A lot is discussed about the elderly being abused..but how does someone deal with caring for a person who was abusive for decades even when young and still is? When you offer help to someone who goes for the throat immediately. This is ingrained and not caused by aging. Do you ever say to yourself "I can't take any more of this?
Thank you again to everyone on this board who have been supportive and helped me accept the fact that at a certain point, there just is no pleasing some of them and you have to keep your own ship from sinking.
When you are no longer concerned with preserving his/her assets, you will step back and start spending this person's assets for their own care and allow Medicaid to step in when the assets are depleted.
The problem, as I see it, is not so much that we are programmed to believe that we're obligated to take care of elderly family members. The problem is that our society offers so little in the way of alternatives. I absolutely don't believe that adult children have the obligation to care for parents, and as for being a "good" daughter, I could care less. Honestly, even the words "mother" and "daughter" give me the willies at this point. I have not positive associations with either word and a whole lot of negative.
So what am I doing here? Desperately searching for the exit as my last best years tick away while I tend to my mother's needs and wishes. I haven't left because there's simply nobody else to pick up the responsibility, and no money to hire the help my mother needs. If she had sufficient income, she'd have been in assisted living 5 years ago. She's have had no choice if I had not been here to help her out. I do it because there's no alternative. I hate her for putting me in this position, but I still do it. I have a sister who helps quite a bit, but I like my sister too much to dump the entire burden on her. I don't tell my mother I hate her for stealing my life this way. I do tell her when she does or says something unappreciative or disrespectful, though.
she's mad at me now because I told her I wasn't visiting just to do grocery runs and to stare at the walls. So for me and my daughter its break time. Thank you for your reply.
There is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy that might work over a period of decades of real effort, but narcissists usually believe the world is the problem, not their thinking and behaviors. Getting and keeping them in therapy is rare.
A narcissist with dementia is a real live fireworks show in shoes. It is unimaginably stressful for any caregivers. Other family have usually moved on, choosing their own sanity over the narcissist. But there's one of us that sticks around to make sure nothing bad happens and so on. If we don't look out for ourselves, nobody else will.
You won't get any thank yous. No interest in your wellbeing. Just more expectations and demands and disparaging remarks and kicks in the shin.
You get to have boundaries and be treated with dignity too.
If mom is far gone enough not to understand that, she probably needs to be in a care center.
Narcissist parents program into their children a life-long sense of obligation, a feeling everything you do is deficient, and guilt over not doing enough to please them.
When you feel like you've had enough, you stop and detach.
I support the idea of arranging care as Babalou said, but it seems like many elderly either can't afford to pay for care or refuse to part with their money, so arranging care may not be practical unless you can afford to and are willing to pay for it yourself (I wouldn't). Hope this helps.