My mother has chronic pain and dementia. I'm so tired of hearing her cry multiple times a day, nothing I do helps or helps for five minutes. Today she wanted to push on her back and legs and I just thought 'what's the point'. It's only gonna help while I'm doing it and I can't do it for more than a couple minutes. I've been pushing on her legs for thirty years, I grew up pushing on her legs. Clearly, it hasn't made a lasting difference and I don't want to anymore. I don't want to listen to her crying, in fact, I don't really respond to it much anymore. I'll sit in the same room while she's crying and not say anything.
I know once she's dead I will look back at this and feel like sh*t, but I don't know what to do anymore. I've done lots of things in the past but I'm tired of it all, the crying, the pain, watching this for my whole life, doctor appointments, her frequent irritation and depression, her inability to do things for herself or to try. She prefers to place that on me. She tries to give me messages to tell people after she's dead. That made me angry, there is no reason she can't tell them herself now. She can write a letter or make a phone call, she just finds excuses not to.
I don't want to be angry or frustrated at her while she's alive so instead I stuff these emotions down. Given her habit of crying five times a day, that doesn't seem to be a successful way of handling this either. If I give her comfort during it, she starts asking all these questions of why God is punishing her or why there is something about that makes people not want to help her. I don't have these answers.....
It sounds like your days with her are becoming trying and very difficult to handle. This is classic burnout. Even though you sit in the room and ignore her crying, you still hear it, and if you had a blood pressure cuff attached, your bp would be on the rise.
Do you have any help with her at all? Any health aides who come in to give you a break? Family? If not, you realize you are doing the work of 3 shifts of nurses/aides at a facility.
Later this week, after New Year’s, call her doctor. Discuss Pallliative Care, which is different from Hospice. Tell them about these possibly phantom leg pains and that you are weary of being her masseus. Ask about medications available for her depression. “Woe is me” is a common emotion in the elderly. Heck, with a bedridden husband and financial issues, I, myself often wonder why God is punishing me, too. When she moans and kvetches, give a noncommittal nod and change the subject. Promise to write these notes to everyone and then forget about it. Or, if you’re feeling generous, call these friends and tell them to call her if she can carry on a conversation.
Get yourself some help. Insurance will pay for a Home health aide a few times a week. And, there is always Assisted Living or a Skilled Nursing Facility.
And......you feel like sh*t now.
This is one heckuva legacy.
From what you’ve written here (and elsewhere), your mother was difficult and emotionally abusive long before the dementia set in.
Are you familiar with the phrase “parentfied child?” If not, start Googling.
Now that real caregiving has set in (not the dumping Mom has put on you for 5 decades - but real caregiving), your triggers are going off left and right.
And rightly so.
At this point in Mom’s lifelong campaign to mold you into her no-boundaries chore minder, proxy spouse and whipping post, you need care more than she does.
What is convenient for your mother is toxic and devastating for you. It’s time to break the cycle.
It’s perfectly OK to switch Mom’s care to hands-off (home help or nursing home) or bring in a palliative team.
The priority is for you to start re-building you. Now.
You are in crisis — and your complicated emotions will outlive Mom (understatement). It is crucial that you get a jump on your own healing now.
((((big hugs)))) You do not deserve this sh*tshow. You never did.
Make the changes you need to make. Find the support you need.
And don’t give one thought to who is miffed at (or confused by) the new you. Your healing, your terms.
It’s OK to take care of yourself. It really is. 🧡
She woke me up three times last week trying to get me to go outside to check. One night I refused and she called me a pile of shit and an asshole. She can't understand 'why i'm being so difficult about this'. I've had to talk to the police when she's called them before and they made a vulnerable adult report because she's called so many times and they haven't found any evidence. This is currently what she's mad about. I just ordered a surveillance camera and told her i'm not discussing this person anymore.
I don't feel hardly anything towards her anymore. The first time she called me an asshole it hurt my feelings, but after that I don't give a shit anymore. If I try agreeing with her about something but don't do it, she gets mad. She thinks I 'have a big head' because I have a good job. I try not to tell her about anything that's important to me because I feel like it will be used against me at some point, as it has been in the past. She told me she felt close to me when I was little but not now.
Putting her in a facility that meets her actual needs, not wants and demands and delusions, is caring for her.
You don't deserve to be treated with such disrespect and hatefulness.
You start by getting her a needs assessment and that will tell you what type of facility to look into.
You matter, please get some boundaries in place and enforced until you get her into a facility.
I'm very sorry for any lady who has chronic pain and dementia. Your poor mother.
I hope to make it clear that I don't doubt your mother has real care needs. What I question is what those needs are, exactly; and from there how they might best be met. Has there been, recently or ever, a professional assessment of her physical and mental state?
As a thought exercise: if you could change one thing about your situation, what would it be?
Do you work from the home or outside? Who is with her during the hours you are away? I hope you aren't always together 24/7!
How is your own health? Sounds like interrupted sleep is a regular thing for you, and this is very hard on the body.
I'm having trouble following this train of thought in your reply. So... your mother is, or isn't, receiving any kind of support or treatment for her physical and mental ill health?
Isn't it time to consider a big change - to a facility? It looks like she is unhappy no matter what, but your quality of life could be vastly improved. Obviously, she is very mentally unhealthy. Paranoia, delusions and anger, for any reason, psychiatric or dementia related, are serious conditions. There are facilities that take medicaid patients and that have trained personnel that would care for your mother 247 as well as having programs to engage her. Personally, I think she would be better off in one of those and I know you would. I am not knocking the care you are giving her but, if she has been prescribed meds for dementia, then she must have been diagnosed with it and she will only get worse and beyond your capacity to care for her. You work and you need to keep working for your own good. The time will come when your mother cannot be left alone safely. Please plan ahead for her sake and yours.
You are fatigued , emotionally i'm sure as well as physically, I will pray for strength for you .....hang in there.
I lost my Mom 14 yrs. ago, different disease but very similar situation, she was ill from the time I was 12... I watched as well as cared for her in nearly exact circumstances , although my mother turned to God and found her peace with her faith in him, God doesn't prevent these things, but he WILL help you through them, rest assured.
And I too thought I would look back at the times I wasn't nearly as sympathetic as I should have been and feel regretful, but to be honest, I KNOW I did everything I could, as you are now.
Its ok that you are feeling this way... you are tired UNDERSTANDIBLY !!
I have always looked at things KNOWING there IS a reason,. I don't believe in coincidence, "when" the reason will be revealed is the "unknown", but you will realize what it was ….when its time.
Maybe this separation of emotion, is a needed callous to help you handle "when" mom is no longer in misery.
Remember, you are doing OK … and you are human , this is hard...
Hang in there,
prayers for divine assistance for you and Mom.
((HUGS))
Moni
How many of us on these boards did the same thing, raise your hand? (I actually DIDN'T, but I was not a real part of mom's aging care).
The time you make that promise, it seems like the right thing to do. Often we're already exhausted and depressed and think that this will be easier--and it almost never is.
You and sis need to be on the same page, and sit down and talk about what to do with mom. Lovingly, but firmly.
And follow through. If you feel like sh&t now, and know you will after she dies--cut to the chase and take care of YOU and mom, now, in a better, less stressful setting.
Sounds like she barely able to function now--and she'll get worse, Throw in the dementia and you have a hot mess.
Please take care of you. And don't let the guilt monkeys get to you. My time spent with mother is of MY choice and MY time. If she gets super negative or repetitious or complains too much, I can walk away.
Not so easy for the brother who opted to take her in. He NEVER thought she'd be going strong at 89. And she'll live forever. It has taken such a toll on his family--they are all desperately in need of some kind of therapy to deal with mother's needs and sheer presence in their lives.