Help, I just can't do it anymore. Am I a terrible person? It has been almost a year since her broken hip, then the lung infection and no. Today my sister (thank God) took my Mom to the Dr. and she has to have a bunch of injections in her eye to keep her from going blind. I can't spell the disorder. Of course this is another thing she was suppose to see the Dr. about a few months ago but she put it off. I don't know if seeing him earlier would have helped or not.
I cant start this all over again with my Mom.
I have to go to the cardiologist Monday b/c I saw my primary care Dr. and I had an abnormal EKG. Stress? I don't know. Plus found out today my ex got arrested for DUI and a few other things. I will die if he dumps that on my son. My son's dog had surgery today and made it thru OK (sounds dumb but I love her). My Mom's treatment starts with injections and she can not lift her head up other than 15 minutes every hour for two days. I sound selfish don't I ? Just too much so I just needed to vent.
Also, if you have an Area Agency on Aging in your community, please contact them. You can go to www.n4a.org and type in your Zip code. These people are amazing. I wish every community were covered. Many are, however, so try them. You need to do something for yourself.
Carol
I feel so guilty about taking my and brother their files while knowing they can't handle them...........but 'I can't do it anymore'. With all the stress over the years as well as my husband and myself's medical problems; I have been diagnosed with Poly-Myalgia Rheumatica, I have days I can't get out of bed. My doc says I have to get out from under so much stress.......and just how do I do that. The only answer I can come up with is to tell my mother and brother that 'I can't do it anymore'. In fact my husband is pushing me make them find someone else to help them out. Every day I give to my mother and brother takes from my home and my disabled husband...........he is to the point 'he can't take it anymore'. He sees the stress I under daily and demands I make them find someone else to help them out.
It feels so good to be able to vent to others that understand where I am and reading other's post helps me have the grit to do one of the hardest thing I have had to do in my life time.........I feel like I am turning my back on them, but 'I can't do it anymore'! As soon as Christmas and New Years is over, I think I now have the strength to do what I have to do, that is to tell them 'I can't do it any more'. My health and marriage of 32 years are both a risk, please say a prayer for me to be able to do this without causing them and me too much emotional pain!
When my husband was in the hospital for 4 months, I found myself almost angry when everybody kept telling me to get away and take a break. I realize now they were only telling me that out of love.
So, even though I don't know you, I can tell you out of love and respect from one caregiver to another, that we can't be any good to our loved ones if we aren't good to ourselves. We've got to find some outlets for destressing.
But I know what you are going through - there was a while I thought I was going to go mad between work and my mother waking me up 4 or 5 times a night. In retrospect Ishould have taken a leave of absence from work but thought I could handle it all. It's not a good palce to be. Take care of yourself and do not think you are bad.
I am in the same boat as you...I don't know how much longer my husband and I can go on with this...it's been nearly 3 years living in her house with her! Nightmare. Our two daughters have even started giving us a piece of their minds and are being distant to us now. We learned a lesson that we should not tell our adult children everything that bothers us and we wont' anymore.
I am currently looking for a sitter to come in once a week so my husband and I can go somewhere together alone without mother. There is a treatment center here that you can bring your elderly parents to 5 days a week for 4 hours and once a month is a weekend where the elderly can spend the weekend...a break for the caregiver. Mother doesn't want to do any of this...she only thinks of her needs, not the needs of us.
I understand how awful it is. We finally last week went to our counselor at church...a professional Christian counselor for over 50 years now. We had to tell someone what we are going through. And, he suggested to start with sitters and then if that didn't work out, might need to look into other arrangements. We had to have our life, too.
When we moved her, left our jobs, family, church, friends, etc to care for our parents, we thought how wonderful it was going to be to help our parents. But, it went downhill from the beginning and now it is almost unbearable.
God bless you in this. Pray a lot. Take care.
Now - one more thing to think about, namely this: She was 93 and in poor health. She might have lived longer, shorter, or the same if she had stayed with you in the best of circusmtances. THEN, you could have ended up feeling guilty that she might have done better or gone on longer in a care facility.
My mom is also in skilled nursing and just moved to hospice..I am going through whether to try to bring her home with all the help we could get and feeling the guilt of the little voice inside that says "Why is she not living with you?" There are reasons and answers to that which I won't go into right now, but I can't help admitting its a good question. Every single decision I've had to make has been hard and wracked with guilt over not having made the other one, even the ones that turned out to have been absolutely dead on. My son who I shared this with yesterday says its not logical and that if you made the decisions the way you did because you loved her they are right. I still say you could be loving but make the wrong decision, and of course be forgiven...so I guess a little angst is normal if you actually care about someone. And maybe a lot of angst is normal too. And maybe, if you had to balance your needs and other needs you take care of so that "what's best for mom" could not remain your one and only priority, that makes it harder yet...but I also don't think either your mom or mine would want to destroy and ruin our lives, if they understood that's what they were doing to us, after all the time and effort they put into raising us and giving us a future.
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