As the oldest of 5 girls, I am my mother's 24/7 caregiver. A job that, many here know, is not always easy. Mom is receiving in home physical therapy but has bee unable to stand with the walker for more than a minute right now. She is making progress and still has a sense of humor as she makes little jokes with the nurses and therapist who see her for roughly 30 minutes each visit a couple times a week. She took a little tumble about 6 weeks ago while walking from her bed to here chair and it left her scared to get out of bed. Therapy is progressing. Mom is 91. My question is this. My sisters all hate me. They are verbally abusive to me. To be honest I do not feel any love for or from any of them. I have always been the one to take care of mom. I am not complaining about caring for her. Mom depends on me and I am her comfort. What I have let my sisters know is that they all have excuses for not spending any time with mom. They spend no time with her and months go by without a call. They also say they do call but I don't answer the phone. A lie. They also say that I tell them not to come visit. A lie. Mom often asks "where is everybody" which breaks my heart. I always offer that everyone is working or busy with their grandkids etc. My niece, who was raised by my mother while her mother was sleeping all day, while being supported for years by our mother, is a compassionate soul. She helps a lot and I help her as much as I can. I really appreciate her. She sees how no one calls or visits and if not for her I would have no witness to the non caring ways of my sisters. It is not easy to have falsehoods levied at you while you are 24/7 caring for the mother they ignore. I do have POA and several months ago my mother signed her modest home over to me telling the lawyer, when asked, that she (me) can deal with them (my sisters). I have been taking care of putting house back in order. It was a mess. Dirty. Broken everything. I have POA for mom. Mom has the best of everything! I give her all the best care and am very attentive to her health and comfort. My sisters know I am upset with them. I sent a text telling them each what their constant excuses are. Some of their excuses are quite legitimate. I know people have their jobs and their lives to live but a couple hours a month for your own mother should not be something I need to be telling anyone they need to give her. I am 65. I am retired mostly due to asthma and chronic back issues. I am the one it makes most sense to look after mom. Four years ago I sat at dinner with my mom and promised her I would make sure she never goes in a nursing home. I told her I would look after her and I meant it then and now. I now have no interest in being around my sister (except one who is kind) because they are mentally abusive to me. I will no longer tolerate being screamed at and scolded by any of them. I seem to be their excuse for not visiting mom. I can certainly go have a visit with one of my multitude of dear friends while they visit mom. But no one calls or comes by. Nothing. One sister visits with me for 30 minutes and does not even hug or kiss or touch mom. She has not been here for four months except to drop of some pastries and run out as I was in the middle of washing and dressing mom for her ambulance ride to a doctor visit. No offer to help. Just dropped off the pastries and took off. She told everyone I pushed her out! No I was on a time constraint to have mom ready for a costly ambulance ride to and from a doctor visit! I would have loved an offer of help! Am I crazy. I just don't understand. I don't ask any of them for help. I gave up on that a couple years ago when I realized it would never happen. I am asking them for some show of care for mom. Doesn't mom deserve even an hour a month? Thank you for listening as I sit with my mom and a broken heart. Please don't suggest family counseling because it would subject me to their lies about me. I can't listen to it anymore.
I will say that I see quite a bit of that behavior in the friends of my parents. There are many of them who get little communication from their adult children. Some who live nearby too. These are good parents who did right by their kids, provided love, education, the finer things in life, and now they seem to have forgotten their parents' phone number. Many don't even get a Mother's Day or Father's Day card. At Christmas they go out of town. The seniors keep saying they understand, That everyone is so busy....still.. there are no words. I don't know the solution.
I know that my cousin, for whom I have DPOA, has no visitors, cards, phone calls, nothing from anyone but me and my parents. When she got dementia, everyone who knew her just dropped off the planet. Her best friend from childhood called me one time. She hasn't called to inquire how my cousin is doing in almost 2 years. (My cousin is in Memory Care.) I received two phone calls from cousins on her dad's side of the family and that's been almost 2 years ago. They have my number, know where I live and work, but choose to not call. I have decided to accept it. Some of them are seniors, but they can use their phone. I suspect they think I will ask them for money to help with her care, which is not the case. But, anyway. It's sad, but my cousin does not remember them and I suppose that is a blessing of sorts.
I have three brothers.
I moved Mom in with me March 2015.
May 2015 - Brothers 1&2 visited for Mothers Day
July 2015 - brother 2 visited for Mom's Birthday
Dec 2015 Brother 2 visited for Christmas
May 2015 Brother 2 visited for mother's day
July 2015 Brother 2 visited for Mom's birthday - "borrowed" $1,000 that we will never see again.
Not that I'm keeping track or anything :-)
It is not just the lack of visits. It is the lack of phone calls. Brother 1 lives about an hour away, in a house that Mom bought him and still pays all utilities and, until very recently, had a car that she gave him and still pays registration and insurance. He has been here once and almost never calls. When she calls him, he cries about being poor and used to ask for money until I threatened his life. Now he just cries and waits for her to offer.
Brother 2 lives 2 hours away and has a family so I will cut him some slack but he could find more time to visit if he wanted to and he could always call.
Brother 3 has mostly been two hours away (sometimes 1) but has no car/no license. He has never visited - even before she was here with me. The only time he has contacted Mom in the past 17 months has been a letter almost demanding bail money or he would never speak to her again... so what? He doesn't call now. She fell over herself to put up the $10,000.
Each of my brothers have cell phones. They know her number. They could call her once in a while.
There may not be an answer to satisfy yours and your mom's heart, sorry to say. You're jumping through so many physical and emotional hoops, no wonder you're exhausted. If your sisters wanted to be there, they would, that's the bottom line in my mind. This may be far fetched, but for the one sister that will come, how about letting her host and invite the others and you leave for a while and go do something relaxing for that hour? Or is there someone else that is trustworthy to do it if not that sister? See if they will come if you're not there.
We can't be everything to everybody, just not possible. Either way, it sounds like you need some support and a much needed respite, whether mom or sisters or even you think you need or want it. It's imperative for your own mental health, trust us. And it'll allow you to have the stamina needed to see this through for your mom. I hope you all can work this out. Godspeed Diamond.
Meanwhile, there is a knock at the door. When the caregiver goes to answer it, she is dismayed to see that her sister has - maybe without warning - picked that moment to turn up with a box of pastries as a treat. The thought may be nice, but there wasn't enough thought! - the timing is terrible, and anyone who'd been paying attention would know by now that you don't "just drop in" like this if you want to be considerate.
The caregiver thanks her sister for the pastries but is in a hurry to get back to her mother and finish getting her dressed, then they really do have to get going.
The sister is embarrassed by having got this wrong, but also hurt and disappointed that her spontaneous gesture isn't more warmly received. She goes off with her tail between her legs. When another sister, who was sceptical about the idea of the pastries to start with, asks her how the visit went, and hears that it wasn't a success, she says "I told you so."
Diamond, seeing this from the outside my heart bleeds for all of you. This is a horrible mess of hurt and misunderstanding. I think Babalou's ideas are just right. Please, especially for your mother and yourself, give your sisters a chance to get things right. You may have to go on doing that for some time, mind :(
While your mom is still in her right mind, you really need to have some serious discussions with her while you still can. You really need to help her get her ducks in a row before she can no longer make that decision. As her caregiver, this would be a very wise move on your part, especially knowing the rest of the siblings are being abusive or they just don't care. From your description, they have no one else to blame but themselves if they get nothing left to them later.
The truth of this situation lies somewhere in the middle ground between what you think and what your sisters think. We get a lot of questions on here about "my sibling has PoA and won't let me see my mom". Perception is everything. We also get the " my siblings don't help and i hate them".
If you are comfortable with things proceeding as they are, that would be fine. But you're not. You see that mom hurts from not having contact with her other children. If you want that to change, you're going to have to be the one to change it. You ate the only person in this equation you can change.
Offer an olive branch. Send an email to all of your sisters and in a nonaccusatory way, ask how YOU can make it possible for them to visit Mom. Remember, no telling them that it's their duty or reminding them how hard you must work to care for mom. A REAL olive branch. For mom's sake.
I understand that you don't want to do family counseling. But some individual therapy for you might give you some insight as to how your behavior might be affecting the perceptions of others.