Even before I started taking care of my grandmother, I had a diagnosis of severe depression & other mental health disorders. I just feel like it's unfair. I tried to talk my grandmother into going to the nursing home facility, because I feel like it's a burden to my mental well being. I've been in & out of mental health facilities while I'm stuck caring for mom . She has a bf who tried to get her to stay with him so I can take a break. I mean, my depression is getting worse and she won't go to the nursing home for 2 weeks or allow me to have a break. It's so unfair. I haven't gotten my license or been able to do anything fun for myself. I'm always my grandmother's slave and it's mentally destroying me, because secretly I'm suffering from mental illness. I just want to stop taking care of her, but she declines the nursing home, she declines her bf's help, so I'm stuck battling this depression disease with no help. I'm burning out. What can I do? Please help me out here. I feel like my depression is to severe to keep on caring for someone else. I'm suffering and it's not right. I feel like I get nothing out of caring for her but mental anguish and pain. It literally feels like I'm being tormented, no light at the end of the tunnel. Just hell day by day, just demons eating me away while my mom is sucking the life out of me making me do everything.
What's your mother got to do with it?
The only way to resolve is to walk away. If that is not an option finically, find support for your grandmother so you can start to regain your independence.
Tell your mom and grandmother you are done !
It may be your home, but do you own it? It you don’t, and you are 25, it’s time to move out.
If Grandma is 67, and has no serious ailments mentioned, you shouldn’t be needing to do much care for her. More information might help, or do you just resent her being there?
How is your mother ‘sucking the life out of you’? What ‘everything’ is she ‘making you do’? How are you ‘caring for mom?. Could it just as easily be that you are driving her around the bend?
What do you contribute to running the house? Do you pay rent to your parents, or a contribution to the mortgage? Do you share in housework and yard work? Do you resent being asked to do any of the work that it takes to keep the show on the road? Or do you think that just living with a 67 year old is sufficient contribution to your maintenance?
Are you serious about having medical depression, burning out, mental anguish, and suffering? Self-pity is not so far as I know on the list of mental illnesses. Have you really “been in & out of the mental health facilities”. Why did they make you leave? Perhaps you should ask again to be admitted.
This site is for people providing care. You have given no indication that you are providing any care at all. Self reliance is good to aim for.
Caregiving is a long, difficult road, and we're happy you have found the support of others here on this site. However, there are limits to what untrained members of the forum can provide for you.
Depression is a serious medical condition. If you are experiencing thoughts of suicide, please reach out to experts for additional support by calling the 24/7 National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.
I'm sure more caregivers will be along shortly to provide words of encouragement and advice. Hang in there and please take care of yourself!
The response given on this thread by MargaretMcKen is really the one you should listen to because she makes great sense.
I understand all about severe depression getting to the point of despondency. I know what it's like to basically live as a slave to the needs and demands of a vindictive and nasty elder. I also know what it's like to live in a constant state of crisis waiting for the other shoe to drop. Knowing that the elder whose home you live in can throw you out any second if they are displeased in any way. I also know what it's like to have grown up in abuse and live in abuse as an adult. You don't deserve to live like that and you don't have to.
After my divorce I came back to live with my mother who needed some help at the time. It was going to be beneficial for us both to live together. There's a long history of abuse and dysfunction with us, but she did try to make some genuine amends to me for it. We did okay for a while, but then the snideness, scapegoating, and abuse started back up. When she started with a couple of health conditions the abuse was amplified a hundred times.
I'm walking away because I will not live in abuse. No one has to. You don't have to and I think you know this. I think I've told you this before.
You say you want help. It doesn't sound like you're interested in help. What you want is for someone to rescue you. Someone to give you a place to live and support you financially, but who will also treat you like a competent adult while at the same time enabling you to live like a child with no responsibilities.
That's not going to happen. There is help available to you, but you have to be willing to help yourself as well.
Get out of grandma's house and away from her and your mother.
This is what must be done because you are way too enmeshed in their lives and their situation. Your mental health cannot improve while you remain living in her house.
I'm pretty sure you're financially dependent on grandma and your mother. That has to stop at once. Neither of them will ever have the slightest respect or treat you like an adult if they have to provide for you like a child. If you live like a child then expect to get treated like one.
If you've been in and out of mental health facilities, there is documentation of your mental illnesses and disorders. Why are you not on disability benefits?
I want to lay some truth on you and please don't take it the wrong way because I have only the best intentions at heart.
It's easier to go to work at any job then it is to keep feeling sorry for yourself and wallowing in depression. Go get a job. Any job and I guarantee you wil start feeling a lot better about yourself and life.
Then look for somewhere else to live. Do you have any relatives who will let you go to their home? Not as a freeloader looking for charity. Pay your fair share to stay with them and be helpful in keeping the house running. You'll see. Your mental health will be much improved.
You said you had moved in with mom partially for her wealth reasons/potential inheritance. You later said you were moving out because you were reconciling with your ex, and hence probably would have a place and support to move into. You’ve also said you’re twice as old as this op, but it hasn’t been easy to move as you’re still there.
Its not easy as we know. It is however doable. I hope you have a move out date after which you leave whether ex not ex or anyone else is involved.
Your g-mom is only 67? Even with a stroke, she is young and still has many years ahead of her. She needs to be in a place that handles people with physical/mental issues. You need to have the chance to work, travel, have friends, whatever.
Have you got ANY support? Family, friends? You will need help, one way or the other. Even living in a tiny studio apartment while you deal with your mental health issues and 'growing up' would be better than living in servitude.
I hope you can build a cadre of friends and family who will support you in your desire to grow up--and leave g-mom's care to professionals. You don't go in to finances, and chances may be that mom won't be happy with moving to a care facility (little bit of honesty, nobody WANTS to go to a NH).
But your g-mom had her life, when she was younger, you deserve the same.
Try to find a therapist who can work with you. A mild antidepressant may help lift your spirits enough so you can move forward.
This is really the 'problem' of the parent whose mother this is. Not yours.
Wishing you luck.
((Hugs))
MidKid
I left home the second I turned 18. I've been married and divorced twice.
I moved back in with my mother after my divorce because it was beneficial to us both.
I will inherit her house and this is the reason why I've helped her and have worked hard to keep her out of a nursing home because Medicaid has a five-year look back period on what becomes an exempt asset. We're coming up on that five-year anniversary. I also paid of the mortgage here when I moved in because she made bad money decisions and would have lost this place. I was still working full-time and a half. I've got time and money in this place and I'm not leaving it until I know that my investment here is secure and won't be taken up by the state.
I have lived in one-room studio apartment because it was all I could afford. I'm also twice Moonlight's age. It's a lot easier to hustle and work multiple jobs when you're 25. When you're near 50, not so easy. There's no reason why Moonlight can't get out there and hustle at such a young age. I worked since I was a teenager because I had to.
I put off marrying my second husband for two years because I would not enter into a marriage with nothing more than the clothes on my back, sister. I worked like a dog and did not spend one unnecessary penny, and built up my bank account. Then I added my husband's name to it.
I never lived off either of my husbands and never expected to.
I'm still in the consideration stage of what I'm going to do with my mother.
She can't afford live-in care and Medicaid won't pay for that, so it will probably be placement. I would see my mother placed decently.
If she does need dementia care later, those assets will make the difference between the type of really nice mc that Lealonnie speaks of or going into a place that’ll range from subpar to Sort of ok. If you have poa to place her, it’s obligatory to use her funds for her best interest, right?