I hate being asked. Can anyone relate?

Carla, that reminds me of my Dad... he will say "if your are driving by Home Depot could you pick up this or that for me?". I realize it is a polite way for Dad to ask me to do something but it still irks me as I have told him numerous times I hate to drive :P

Since Dad is [or was] good at using the computer, I tried to get him to order the items on-line and have them delivered to the house..... Dad tried but didn't want to pay the delivery charges.... [sigh].

Now, if I was going to Home Depot and called Dad to see if there was anything he wanted, that's different, because at that point in time I had time to help him.

Giving her the benefit of a doubt, I'm wondering if she's asking for so much because she feels so unable to manage herself?

There are times when I'm asked to do something I know could be done w/o my intervention, and I do feel a bit exploited. I've eventually said that I can't do everything, there's a limit, and if I do chores that could be done by others then I'm not going to be able to do the things that only I can do, such as the legal and financial aspects that need to be handled.

I don't think overreaching is uncommon though; I've seen it in other situations.

Mom does the same to me,,, When I go out to the store I have to race around to get back as fast as I can,, I go to the dollar store she wants to come ,, buy cards she can't read good enough,, or walk now I have to sneak out ,, Paying the bills another issue did you pay this or that than repeats it 12 times a day drives me crazy,, Hospice won't help unless docter says she has 6 months to live,, when she sees the doc She like I am fine , I am only one helping today she goes for xrays of stomach ,, she asks why ,, I told her for a month you shit on the floor wet yourself you have diverticulitis,, and refuses to go to go to nursing home mean time I haven't done anything for me in 4 years,, I am going nuts

Probe1949200- Wow, you have your hands full! Makes my complaints seem petty by comparison. At least my Mom makes it to the bathroom and I don't have to clean that up.

Good luck with the stomach x-ray for your Mom today. Good luck getting some help, especially!

Thanks I just got her up,, at least she was able to make it to the bathroom now to get her to the hosp,, shes not allowed to eat until she gets there they want to give her oatmeal there laced with something so they can track it through her stomach one xray every hour for 4 hours,,She thinks it will be 10 minutes,, Actually I hope they find something helpful Prayersto you good luck my mom is 93

Wow. I can definitely relate. Except I don't even get the word "please". I get "gimme that ..." "get me this..." I have said "PLEASE" to those requests/demands and he says "Do I have to say please every time?"
Thanks for sharing that the "please" doesn't necessarily help. I do feel like a servant to my own father. I have no answers, just thanks to these forums for validating my feelings and situations.

It's not easy to set limits when caring for a frail person - for they don't remember, and life at home is such a boundless set of roles and tasks. Best ways I know are first of all, to plan some time when you won't be available - and put up a big writing list, maybe one for groceries and another for other. and post them in a place she can reach. Or if she can't do that, when you get a request, say "good idea, I'll write it on the list." And leave or change the subject. Then shop twice a week, if possible, and get the things that way. I tend to think we should teach elders to use a computer - with big buttons, etc. So there would be a page for lists of what to buy, that she could add to. And there would be other pages with card games or other games - or places they could look up. Many are just trying to live as they usually have - and take their children as a way to do that.

About resenting being so taken for granted - And it's even worse because he does not ask - by the time I hear of an issue, he would have quit his day program, or last week, I got a call that he was deciding to skip one day a week at his day program for Brain Injury. I've had long enough experience over 40 years... to know that he often acts out when upset, and gradually drops out, and then they want to change medications. He is in a nursing home now, so the emergencies are not often, but they really don't manage people very well - they design programs for groups, not individuals. Meanwhile they do turn them into pampered self centered beings, by only focusing on their rights and what they want. So he gained 30 lbs. I made a mistake last fall by showing him a new nursing home - truth is, I like problem solving and I'm good at it. But it has developed that he thinks he can act out and I will magically appear to rescue him. I find myself stuck between the choice to give up, or pitch in again.

My sentiments exactly - except that I get the demands in a 'little girl' whiny voice. It drives me insane. Thank heavens for this outlet - I don't feel like I'm the only one who has become a slave.

I can so totally relate! Only my mother doesn't ask. She orders. "Go get me a drink from the kitchen"...I add "please" as I walk to the kitchen and she rolls her eyes at me. It drives me insane as she is perfectly well capable of getting her own drink. However, this has been my whole life. I'm an only child, and I think at times she had me just to be her servant. Now, I know she loves me, and most times she is very loving and good to me, but that can turn on a dime and suddenly she is queen of the castle and I'm the lowly servant, which gets to be more and more of the time, the older she gets.That is, when she isn't going on about her BM all day!

Prior to being appointed trustee of her trust, when I finally was at the end of my rope, I could just tell her that I was not putting up with it and she would straighten up.

Now, I'm tied to her and totally under her control and I think the only reason she set up the trust in the first place! She is very manipulative, bossy, and demanding.

She tells her friends when they stop by that unlike she originally thought, I have turned out to be a very good and serving daughter. That I "came through" in the end! Oh brother!

I can relate but my orders come from my wife who is confined to a wheelchair. I have grown used to knowing she basically speaks to me only because she is in need of something. It is very rarely "asked" and some times I am made to feel guilty for not being more attentive to her needs. Example: instead of letting me know she is out of juice and ask me to get her some she tells me how bad she needs a drink and why didn't I notice her glass was empty. Look...I get she has very limited function but it wears a person down when they feel like they have dedicated their life to someone that makes them feel they will never please. Sorry to suggest but it makes it easier to give up on what you want from them and just go through the motions. Good luck and God bless

oops, I must have erased the part where I mentioned that I'm the one who has had responsibility for my youngest brother through his adult life - he was born with disabilities, and I took responsibility for him in his adult life - and was proud to do it well, and I worked to teach him to do for himself and I found others to help him do that. But he never was good at asking, instead he would do things himself and break them. I'm glad this topic has come up, as I see that I set myself up as the one who is able to rescue him - and fact is, others don't think of as many "out of the box" solutions as I do. But I made time to go to his meeting on the phone last week, talk to everyone beforehand, and research and find him a literacy volunteer tutor whom he can meet near to his day program, for an hour a week, of specialized training and hopefully just reading together - now I'm the middle person who needs to set up transportation, logistics.... and nobody called me after the meeting to thank me or fill me in, and my older brother expects me to call him if I want anything - I hate that, I'd like him to call me once a month or if he hears something is up, so I have some company in my role.

Wow, perserverance64 - I appreciate hearing your differentiation, between being asked on time, or to leave the issue until the person is desperate then blaming them for not noticing. I feel that my other brother feels like that and I do sit here blaming him for not calling me to see how I'm doing. I think this stuff is harder maybe because when we get involved in care, we don't have other times or people around with us together so there's not much else to talk about together, and we get out of the habit. I sometimes feel that guys don't want to observe and do checks on what's needed - and women hate to ask, feel we will be seen as whiny or be patronized as needy - to us it should be obvious sometimes what tasks are needed, for we are used to watching and taking inventory. Maybe you can schedule twice a day when you do such an spot-check, in an obvious way, asking her input, and other times, just say, I'm not a machine, want some time without requests. Is there any way some type of small refrigerator could be added closer to her, where she could wheel and get her own juice as she wants? Being empowered to do something can help her moods maybe!

I always tried to anticipate things like the empty water glass and keeping to a schedule for meals. But the constant "next time you get up can you..." usually right after I sit down. It wears you down and starts to get so annoying. Even though its not on purpose. I always felt like I was making it too easy. She needed to get up and around. I felt like she wasn't even trying sometimes.

I think I can relate: I experienced this as a kind of rash of irritation with my mother's (perfectly reasonable, I admit) expectations. It was about her 'little ways'. And they *were* little: she liked her breakfast tray set out in a certain order, she liked a particular brand of soup (which I now can't smell without a sense of nausea), there were little routines and turns of phrase; and added all together they gave me a nervous tic. There was quite a lot of selective incompetence going on, too: if I handed her the tv remote, for example, because she was perfectly capable of using it (or so I thought: see below), five minutes later there would be pathetic little cries for help because she'd managed to change all of the settings back to analogue instead of digital - time after time…

But here it is. I think the frustration, annoyance and even sense of being exploited that we experience is part of the fundamental adjustment we have to make as our parent gradually becomes more and more dependent on us. We've spent our lives for good or ill in one type of relationship with this person, and that relationship is changing in a way that is piecemeal, fluctuating and radical all at the same time. Is it any surprise that this process is hard going? And is it our fault if it's rough on us, as well as hard on the person becoming more dependent?

I'm trying to remember how I got past the phase of wanting to throw her sodding breakfast tray across the room. Laying it out perfectly was one - what's the word? - distraction? Sublimation? Where's a psychologist when you need one..? Anyway: doing it perfectly focused me on the task itself rather than on my mother chirruping away like a little baby nestling wanting its worms. Another big thing for me was visualising my mother not as my mother, but as a person who needed help with her activities of daily living. Ironically, I suppose, objectifying her made it easier to detach and treat her with the courtesy and kindness I'd extend to any elder person in need of support who wasn't annoying the bejasus out of me.

But here's another thing. We, as family caregivers, are supposed to do these things for love. And we do: why else would we be there? But then at the same time, because of those huge changes, we're not getting love back: we're getting treated like pretty menial servants. I think that might be the hard part to accept - that the person we love is becoming unable, literally unable, to feed back in whatever way we were used to her doing. Her needs have changed, her abilities are diminishing, it's up to us to supply the deficit. My mother kind of could use her tv remote; but between vascular dementia and her need to feel looked after, in an increasingly infantile way, she also really couldn't.

Now here's the thing. I think, myself, that if you can't supply that deficit, if it's too much, then that's ok. There is no universal law that says an ordinary mortal has to be capable of suppressing her own emotional needs for long enough to get through this part of life - let alone do so with a smile on your face and a song in your heart.

So that means… if you feel that flash of annoyance and resentment when your mother asks you to do something, that's all right. Allow yourself to feel pissed off about it. This is annoying: you are duly annoyed. What matters is whether or not your mother's needs are being taken care of; although by needs, I really mean wants, because there's more to the task than keeping her safe, clean and warm. The job of caring for an elder means, as you put it exactly, being her hands and, later on, her brain. Yes, her utensil. This is not fun or fulfilling - or not unless you're a very special person it isn't - but it is your new relationship with this grown adult that you used to expect more of.

That's the requirement. Whether you can meet it, how graciously you can, what kind of mental state you'll be in after the months and years of dealing with it day in day out… Well, that's the test we're undergoing. But here's the key thing: you don't always, every single day, have to pass it.

Tell her how you feel. Then decide what concessions you are willing to make, as she won't live forever.

well my mom doesn't have a problem asking me to take her for her meds or to her dr etc, but other things she will just complain about on the phone to the do nothings ( and anybody else she talks to ) knowing it will get back to me. If you want something, ask ME, the ONLY person who is THERE to provide it for you. Don't complain to the ones that haven't done a dang thing for you and expect me to jump to the rescue when it gets back to me. Manipulation at its finest going on in my house. She doesn't know that Im playing my own game ( Im on to her ). It angers me to hear from everybody else 1300 miles away what mom needs. Especially when reality is they are CLUELESS about what really goes on . So I guess my point is maybe feel lucky she actually asks you instead of telling every one BUT you behind your back to make you look like the bad guy . I cant imagine treating my daughter the way my mom treats me.

I can relate, but in a different way. My mom treats me like a slave, with no regard for how many trips back and forth I have to make until she's completely satisfied. For example, I bring her food in a cup as she requested because she is blind, but then she'll say, put it in a bowl so I can see it better. If I provide a spoon and napkin she'll say she wants a fork, if I include fork and spoon, then she wants more napkins. I sometimes ignore her because she is too narcissistic and OCD to deal with. I just pretend I didn't hear her. If she says please or thank you, it is usually forced because I have told her how impolite she is.

CountryMouse, how true when you wrote "chirruping away like a little baby nestling wanting its worms"... I can picture the baby bird in my mind, and that will help me smile any time my Dad wants me to get him something at the store :)

Sigh. I know exactly what you mean, or at least close enough. I help my mom a lot, she's the main caregiver for my dad, who has Alzheimer's. I realize her life is very difficult. But she refuses to help herself in many ways, and it drives me nuts. I come up with solutions for dealing with my dad and she doesn't want to try them, because it's too much work. She doesn't like having outside helpers (i.e. respite caregivers, cleaning agencies) come into her house, so that's out. I don't mind helping her to a point, but at the same time, there are so many things she could do to make her own situation easier, and she refuses, and so I then resent being asked for help so often. And then I resent myself for being resentful, because I feel like a selfish jerk. I'm glad to read your story, it makes me feel better! Hang in there - it's about all we can do :-)

Oh I can relate too. Many times it's the tone of voice or the way it is said which gripes me the wrong way. It's interesting that if I said things using the tone or way its was said, I'd be taken to task for it. CarlaB I know what you're going through. Makes me feel like all I'm good for is running around for them. Countrymouse your comments are spot on.

Thank you for all these posts as it is the medicine my psyche has needed for some time. I know Mom is grateful for what I do. She is 103, and for the last 3 yrs. has had 24/7 care in her home due to a fall. She is not bed ridden and can feed herself. But for years I longed to hear her ask me things in a nice voice. It would be little things. For example, she held on to her checkbook at that time, but every month I would reconcile it with the bank and add in the automatic payments and write in the new balance, being sure it balanced against the bank's amount. When I handed the checkbook back to her she didn't like that I hadn't written in all of the amounts and ongoing balance in the totals column. Instead of saying, something like, "thanks honey, but would you mind putting the totals all down the column", and got a higher, louder voice, "HEY, you did write in the numbers!".

Or my MIL wouldn't ask directly and keep making hints. She used ostomy bags and instead of asking directly "would you check the shelves to be sure I have enough bags?", we would be out at a Dr. appt., or shopping, and she would say "I think someone is taking my ostomy bags", "Do you know how to order supplies for me?" (of course, I always ordered them), etc. several times. After a while I got the message, but learned to play along, make a mental note, and when we got back to her AL and I got her to her room I would ask her whether she had enough and we would look. Sometimes boxes had been tucked behind something in the closet. I wonder who did that?

Years ago the same MIL threw a bit of a temper tantrum at a restaurant and we had to leave, hubby took her out towards the car as I got the waitress' attention and asked for food boxes and paid the bill. I apologized for the fuss and she said, "don't worry about it. My grandmother lives with us and sometimes does the same thing. My mother always says, 'when you are old all you have left is your voice'. "

That is when I started writing in a journal, taking the emotions from my heart and gut and putting them on paper. It helped. Now I blog a bit. That helps too.

Wow....can so relate. 80 year old recently widowed mother who orders doesn't ask and if you don't jump and do it exactly how she wants it done I get " fine! I'll do it myself". She has two bone on bone knees. Mentally she is controlling and paranoid but knows what she is doing. She sucks the life out of me and I am disabled. What limited energy I have to take care of myself is used up by her. She just is so egocentric she doesn't get it.

I can relate. I miss just being their daughter.. now I am somewhat like a servant.. hired help. Both my parents are often appreciative of my help.. but most of the time they are oblivious to it.. things just get done magically...and until now... always by me alone.

My mom cannot see a need for a caregiver 4 hours a day.. well... I spend at least 4 hours every day on their care.. some days much more.

The other day both my Mom and Dad were pondering about what would happen if I was in a car accident and died... and the main gist was.. who would take care of them. In the old days they would not want me to die or get sick because they loved me and I was their daughter.

I miss just being their daughter! Caregiving completely changes that relationship.. it seems.

I know just how you feel. My mother-in-law didn't order, but she told me she could live by herself and she just had me doing things because I was willing to do them. Otherwise she would do them herself. And sometimes she'd try to draw me into a conversation that would end up with some cockeyed thing she wanted me to do for her. It made me suspicious of talking with her at all. Thank goodness she's with another family member now. Hang in there.

Frankly, I am puzzled about people using this forum to rant about their own problems.

It says above this box...Answer this Question

"Can Anyone Relate" sort of opens up to forum to people relating their own similar experiences. You seemed stressed, is there something you'd like to rant about?

alzheimerscg: People in our situation need to vent. Sometimes you get a suggestion on how to help, sometimes you just feel better getting it off yer chest and knowing that someone else has the same problem and therefore understands. I have an email friend who understands my venting and sends me her own rants. Other people do journals. It's helpful to know we can find empathy here. Not only is this a release outlet, it shows you that some people's situations are worse than yours and makes you count your blessings. I am thankful it's more than just a Q & A board.

Really, where can we vent if not here? I was wondering if my reactions were shared by others, because it does seem so fundamentally insulting to be talked to like a servant, and I think many of our parents are just oblivious to how it sounds to us. Or they don't care.

Countrymouse, I especially related to what you said about the changes in the relationship as our parents become more dependent on us, and the fact that we stop getting love back from our parents just when they are demanding the most from us. That to me is a huge issue. My mother has not only stopped recognizing me as a separate independent adult with her own wishes and desires, she's also stopped caring anything about those wishes and desires. It astonishes me that none of our parents ever seem to ask us "How is this working out for you? Are you okay with all the stuff you're now doing for me?" It's like we're now just the servant, not a loved one, not really even part of the equation.

I was never really my mother's daughter - that's part of the problem in my personal situation. She was such an overbearing parent that I fired her in my late teens and in doing so was able to form a friendship with her as adults in my later life. That friendship is gone, and now she's playing the parent card for all it's worth, and it really feels like changing the rules of the game in the bottom of the ninth. She's again the overbearing parent I fired more than 40 years ago, and I can't seem to fire her again now. Aaaarrrggghhhh!!!!

TG I don't have these problems. So this is just a suggestion and not from experience. Put up limits. Explain that they weren't ur slave and you refuse to be theirs and that a please and thankyou would be nice. Like someone suggested, make a list of things they want or need. I have a white board on my frig. If not important explain you will do it when u run errands. The one thats father says "if u happen to go by Home Depot" tell him you aren't. U will get what he wants next time ur in the area.

Mom started Daycare on Monday. She doesn't like the bus and told me I could take her by car. I said no. The bus is included in the price ($78 a day) explained that she will get used to it. Otherwise, its 4 trips 34 miles a day to drive her.

In my house, I am the one who asks my husband, "While you're in the kitchen, could you please get me a glass of ice water?" Etc.

Did you ever stop to think that your mother is thinking of you, too? I don't ask my husband to stop what he's doing or to get up and do something for me if I can help it; I'll ask when I can see it would be convenient for him. I'm handicapped, but I don't like being a burden. Those of us who are handicapped and older truly do need help, sometimes with the simplest things. I know I don't ask with the purpose of ordering my husband around although he does get tired of having to help me; I would truly rather be able to do those simple tasks myself.

I'm sorry many of you feel resentful because a parent or loved one asks for help. I never felt that way about my own parents. I helped them when they were terribly ill because I wanted them to have the best care I could provide.