I am my mother's daughter and also her main caregiver. She was diagnosed with early-onset a few years ago. Does anyone else struggle to navigate being someone's child and also their caregiver? I've been feeling a lot of tension between these two roles.
I'm also a writer and have been exploring these themes in my work. Would love to talk to other people also experiencing this.
When Dementia is involved our roles reverse. We now are the adult and the parent the child. Its no longer what they want but what they need. We can no longer be a child. We have to be the decision maker. And they will take their anger out on us.
She is 95 and is now receiving hospice care in a facility. She has advanced Parkinson’s disease.
There are many people on this forum that are currently caregivers or have cared for their parents either at home or as advocates while their parents are in a facility.
I can tell you that caregiving was the toughest job that I ever had. It is physically and emotionally draining. I lived in a state of exhaustion.
Of course, we struggle to remain daughters but there is a role reversal in caregiving.
We look after them. They become our responsibility but they still wish to be our parent. It’s quite a change in family dynamics.
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Welcome to the forum! Vent all you like or just chat.
Best wishes to you and your mom.
The changing roles are hard at any age. I still saw elders with a parent being in 90s and a child in 70s and the parent still "acting like a parent".
We do move from roles and struggle with roles all our lives. I still remember seeing one day, in the sunshine, the small lines forming at the out edges of my daughter's eyes, realizing her age in the 50s and thinking "I guess I have to understand my girl is all grown up now" with a bit of inner laughter.
This is but one more stage in life to do our best with. And not an easy one.