Elderly mother wants to monopolize my free time with responsibilities or mundane amusement.
My elderly mother feels my part time job is interferring in the time I spend with her and makes the attempt to emotionally manipulate me with feelings of guilt. She lives independently with COPD and a few mobility issues. She complains she never gets to see me and is lonely. My sister takes her weekly for grocery shopping which they both make a good time of. The time I spend with her is either for transportation or sitting around in her house expecting me to entertain her. I refuse to do any of her housekeeping because she can afford to hire someone to do it. She has no friends and will not consider any outside interests. I live an hours drive away and feel the free time I do have to be spent enjoying life's activities with her instead of being her taxi or in home entertainment committee. She entirely dismisses my suggestion of in home care. I have limited my time with her from once a week to once a month due to my job and her neediness codependency. She thinks it is due to my job and wants me to either limit my hours or quit to spend more time with her. My choosing to work is more for my self worth than financial. I also have responsibilities to my home, husband and pets. I want to be able to maintain a healthy balance in my life without her expecting me to utilize my time for her individual wants and needs. I want our time together to be enjoyable not regrettable. I have suggested many fun things to do, but she shows no interest. She has no dementia, views life negatively and has no interests other than reading and television.
How about a diary? That way, you can go back and reread what you have written to see if things have gotten any better for you. If you are just venting, a diary will work.
By creating a "new discussion," you intentionally bring others into it. Please be honest with yourself and those who go to the care and trouble of answering you.
My mother once thought it was my responsibility to support her in her old age, so she didn't have to spend her money. I don't know why the responsibility didn't also apply to my brothers. I simply told her, "That is not going to happen." I think it is the easiest way to say no to a request we feel unreasonable.
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"Welcome! The AgingCare.com online caregiver support group is a place where you can ask questions, give answers, exchange messages and get support from other family caregivers who understand exactly what you're going through." Then under "Start a Discussion" is written -"Find Support and Inspiration"
Debralee. I think you are is looking for support. In my time on this website, others have come just to vent and been welcomed.
I appreciate the difficulty of saying "No" to a dysfunctional parent, and as I understand it, you have suffered much more abuse than those of us who have posted in response to you. Even then it took me till I was much older than you to establish the boundaries that I have.
I mean no disrespect to anyone's views, but, I think Debra has as much right to vent here as anyone else.
I do think you qualify as a caregiver, Debra, and I hope you continue to post. I have seen other people "run off" this site and it really distresses me.
I like the saying "Never criticize a man (or woman) until you've walked a mile in his (her) moccasins.
Saying "No" to an abusive parent is often wise, but not always easy.
Blessings to all Joan
Holy CRAP, did everyone go on the collective rag here? Ladies, grab your Midol! I'm shocked at you. If this was the Victorian era I would seat you on horsehair couches in the parlor and make you think about it for hours until the backs of your legs itched like all insanity, then send you to bed with only tea and bread, no jam, no sugar.
Do we really have to quantify our caregiving now? Shall we all measure our hours, number of diapers, and see who has the most right to brag or complain? *insert eye roll* Like Joan said, learning to lay down the boundaries and then to finally say that word "no". It's something that can only come with time and practice. It takes forever just for us to feel ourselves out and find appropriate boundaries, do you know why? BECAUSE OUR LOUSY MOTHERS NEVER TAUGHT US HOW! They never taught us to respect ourselves, let alone love ourselves. It's like learning a foreign language.
So, please, dear mother of God and all that is HOLY, LET US FOR CRIMENEY'S SAKE,
VENT!
Have you ever seen the mentos in the bottle of coke? That's what some of us would look like if we did not have this safe place to do so. To find others like ourselves who have suffered the same and offer a soft shoulder and a KIND and listening ear. To know that they are lifting us in thought and prayer. These things are helping us to LIVE through what is our worst nightmare, taking care of someone who emotionally, mentally, verbally, and sometimes or often even physically abused us as children, as young women, and still are now. For some of the women here, it's the ONLY place they have, it's the only women they have ever met who have been there and understand.
If you cannot take it, don't want to hear it, are tired of it, Fine. We invite you to save your own sanity and leave. Absolutely nothing wrong with self preservation. I consider it to be of a very high importance myself.
BUT...
We also ask for respect and that you keep your unkind comments to yourself. More than several of us here have banded together to support and help one another deal with this type of mother. You don't have to be one of us. We are uber cool with that.
Personally when it happens to me, I won't just run away and hide, I'll curl into a little ball and call myself stupid and other names for opening up and telling too much and what was I thinking, they must be right and I will castigate myself a million ways. Three years ago I was laying physical cuts into my body as punishment for being so stupid. I used to have to have surgeries to close them. I will have three years cut free on May 8th because I won't let anyone's words drive me that far again.
So what you may see as nothing, just another way to talk to someone, has the chance to cause someone else real pain. And I won't sit back and let anyone do it to her. Call me a witch. I'm a protective witch.
We don't all come to strength at the same time. Instead of DEMANDING that someone less strong do exactly what you do. Just share Your experiences from a non judgmental view.
Most people are not ready to cut their mother clean out of their lives like I did. I think it's the healthiest thing I ever did, I look at other women here and I wish they could, I hurt so bad for them. But either it's not right for them, or they are not where I am, or both. So I just lift them where they are so that they can eventually see what they want to do.
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That is why I have utilized this site! A place to vent! A place I can express my frustrations and feelings without making me look like some inhuman monster. A place where the burden of my guilt for how I feel can be lightened even if only temporary. In other words, a place of EMPATHY. How hard is it to reach out to someone with understanding without having to know all the details?
There are so many wonderful people here. It warms my heart to read such compassionate posts and responses. ALL should feel welcome. At times, our comments could make a difference in someone's world I'd sure rather make someone feel better than to think I made things worse.
This forum is for everyone who wants to vent about caregiving issues or ANYTHING related to the elderly. So, Debralee, when you want to vent and let off steam, we are here for you dear. My mother would also call me for mundane things....fold her clothes, organize her closets, dust, paint, open bottles, go buy her beer.....etc. And when I wasn't available to do these things, she would shoot me down, make me feel guilty, and bully me. Looking back twenty years ago, my parents were simply absent from my life. They didn't want me to come over to visit. I had small children and they didn't want the kids to bother them. So, they ignored me. What goes around comes around!
Debralee, I personally can relate to many of the things you said and sadly I hope you can ignore the comments of those who may criticize. When I was caring for my Mom I asked her at one point what she did for her mother and she told me she did nothing. None the less, she wanted me to entertain her, to give up my life and my work and my family and friends. Earlier my Dad told me I could be his nursemaid. Well that's what I was, but while it was all creeping up on me slowly, one kindness after another, I noticed my brother and sister did nothing. My parents told me they never helped their parents or siblings. So, I came to this site to ask questions in my slowly increasing confusion...
I wondered why I was slowly losing my own health and my own financial stability that I worked all my life to establish. I wondered why I had lost friends and my own family members.
When you start out, it might seem simple. You may be coming from a very healthy place in life and slowly look around and find that you have lost your balance. It's OK to ask questions here, where ever you are on your path.
For those who have proceeded further down that path, it may be hard to acknowledge someone who is just beginning this journey. I say you should be always careful to take good care of yourself, ask for what you want in life, don't work to the point that you make yourself sick or financially disabled or that you alienate your own family and friends, because then you will be no good to anyone else.
Work from a position of kindness... do what you can and what is in your heart to do...
but don't do so much that you become a nasty bitter person. Clearly that's no good for anyone!
I just want you to know that to offset the critic, I am a supporter of you. Take care...
I'm sorry that JessieBelle's post offended you, because I fully agree with her. If you don't want to be a caregiver, don't be a caregiver. I'd go a little further and advise you to set strong boundaries around what you do for your mother.
Your sister seems to have figured out a way to have weekly contact with your mother that is somewhat pleasant for both of them. IF YOU WANT TO you could probably do something similar. If you don't want to, because of the nature of your relationship growing up, that is perfectly fine, too. Be a caregiver. Don't be a caregiver. Devote two hours a week to time with your mother. Devote one hour a month to time with your mother. Don't spend any regular time with your mother at all. It is your choice, your decision, and whatever you decide is justified.
You won't do housecleaning for your mother, because she can afford to hire it done? Excellent! Stick to that decision! You've suggested fun things to do together and she turns them down? Ask for her suggestions. If she suggests you clean out her cabinets, laugh and say, "No, something FUN for both of us!" If she can't think of anything, then you MIGHT go with the two interests you know she has. Are there any television shows you both like at a time that is convenient for you? Pass the popcorn or the wine bottle and laugh with her at the funny bits. Can you stand reading the kind of books she likes? Suggest reading the same books and having your own private book club, discussing them over a light supper.
Being a kind person and being a doormat are very, very different things. And it is never your duty to be a doormat, even to a parent who was loving and nurturing, let alone one who was abusive or neglectful.
You said, "I want to be able to maintain a healthy balance in my life without her expecting me to utilize my time for her individual wants and needs. I want our time together to be enjoyable not regrettable." Yes, exactly. That is a very healthy and reasonable attitude. Do you want our approval? You have mine! (And I daresay everyone else who has posted her, including Jessie.) Do you want our permission to not do anything that doesn't fit into that healthy and reasonable decision? Again, I think you can count on that.
I hope that your next post will tell us how you are trying to set boundaries and stick up for yourself with your mother, and what kind of success you are having. I'd love to celebrate your successes and be encouraging when things aren't going so well.
And if someone tells you to fish or cut bait ... do it or don't do it, it is your choice, try not to take that as a personal attack. Sometimes a kick in the pants in the right direction is really a kindness. If you've followed JesseBelle's posts for very long you'll see that she is a compassionate person with lots of caregiving experience and lots of smarts. I usually see the wisdom in her remarks, and I sometimes don't agree with her, but she is definitely not a nasty, negative poster. Take her advice or reject it, but please don't consider it a personal attack.
In defending one caregiver you viciously attacked another caregiver, also from a dysfunctional family (if that matters). And your accusations were not even on target. Maybe JessieBelle was too abrupt. Maybe she was wrong. But I can't see how she could be interpreted as demanding conformance to her choices.
And I am not "on the rag" (a phrase I find crude) -- haven't been for more than 20 years. (Actually, I never was. That was my mother's generation.) I would prefer not to be lumped into some stereotyped category. Disagree with me, certainly. Disagree with Jessie and anyone else on this thread. I'd sure like to see a little higher level of tolerance and respect.
(And I'll admit I have the advantage of a mother who modeled tolerance and respect. Even at that I don't always manage it myself.)
She and some of us felt she was not supported in that, and posted in support support her. Perhaps the best words were not always used, but the intent to support was clearly there in some posts, and clearly not there in others.
Can we leave it at this,
About the rag comment, it's a very common saying, at least around here, and not so much about being on a period as being about angry/mean/irritable. I am sorry that it offended you, and if it offended any others, I apologize to them as well.
But honestly, when I read the rest of my post, I cannot find anything else to apologize for. I believe that I held back a lot and explained things very well.
I don't understand why you think you were included Jeanne, you were not there when I wrote that. I have almost always liked the things you write, they are common sense and straight forward, and you understand boundaries. You don't tell anyone what to do, you suggest, you share your stories. You understand we are all different.
You are right about tolerance in the threads lately, I think we are all on edge and finding it difficult. Maybe it's spring. I will try to take a deep breath, calm myself before posting comments, and tone things down.
Thank you emjo for your support.