then we were faced with the huge mess of cleaning up their finances, possessions, and property. I almost lost it. I still feel myself teetering on the edge, finding it so hard to move forward. The worst of it is, Mom at 92 is spry and mean. I think she runs on sheer bitterness. She could live for years and years. She might outlive me.
Please, don't tell me I'll miss her when she's gone; that I'll long for one more oft-repeated story; that I'll wish I'd been more patient. I feel empty, used up, drained of compassion. But I see no end in sight.
"The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
and miles to go before I sleep."
My apologies to Robert Frost.