Just confirmed my family have planned my life for me

CH27

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

Oh I do so like that British "understatement" - "your previous employer doesnt sound very nice"...:rotfl:. Apologies - I've gone off into "black humour mode" at this moment. I can beat - or at least rival - doctors and nurses for "black humour" when I get into it....:( and understand where they are coming from with it...:(

Anyways...house is darn nearly ready to "go on the market" now - thanks be..._party_. Remind me to "get my head examined" if I ever put myself through some pretty solid weeks worth of unpaid/thankless work like it again...

Estate agent coming round in a couple of weeks time for doing the photos/plan/description - so that I have time for a couple of weeks absolute "fine tuning" to make sure they are totally perfect (having been astonished at just how many house sale particulars are very far from perfect!) and I am 99% certain that the house goes on the market in February. Estate agents " there" have been told I will come for a special trip sooner than my Housebuying Hunt one if "summat special" is available.

...and I'm being "put through the mill" from a parental direction yet again...for the 1 millionth time...and wondering just how many more times that will happen (as it has happened time after time after time after....etc....for over 20 years now...re my fathers health now...) so there's the usual "feel sorry for/sympathise and think that we must be on time number 10,003 or so of this by now and I know what they mean by Compassion Fatigue....":(.

So its a bit of a joint "I am not a crutch (yet again...yet again) I'm a person" in one direction and shock at my ex-colleagues situation on the other hand. I have seen so many of my (now ex) colleagues so "beaten down" by the job and it was absolute touch and go on the other hand as to whether I'd land up joining the "beaten down and roll over and do whatever-that-****-employer wants" thing sometimes myself - but I'm a stubborn little ***** and wasnt prepared to get "beaten down" too.:rotfl:

Anyways...had a little thing from Desired Destination yesterday out of the blue - brochure re holidays, etc there - and took that as "Sign It Is Meant" and sat there thinking "Every time I look at this it just looks better....." and I am homesick for this place I've never even visited.....and I WILL push on and get there...

Thank you for asking:)

You're moving to somewhere you've never been? :eek:

HariboJunkie

Can I ask why you are determined to move to somewhere you have never, ever visited. It sounds awfully risky to me :eek:. Maybe your parents are worried about YOU making this move. I know I would be if you were my child.

It comes across more and more with each post just how much you really don't get on with your Mum. Are you close to your Dad at all? Will you not miss him when you move. Things must be quite bad when you develop "compassion fatigue" for your own parents....

Sorry for the questions but I confess that your posts have me intrigued and I am really interested in how things work out for you.

Ps sorry to hear about your ex colleague. Did you work for the council by any chance?....

rosered1963

Such a very interesting thread. Thank you for the replies to my post.

I am also intrigued for how things work out for Money.

Re moving to a rural area: if you really want to know what an area is like, go there on a Friday or Saturday night on foot around 10.30pm and when it's dark and walk around. Look for lampers. Look for boy racers congregating and blasting music. They love to be in the countryside where they think they can do what they like. Look for the security/privacy you will have around the property you will be buying.

I have come from my chosen rural idyll back to the rural idyll of my birth. The reality of living in the country can be different from the dream though if you don't get it right. Please don't make any rash decisions and look hard-headedly at the location, especially if you haven't lived in the country before.

Money, the place you live now sounds awful to be frank and not a nice place to be, especially for retirement - please just take care where you move to.

As for caring for parents, even if you get along great, it's hard. People might feel guilty if they don't look after their parents, but you still feel guilty even when you do - are you doing enough etc. You have to become the parent yourself in some ways, and they resist you all the way because to them, you are always their child. You, as an adult, find yourself being treated like a daughter all the time, when in fact, you are also a fully-fledged human being in your own right. I think many people are not cut out for it to be honest.

It sounds like you expect your Dad to go first: you probably know that often it doesn't work that way, and you don't know for sure that that will happen.

Just some thoughts.

best wishes

Rosered

Pitlanepiglet

Brighton_belle wrote: »

I don't think you have picked up how very difficult OP's brother is and how fairly obstructive he is in conversations about his parents. He's.not.interested.
They live far apart so this would mean a phone call and not everyone communicates at their best on the phone.
Writing to him will at least enable the OP to calmly and unemotionally ask questions and make any suggestions.

No, I don't know that because I don't know the OP's brother an only have her view of him so I don't necessary know that it is correct.

The whole family appear from what the OP has said, to have been playing games - the OP says she has been telling her parents that she is leaving but that they haven't told her brother but that she hadn't told her brother her plans either. It sounds like they are playing their old childhood games.

What comes through this is that none of them appear to be able to deal with "difficult" issues constructively and IME writing letters about these things is a bad idea. Much better to call a family meeting it that's the only way they can talk, bring in someone as a mediator if necessary but families need to TALK about these things.

KxMx

HariboJunkie wrote: »

It comes across more and more with each post just how much you really don't get on with your Mum. Are you close to your Dad at all? Will you not miss him when you move. Things must be quite bad when you develop "compassion fatigue" for your own parents....

My own situation with my grandparents (when grandad was failing) was that I loved them more than I can describe and would have done anything for him.

But there are only so many times you can suggest/encourage the things that will make their lives easier, until physically banging your head against a brick wall would have gotten you further with the situation.

Then because you are only human you get annoyed, why won't they help themselves/can't they see how much more difficult they are making it for us and them etc etc. Then because you are human you feel guilty about being annoyed with them.

And then it all starts again when you patiently listen to (in my case) nan's moans so you suggest x which you have suggested 1000 times before.

Compassion fatigue does not come easily but come it can!

What my Grandparents needed were a cleaner, home delivered meals, carers a couple of times a week and respite care, they only did the first because my Aunt offered to do it and gave up on the second. The social worker offered the last two willingly but they never took her up on it but suffered through, had the rest of us worried sick and my Aunt (acting as carer, coming in daily most weeks) worn out. My Nan only accepted a district nurse daily for the last few days he was at home because she physically couldn't do what needed doing. She couldn't cope the rest of the time but wouldn't accept the help.

rosered1963

KxMx wrote: »

My own situation with my grandparents (when grandad was failing) was that I loved them more than I can describe and would have done anything for him.

But there are only so many times you can suggest/encourage the things that will make their lives easier, until physically banging your head against a brick wall would have gotten you further with the situation.

Then because you are only human you get annoyed, why won't they help themselves/can't they see how much more difficult they are making it for us and them etc etc. Then because you are human you feel guilty about being annoyed with them.

And then it all starts again when you patiently listen to (in my case) nan's moans so you suggest x which you have suggested 1000 times before.

Compassion fatigue does not come easily but come it can!

What my Grandparents needed were a cleaner, home delivered meals, carers a couple of times a week and respite care, they only did the first because my Aunt offered to do it and gave up on the second. The social worker offered the last two willingly but they never took her up on it but suffered through, had the rest of us worried sick and my Aunt (acting as carer, coming in daily most weeks) worn out. My Nan only accepted a district nurse daily for the last few days he was at home because she physically couldn't do what needed doing. She couldn't cope the rest of the time but wouldn't accept the help.

Absolutely spot on.

KxMx

My own mum by the way has said just stick her in a home and check she is being treated ok! Which I will do if needs be lol.

wannabe_sybil

The conversations I have had with my uncle, trying and failing to convince him that an automatic washing machine is less work than a twin tub should be recorded and played on a comedy channel.

I know that used correctly there is less in it than there may seem, but enough perhaps to make a difference for him. He won't hear it. We had to go all over the net for him to get a twin tub when his old one conked out. Note - it was my brother that found it in the end, not my uncle looking! And the argument about getting a landline phone to have an alarm just in case, as the nearest family were an hour and a half away - that lasted until he collapsed and we had to send friends to break in for the ambulance!

There is money there for help, a cleaner, Wiltshire meals, etc. He just won't. He will be generosity itself to the rest of the family, though. He is out for all he can give.

I really do love him, but I could never be a carer for him.

OP - my great aunt relocated to the country, in an area she knew well, when she was in her seventies. She regretted it. Please take care and work out a Plan B.

moneyistooshorttomention

I did work in the public sector - hence the stress level a lot of us felt/feel and my rather "help the community" type slant way of looking at things.

Yep..I heard the shrieks of horror at going to an area I've never been to so far.:rotfl:It's astonishing how well it's possible to check out an area on the Internet these days and I've had a lot of "virtual walks" round the area and "drives" in the surroundings by now and compiled a checklist of must-have facilities/shops and been surprised to find just how many would-likes are also there. For a much smaller place than I am used to it's been surprising to discover JUST how much there is there of the social type stuff I want. I've done a lot of "driving" round various locations in the vicinity to check them out and already ruled out the one I initially thought of as "That feels too 'cold' to me - having a high proportion of Victorian buildings there feels oppressive to me personally and I can see what plans the powers-that-be will have for there in a few years time and I don't like them" and another got ruled out as "Feels like it will go too buzzy/too much traffic for me - that's part of what's wrong with my current location - ie it's way too buzzy and 'happening' and too much traffic".

I will be going there shortly for a fortnight's holiday and house hunt and spending a lot of time walking up and down those streets in actual fact that I've walked up and down "virtually" and checking out different times of day in the set of roads I have pinpointed as "Where my house probably is located".

Thinks... must check out what "lamping" is.... Will be bearing in mind that in my current area some of the Council housing in this mixed area (ahem...rather a LOT of the Council housing in this area) has been used as a dumping ground by the Council for "problem people" (in common with all our public sector housing here). A friend of mine living amongst it was telling me about a criminal that lives near him and said "Actually, I get on not too badly with him...because a lot of the other neighbours are even worse" and he wasn't joking. Thankfully, he went on to say "Your bit of the area is okay though":cool:. He doesnt know about Particular Problem I have lined up to be One Heck of a Problem in the Future that is here - but I do...:cool:. (NB: "problem people" meaning drugs/Stella Artois/fights/etc).

Thankfully, there are a lot of people like myself still living in this area - but I can foresee us all "doing an exit" from here at some point (ie the same as we did from my previous area - and I was one of the first ones of us out from there and the "problem people" have taken over that area since).

I'm not planning to be "in" the country - just surrounded by it. I will actually be in a small town.

EDIT: Just checked "lamping" - hunting (!!) using off-road vehicles and high-powered lights. Errrm...don't approve of hunting full stop...but won't be picking an area where that might go on just over from me. Havent heard of hunting of any description going on near location (which is more than can be said for here.....). You don't want to know about some of the most antisocial behaviour of all that does go on here and which "goes straight over the heads" of the vast majority of people here and they live in blissful ignorance of it - but I recognise its here.

There's no need for friends to be sent to "break in" to my parents - as I've given the next door neighbours a set of keys in case. I do understand that a lot of people won't take a realistic look at themselves in case of deterioration. Personally - I'm watching my mind very closely to check that all stays normal and think I'd spot pretty easily if it started "going" and have told friends they must tell me if they spot I ever started "wonky thinking".

moneyistooshorttomention

Re expecting my "father to go first" - his energy is nearly gone/his colouring is often "white as a sheet" and always white now. Blue fingertips. Breathing changing. He is only eating at all with great reluctance. I "feel" his energy levels are nearly out. The only reason he is still here is because he is fighting. My mother has changed colouring and is pretty pale now - but not that pale and still has "reserves of energy" if lower than they used to be.

Hence - that is rather what I am expecting/what we are all expecting and I am unhappy about the way my mother is "holding onto" my father. I have told him to "Do what YOU yourself want" and made it plain he has my "permission" to go when he chooses (in case he feels he needs it). I don't think my mother has given her "permission" for him to go though - which I am very uneasy about - but I have to leave that as between the two of them to resolve and nothing I can do.:(

It is upsetting me to see him suffer and fight.