I've had to help my mom out for over a decade. She hurt her ankle when I graduated high school and has had mobility problems ever since. She's 5 years removed from a cancer diagnosis and almost 3 and a half years removed from finishing the cancer treatments and she's still recovering from the effects of the treatments. She had another ankle injury during the treatments and has been immobile ever since.
She's currently 70 and I'm 29.
For me the side effects caused me to have panic attacks, thus my driving days were now limited. I use to love to drive, but now I white knuckle it. It also made me afraid to be alone at night which was something very new for me as I had always been quite independent. Thankfully my primary doctor finally convinced me to try calming meds. It was trial and error to find the right one. Now my sig-other can go away to visit relatives and I am ok to be on my own.
Glad, no one dumped me at a hospital.
As for not wanting strangers in her home, that sounded a lot like my own Mom, but my Mom was in her 90's. My Mom didn't trust anyone to come into the house, plus she felt my Dad, also in his 90's, could take care of her..... [sigh]. Mom even refused a very nice young fellow to help her and Dad around the house, we were thinking it is a jealousy thing with women coming into the house. Also, my Mom was from the generation where the thought of a nursing home meant being placed in County asylum. That I could understand.
One idea you could try is to contact a caregiving Agency and have one caregiver come over, but request not be dressed in caregiver garb. You could say that she is a friend of someone you know, and she is there to help you [brickbob]. Just maybe your Mom would accept her, or maybe not. Could your Mom budget for caregiving costs?
however, I can very much say that it has impacted me in a lot of ways and I was 28 when my brother fell ill and after his passing in 2019, became my mums carer who developed Dementia. On top of this I have another brother who has a slight mental disability so in a way I have been caring since I were a kid.
Just recently I saw a therapist about the fact that I’m 39 and I feel like I’ve always had to put my own life on pause. I’m extremely confused and agitated about the future. My whole existence up until now has in some form being “carer” or “translator” or “problem solver” or “the glue that holds it all together” etc etc.
Yes I did have my run amok when I was 18-28 but not in a carefree way like others and when my friends started settling down, my life literally feels like it went on pause. While they started having their own families,.. I started caring for my existing family.
There’s parts of me that feels like a grandma as I’m so accustomed to a slower lifestyle (especially now with Mum) and there’s parts of me that wants to be a teenager again, that wants to be adolescent again and go out and have fun with my friends,... only that boat has pretty much sailed! Now thinking omg,.. will I have my own family at all and will all this cost me that as well, while also not wanting to repeat history. Will I in the end be left completely on my own in quiet thinking “well,.. that was a blast,.. not”! I’m conscious I need to get out there myself and date but there is just no time or energy. I’ve also put studies aside for years and years... I try and start (and do really well) but then things go south. I’ve been neglecting my own needs for so long that I don’t even really know what it is to be honest. I’ve put job opportunities / promotions aside and haven’t been able to perform to my best degree and I’ve put relationships on hold or through the ringer. I’ve let go of my hobbies etc etc....
So yeah I know where you are coming from! And my advice (that I’m trying to also tell myself now) is that we need to make time for ourselves. If I could go back 10 yrs, I’d do some things differently. The therapy has helped in a way to realise all this. My mum is 80 this year.,... so similar age gap.
easier said then done,.. but we need to look after ourselves!!! xx
start with baby steps and slowly
I've read through your responses. You may not like what I have to say. It's hard. It's always going to be hard. It's always going to be a balancing act between your needs and theirs. As a caregiver, you're going to have to make decisions that the person you're taking care of may not always agree with. You can continue to make excuses for her and the situation you're in, or do something to change it.
My parents too made excuses about being scared, but the reality is I had to put their health first and ensured they completed a hospital stay or in-home PT. Every decision that they tried to excuse their way out of, their doctors and I did not allow them too. Yes, their was leeway in there and it still got done.
You've had some really great suggestions on how to proceed from others on this thread. Even if just a starting point is calling her PCP and getting her in for a baseline and completing a bone density scan to get her started somewhere.
Best of luck!
With me, it's less of making excuses and more of telling it like it is. It's the equivalent of waiting through a long, hard storm and nothing can be done until the storm passes. That's one of the many frustrating parts.
My mom may or may not have an intervention in the future. I just hope I have the courage to stand up to her. She gets emotional over the suggestions made and she uses that as a way to get out of getting help and making me and others drop the suggestions and change the subject.
The energy in our home has changed as well, everyone is more peaceful, calm and I feel ready to face life challenges a little more readily then I did a year ago, and I feel that coming on more and more with each day that passes. The severing of ties is HARD. It was incredibly difficult for me to see my 5 year old cry at the thought of his Lola (“grandmother” in Tagalog) not be in our house all the time. However, now, they are so excited to come over to Lola’s apartment, she is excited to see them, and we come over to her house to have dinner once a week. I also plan on having her spend the night Friday nights, my husband and I can have a date night, and she can spend time with her treasured grandchildren.
You have to make the decision to live YOUR life, not live your mother’s life. It is hard at first, but you’ll see, it will be the best thing for all of you.
I’m 40 (I think I’m on the cusp of being considered a millennial), my mother is now 69, and I’ve been caring for my mother in some capacity since I was 8 years old. Be it financially, administratively, emotionally or medically. I’ve come to realize over the years that she was really grooming me to be codependent to her and all the guilt that comes along with thinking about severing even one tie of care; it is IMMENSE.
My mother and my sister lived with my husband and I since we bought our house when I was 29. Prior to that she and my sister shared a 2 bedroom apartment, and then a 2 bedroom trailer in a very toxic codependent relationship (a story for another time). My mother worked a fulltime job at a large retail giant, and post my parents divorce when I was 17 (my dad had an affair with another woman), she developed a terrible gambling addiction. When she moved in with us 12 years later, she was $30k in credit card debt and had burned her retirement account to zero, gambling away her life savings. We are Filipino and it is a cultural norm for the eldest to take care of their parents when they are old, and I felt compelled to do so. I assisted her financially and administratively, getting her out of that hole, and she seemed to stabilize a little for a couple of years. Then her gambling addiction got the better of her, she started stealing from her job, got caught and was fired from her 20 year career at the company. Then, one year later, I started having kids at 35, and she seemed to take pleasure in caring for her grandchildren; frankly, I had never seen her so engaging and warm. I have a boy (5) and a girl (3).
My husband elected to be a stay-at home dad (that is another story in and of itself), and he and my mother at home together made for a war-of roses. I stood by my husband’s parenting decisions (he is a good dad), and my mother perceived that I was “siding” with him and she acted out even more. Eventually, my husband got tired of the disrespect and kicked her out of our house. She moved in with my sister again who had moved out a few years ago, and they continued the toxic codependent relationship for a year and half, (honestly it was borderline elder abuse for my mother) and then my sister kicked her out. She found a room to rent in a house nearby to me for about 6 months, and she would come to the house multiple times a week.
In January 2021 my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, and my husband and I discussed it at length, and decided that we would allow her to move back in with us. I assisted her through all of her medical treatments, getting her to her appointments, processing all of her paperwork making sure she received the right insurance rates, even taking a leave of absence from work to be there for her when she had her surgery to remove the cancer and post surgery, received daily radiation treatments. She was terrified through the whole process, after seeing her younger sister just pass from breast cancer in October 2020, and prior to that two other sisters dying from cancer in their 40s and 50s. I was glad to be of support to her, during her illness, however, I was also researching social services for her and got her on a wait list for low income independent living senior housing list.....(continued in second post)
Being a child on an older parent when you are younger sucks, as I like to call it the generational curse. You did not choose to be born later in life, that was their choice. You do not have to give up your life for their choices. You do have the choice on how it impacts your life though, to me it sounds like you are using your moms situation as an excuse. It is sad, drop her off the ER, go back to school, salvage your life or in 50 years you will be left in a similar situation but with potentially far less support options in place.
I'm not making any excuses. I'm telling it like it is. Talking to my mom is like talking to a brick wall. She's the one making excuses.
I have almost the same age difference with my mum and definitely can relate.
Make a plan and get help executing it. There is no such thing as a 40 hr work week to obtain success.
Btw, my generation deserves the snowflake label. We get offended over non-offensive things 24/7. My circumstances are 100x worse than someone rejecting the myth that there are more than 2 genders, a white person in a Native American costume, or someone saying "I don't see color."
The day he brought my mother home from rehab was the last day he did anything he enjoyed. He never attended another sporting event, went to the bar for a drink, spent time with his grandkids, pursued his hobby, or even worked. She never wanted outside carers, he never wanted to leave her alone.
When the situation got so bad, he placed her in respite and days afterward, died from what would have been treatable if he had taken a few days to himself. She is still alive at 89.
However, he was happy devoting 100% of his time to her and having her 100% dependent on him.
You only have 2 choices, get outside help for your mother or accept your situation and continue to care for her. I doubt she will ever change so either embrace your life as a career carer or find another solution. She will not like your decision if you decide to prioritize your life, but you either have to deal with that or do nothing.
I'm not a millennial but moved from a state I loved back home to help my aged, ill mother when I was 27. Total disruption of my life. I've been impacted through a lot of caregiving over the years and occasionally found help from unlikely sources--sometimes just through dogging and dogging for answers. Millennial or not, it's hard, but you're doing it. I think there are more resources and awareness now than in years' past, though there's still a lot to be desired.
As for her being scared to bring in help, she has every right to feel that way, but I'd suggest you start trying. Ease her in, maybe a couple hours. She'll balk, and maybe make accusations against the person, so you'll need to determine if she's being manipulative or has sound reason to accuse.
It's never fair of parents to expect what they do of their children when they refuse to accept, or even entertain the idea, of getting someone to help the caregiving child. You've been the caring, dutiful child. It's her turn now to offer some relief to you, if you're willing to take that step. (Then you'll have to navigate your way through the guilt she might put upon you--or you'll place upon yourself--but there really does come a time when we need to step aside--not completely--but enough to give ourselves back our own breath.)
A hurt ankle should not leave someone so debilitated. She doesn’t want to recover or get some mobility because she has you to wait on her. Since you refuse to consider anything suggested here, accept that this is how it’s always going to be. Nothing will change unless you change it.
It's not the ankle. It's her recovering from cancer treatments. Plus, she's paranoid and stubborn. A combo like that is a recipe for disaster.
There are other family members where we live, but they're either too old, not strong enough, or too busy with work to help. An uncle brought up he was willing to help if need be, but he's in his late 60s and has back issues.
I'm needed to help my mom use the bathroom and that requires me lifting her on and off her bed and potty chair.
I do hope Covid is near its end and she can finally do PT. I hope her paranoia goes down enough to where she's willing to do it. Her paranoia has been one of the biggest punches to my gut and threats to my future. That and caregiving have taken a massive toll and I hope the damage can be reversed.
She's immobile. I have to prepare all the food and take it, her vitamins, drinks, and other things to her. She can't get out of bed and in her wheelchair by herself. I have to lift her on and off of things.
Paranoia and stubbornness combined are a recipe for disaster.
We had some snow storms pass through on a couple of occasions in the past year. Both times, she told me not to get out in it. I remember thinking "I've given up my life for you. I have no social life and I'm hardly out of the house. Just let me have some fun." I wasn't going to do anything that would put me at risk of getting hurt.
I just hope some employer will give me a chance at this point. The ever increasing caregiver gap has done my resume zero favors. I REFUSE to take up any caregiving or nursing-type jobs. I'm a man and women are the ones who are interested in, are wired for, and work those types of jobs.
I would love to have extra help, but she's scared whoever is here will steal her things.
It was two ankle injuries too many, but both of them were freak injuries. A couple of broken bones.
Your life is far more important at this time. You need to take care of yourself and your future. I did it with my LO, people will look at you as you are a monster, then will try and guilt trip you into doing more. Reality is you cannot give up your future for someone who has no future. Your mother has no future, she is old, she is going to die. That is what she has to look forward to. You still have a future live towards it.