I have been living with and caring for my mom who is 88. I am filled with sadness and anxiety watching her gradual decline. My family and friends do not understand my feelings and are telling me I am focusing on the negative. I find it hard to be positive about my once active mom who is tired, takes naps during the day and has a hard time walking down stairs. How can I get away from this sadness and enjoy what I have. It is very hard for me. Do any of you feel this way, and remember I am living with her and very close to her. Thank You
Medications cannot mend a broken heart but they can help with your anxiety and depression. It normally takes about 2 weeks for these medicines to work. Your overall lack of enjoyment in life as a whole is a very clear sign of depression.
While my mother has not said it, I can see the signs that she is giving up. The stress of all of this is playing havoc with my Bipolar II (the depressive kind). However, I do have other things that I can chose to focus on which is not always easy. I'm an only child and my mother was a single mom who basically absorbed me into herself to meet her own emotional needs. Thus, there has been a very strong sense of connection there which I'm working through with the help of my therapist.
Medicine works best when combined with talk therapy as well and I suggest this for both yourself and for momneedshelp. As adults, we must have a life and the ability to find happiness in life apart from our parents as seperate unique persons.
She recently hurt her back trying to care for my father who hasn't treated her like he should. She tells me she is giving up. I don't know what to do the dark cloud follows me too. Your not alone I love my mother so much that it hurts me so.
My mother and step-dad made the mistake of hiring a person privately instead of with a bonded organization which her long term home-builder care rider on her long term health care would have paid 80% for. They ended up loosing around $12,000 via check fraud of which $8,000 was regained by the bank.
I wish that my mother had let me know about her long term health care several years ago when she bought it in 1996 so that I would have known then what it covered. It is helping with her nursing home,but that's only becase I found it in a drawer.
Why is it so classic that the sibling born surprisingly late and often only children born surprisingly late end up spoiled and lazy like your little sister? I have seen and heard so many of these stories!
Is there is any thing social services or like home health care people can do which will give you some free time?
I see and hear similar sadness and anxiety in my step-dad who visits her daily at the nursing home and then goes home to spend the rest of the day by himself in their house moving around in his wheel chair. I am glad that his doctor has put him on an antidepressant which helps him a lot.
I am an only child and my mother gave me both Durable and Medical POA for her. I've since learned there are 5 tax years which my mother and step-dad failed to file.
Have you looked into what social services related to the elderly can assist or give you advice about?
Have you talked with your doctor about your sadness and anxiety?
The emotions that we are all living through is part of that developmental transition where our relationships with our parents go into a role reversal where we are like the parent and they are like the child as well as we are moving into being part of the older generation ourselves as my therapist once put it.
There are not any pat answers for each person must find their own way to get a break from the sadness and enjoy what we have both with our loved ones and apart from them so that we can get some fresh air. I don't think self-destruction in caring for someone else is good nor something a typical parent would want their adult child to do to themselves while taking care of them.