help with mum

jojo2004

Thanks dora!!!

myrnahaz

My Dad was like Kazzy's mum - except he wouldn't go anywhere unless he had company (me, usually). He used to come to my house (or call into where I work) about 5 times a day, but he'd just sit and moan, then he'd sigh loudly for a few minutes and then he'd go home - then he'd complain to my sister that I never went to see him (I had nothing left to say after his 5 visits)! Then, when I asked him to move in with us he said he liked his independence too much! The poor old soul died five years ago and I miss him terribly, but I don't miss those moaning and sighing episodes.

buxtonrabbitgreen

I just want to say to all of you. Yes it is trying, and yes I was the one who had to cope with mum's dementia out of 5 of us. And yes I sometimes found it frustrating and difficult, especially towards the end when she was doubly incontinent. But since she died 3 years ago I still miss her terribly and remember all the things she did for me and regret any ungraciosness in my dealings with her. Please remember this when your parents have died, you will be sorry for what you thought and said and did sometimes.

Dora_the_Explorer_5

It's almost impossible not to have occasional rotten thoughts about anyone one is caring for, and no-one should feel guilty if they do. It's a normal reaction to an abnormal situation. The people we care for are not saints and neither are we.
During the earlier stages of my mum's dementia I often wanted to tell her to pull herself together, even though I knew exactly what was happening to her and why she was behaving in the way she did. It didn't mean that I didn't love her and now she's gone I find I miss her nagging and selfishness.

flossy_splodge

My goodness, buxtonrabbitgreen, HOW judgemental and lacking in empathy did THAT sound. I can honestly say that looking back, the only things my father has done for me is cause misery, pain and a near breakdown. I finally cut loose from him 2 weeks ago in utter despair and pain when he said to a friend of MINE who I had got in to give him some professional help that I "did not count". My frined is well used to the vagaries of age but even she was appalled at his gross insensitivity. He did something the following day that illustrated his belief that I "did not count" and it was really the proverbial last straw. I am beginning to get stronger and feel able to cope now I do not have the weight of an insensitive, arrogant overbearing selfish and unloving father weighing me down. And yes I would dearly love it to be otherwise but there comes a time when one just has to protect one's own mental health. He is a 'player'. Always has been. Well you know what happens when you cry wolf? yep, when you have a real need no one believes you. It hurts that things have developed like this but I was in danging of accepting my fathers rating of me as accurate and luckily I have good friends who have helped me see it's him, not me. But I'm not going to end up killing myself because of how I feel everytime he opens his mouth. So he is now the loser. So please don't jump to conclusions buxtonrabbitgreen that you can have any idea what other people experience in THEIR lives just because of how it is in yours.:o

myrnahaz

I think there's a huge difference in dealing with someone with dementia and dealing with someone who's just miserable and doesn't seem to be doing anything to help themselves. My Mum died of a brain tumour and was fully lucid one day and practically alzheimic the next (age 58), and caring for her was so, so different compared with caring for my (lovely) Dad for the next 3 years until he died suddenly. He was very lonely and sad after losing his wife of 44years - but we had lost our Mum as well, but he didn't realise that we were hurting as well - or that we had several kids, jobs and homes to cope with alongside this lovely but difficult old man. The strange thing is that I miss him far more than my Mum - and I thought I was closer to her. Whingeing must make the heart grow fonder.

margaretclare

myrnahaz wrote:

I think there's a huge difference in dealing with someone with dementia and dealing with someone who's just miserable and doesn't seem to be doing anything to help themselves.

Unfortunately, it's possible to get these two things combined in the one person! In that case, there isn't the huge difference. I have the utmost sympathy for anyone with dementia and even more sympathy for those who're caring for them. But I can think of people I've known - my late MIL from my first marriage was a prime example - who were ALWAYS difficult, sexist, whingeing, even before dementia set in!

Flossy_splodge, I think you may have done the right thing here, no matter how it may be disapproved of by some. It sounds from what you and your daughter Kazzy wrote, that you were in a total no-win situation with Dad/Grandad. His saying that you 'didn't count' would have been the end of the road for me too.

There is only so far that you can go in feeling sorry for, and falling over backwards for, people just because they are 'old'. In our local evening paper there are big headlines about an elderly woman 'fighting for her life' in the burns unit, having been dragged out of the bedroom of her blazing bungalow at the risk of firefighters' lives, and only surviving so far because of medical and surgical care and skill. And the reason for the 'blazing bungalow' comes right at the end of the front-page news report. 'It is thought that the fire was cause by a cigarette'.

I used to go away living with old people in their own homes - this was in the dark days of the early 1990s as I wrote in the other thread about 'what do you like about retirement?' One of these was a total whinger. And she smoked...all her clothing, sheets etc had big holes burnt into them. She would start early in the morning, and I was in the bedroom next to hers. the main things I had to get when doing her weekly shopping was to get lots of tins of cat food - cat mustn't go hungry - and 200 cigarettes - she mustn't run out. I said to her one day that she ran a great risk of setting the house on fire - she couldn't see well, she used to drop burning tobacco all over the place, down her clothes (which had been good-quality ones). And she said 'The only thing that matters is that the cat gets out alive'. She didn't care about herself, and she cared even less about me - I was just her paid helper!!

I was reminded of this by what flossy_splodge wrote: 'you don't count'. There are people in the world who are SO darned selfish that nothing and nobody counts apart from themselves. They're like that all their lives. The fact that they may develop dementia only adds to the guilt-trip they're able to lay on their nearest and dearest. I know that what Dora says is true - that the effects on the brain are such that they 'cannot help it'. However, the fact that they continue in the way they've always been just makes it harder.

I think in flossy_splodge's situation I would have walked out long ago. 'So I don't count? Just get on with it then! Goodbye!'

I'm a hard unfeeling b***h, aren't I?

Margaret Clare

elona

No - you are realistic and clear sighted!:T

margaretclare

Thank you, elona! And just an update on the local burns victim I wrote about - she died. Apparently she was 85, single woman, a dedicated smoker, neighbours had been concerned about her for a long time but 'she was a retired schoolteacher and you couldn't tell her anything' is what they say. They added that 'if she'd had sons or daughters they could have forced her to go into a home, but social services couldn't because she refused to'. And if she'd gone into a home with her smoking habit, what then? Just as well she had no sons or daughters, one might say - if she had, they'd have been in a no-win situation too. And there was no suggestion that she had dementia, was physically frail but had all her marbles.

Margaret Clare

moggins

OMG!! I could have started this thread. I'm under so much stress with my parents that I'm on the verge of a breakdown. I take them shopping every week, I'm constantly at their beck and call and yet I have two sisters who barely lift a finger to help.

This week I have been dealing with an extremely sick 4 year old, then Mum got taken into hospital on Monday and my DH has been working nights and extra shifts to get us some extra money for the August holidays. Then this morning Dad (who I have been phoning every day with updates of how Mum is and is completely aware of how sick my DD has been) phoned me up demanding that I go and visit him because he was lonely. I was so angry that I just ignored the call because I would have said something I regretted.

It's not my fault that he refused to make friends or allow anyone near the house when we were younger and now has no one to talk too