Follow
Share
Read More
This question has been closed for answers. Ask a New Question.
Find Care & Housing
At your age, your career must happen now. Cruel to say, but you will be alone one day in the not too distant future - but your earning potential will not be there.

If your Mom is like most, she would not want you to lose it all just to take care of her.

The Covid restrictions are being lifted everywhere. At most a negative testis required to visit loved ones in a facility.

I would place your Mom close to your Brother’s facility overseas. Save you a lot of work.

You have given more than your fair share to her, but you have to save your career and your income while you still can. Please do.
Helpful Answer (1)
Report

Your mother has had a life with kids but you’re getting at the age that you won’t be able to have a family if something doesn’t happen in the next few years. Quit feeling guilty for wanting your own life. Find her a home or hire people if she has the money.
Helpful Answer (3)
Report

My dear, your mother has dementia and it will get worse. And this is impacting you and your life and your future way over the top. She has lived her life. I know you love her which is good but for YOUR SAKE and because this is YOUR TIME IN LIFE, you must place her where she is safe and YOU must pursue your dreams. There are telephones and mail - but YOU must take YOUR way to YOUR dreams while you still can. If you don't the day will come when you will regret it. Do not wait - pursue your dreams.
Helpful Answer (6)
Report
rovana Nov 2021
A good point here - basically fairness.
(1)
Report
Please get a therapist to talk to. I was in similar situation with father in law who moved in and was so needy and frustrating. I had so many resentments and my life was hell. Thank goodness the situation is no longer the same. He got dementia and when it was when he was endangering himself we got him in memory care. Looking back I should have never allowed him to stay with us. 4 years of my life was hijacked. Too many details to give here but after 4 years of sacrifice, being disrespected and devalued, I am glad he’s out. However I moved out because it was so bad. Hubby just realized the impact it had on me and has apologized. Now I feel compassion for his illness but I would never recommend a parent move in predementia who has no boundaries and is self centered. A part of my life that was so hard. Hope this insight helps.
Helpful Answer (4)
Report

I think you investing time for Mum and now you are at a crossroad as you said and time for this season is over. if you find a care facility you trust and have researched, then it is ok to not visit for a season. You can reassess in a year and if the career is too much , then readjust.
But you cant quit living for her care. You are not a nurse. You had the difficult situation of 0 family. So time to let professionals take her care.
Helpful Answer (2)
Report

Kudos for caring!!! Many people at your age wouldn't take the time to even consider their mother's needs, I'm sorry to say. There are others who would and do, of course.

You're in a tough spot. If you can take care of mom and feel that commitment, good for you! Still, you have to take care of yourself in order to take care of others. If you don't take care of your health, financial needs, etc, who will? So, its a balancing act. BTW, there will always be critics no matter what decision you make so let go of pleasing everyone - its not going to happen.

You love your mom or wouldn't be doing all this soul searching. Feel good about that. That makes you a caring daughter.

Not all care facilities are bad. Some are horrendous! Its going to take time and effort on your part to find the one that fits your needs and your ability to pay for the services provided. It can be costly. If she needs memory care, increase the cost by at least 30 percent more than the regular facilities. In other words, if a really nice facility costs $6,000 to $7,000 month, memory care will cost about $3,000 a month more. Of course there are facilities for less but not significantly less if you want your mom in a decent home (this is southern CA, btw).

Placing your mom in a facility isn't "dumping" her. Its giving her the best care you can provide while you take the best care of yourself you are able to. But, if you're considering a job were you have to travel a lot, how much time will you be able to give your mom? Are there siblings or dear friends who can help give her the needed time and attention? Or, is there another career you can pursue that will allow you to provide for yourself and still give her regular, loving time and attention even if its to visit her two or three times a week?

Is her ability to self-care such that you can hire someone to come in during the times you are away and only stop in to make her lunch and help with a little housework the rest of the time? Maybe she can be on her own during the day and you can have visits twice a week to help her bath and watch some TV with her? There are so many ways you can offload some of the stress.

Shop for groceries online. Hire a housekeeper every other week. Drop her off at senior day care several times a week. Bring in home care ($12 - $25 per hour). Certainly ask relatives to help with either the care or the cost. There are many resources that can help you.

What you need is a plan. Figure out what's needed and then find the resources. And stop feeling guilty. You can't do it all by yourself anyway. No one can. Come up with a plan that is balanced and shows love for her and for you. Stop feeling guilty for not being able to fix your mom. You didn't make this happen! Do the best you can and let go of the guilt.

BTW, care facilities should be able to provide Zoom visits and distance visits even if only through glass or with a 6-foot barrier where you can see each other and talk to each other. If that happens, order special dinners for her from her favorite restaurant, call her every other day, zoom visit as often as possible, send her little treats and make sure she knows they're from you. There are lots of ways you can let her know you care and even see her even if in a facility. Get creative!
Helpful Answer (1)
Report

Cappuccino42: Imho, you are a STELLAR caregiver, but you must seek respite through any means possible, else you fall ill and are good to no one.
Helpful Answer (3)
Report

Most all of us will go through this. It may even happen to us and someone will have to put their life on hold to take care of you and me. Think of it in a different light. Things won't always be like this. Hold her hand tightly.
Helpful Answer (1)
Report

Caylorjean,

Holding onto the belief that mom and dad clothed, housed, bathed, and fed us is a big crock of sh*t. This does not mean that they are owed the right own our lives and make slaves of us because of old age and neediness.
Nursing homes clothe, house, bathe, and feed residents. Except so many of our elderly loved ones want more. They want their adult kids and sometimes grandkids to become nanny-slaves to them. No one owes anyone that.

Remember something please. Our parents got together and created us into existence. It was their choice and I'll bet they didn't give it much thought. I'm pretty sure I owe my own existence to a bottle of chianti, a Led Zeppelin 8-track, and the backseat of a '69 Skylark.
Not one of person ever caused someone's old age or all the problems and issues that come with being elderly. No person has ever caused their parents' neediness either.
Adult kids should help their parents and even the other old folks in the family. The helping has to be done on the twrms of the person who is helping. That is the only way. Caregiving is only successful for everyone in a situation if it is done on the caregiver's terms. Not the care recipient's. If that means hiring paid help to do the day-to-day and hands-on stuff, or choosing a facility for a loved one, then so be it.
Helpful Answer (8)
Report
CarylorJean Nov 2021
Hi Burntcaregiver.

As much as I hear your comments I cannot agree.

Yes, like you, I also feel burnt out and bitter at my situation at times too but nobody chooses to get dementia.

If you had a child with mental challenges, would you not want to look after them? After all that's what this is.....

Well I never had kids but now I have one.
The most loyal, caring, devoted mother in her day.
She deserves the same treatment.

Llfe may not be pretty and smell like roses at the best of times but hey I've learnt that patience, love, humour and humility go a long way.

It's not about me. This is about putting mom first and giving her the comfort she needs because she is vulnerable and lost.

Nobody deserves to be set aside because the job is too hard.

What doesn't kill us, makes us stronger.

Believe me when I say that this is the last thing I expected to be dealing with in my retirement (on top of my stage 4 cancer) but it is what it is and we can either choose to face the challenge or hide our heads in the sand like an ostrich.

I choose to look after mom and sometimes I do it cursing (I'm not the most patient person) and being very frustrated at times but then I know (not think), 'she'd do it for me', she deserves the same courtesy.

Llife will resume for me hopefully when my job as a daughter is done.
(4)
Report
See 5 more replies
Caylorjean,

Holding onto the belief that mom and dad clothed, housed, bathed, and fed us is a big crock of sh*t. This does not mean that they are owed the right to own our lives and make slaves of us because of old age and neediness.
Nursing homes clothe, house, bathe, and feed residents. Except so many of our elderly loved ones want more. They want their adult kids and sometimes grandkids to become nanny-slaves to them. No one owes anyone that.

Remember something please. Our parents got together and created us into existence. It was their choice and I'll bet they didn't give it much thought. I'm pretty sure I owe my own existence to a bottle of chianti, a Led Zeppelin 8-track, and the backseat of a '69 Skylark.
Not one person ever caused anyone's old age or all the problems and issues that come with being elderly. No person has ever caused their parents' neediness either. Certainly no one asks to live in the slavery that is often caring for an elder.
Adult kids should help their parents and even the other old folks in the family. The only way caregiving can be successful for everyone in a situation if it is done on the caregiver's terms. Not the care recipient's. If that means hiring paid help to do the day-to-day and hands-on stuff, or choosing a facility for a loved one, then so be it.
Helpful Answer (6)
Report

My mother and mother in law are both immigrants to the US. Neither of them cared to their parents when they were sick but they expect it from my husband and I. The best is when my MIL will tell me that Indians stay together and live together. She seems to forget she left her own family and her brother was severely handicapped. Don’t buy into what they say, you need to make a plan for a facility to care to your mother. Medicaid will help. Hire an attorney and get her qualified.
Helpful Answer (3)
Report
BurntCaregiver Nov 2021
It's commonplace in India for a DIL to basically become a slave to her in-laws. Times are changing over there though.
Your MIL needs to be told that she's not living in India. That she did not put in her expected years of servitude to her in-laws so has no right to expect it from you.
(4)
Report
Hey Calorjean,

If you want to sacrifice your life and further jeopardize your health with the health issues you already have by being a nanny-slave to your mother, then God bless you. If feeling self-righteous and superior to others because you sacrificed your life to elder slavery is worth it to you, then good for you. You're an adult and if it's what you want do it.
Why are you complaining here then? Simply telling yourself that mom would do it for you and what doesn't kill us makes us stronger should be enough to fortify you with strength and joy to be a slave 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year and be happy about it.
Except it's not enough. You have the resentment too, and my friend it's okay. No one has to take it all on and do it all on their own. It does not make someone a failure as a human being if they bring hired homecare help for an elderly parent. Or put them in AL, or memory care, or even a nursing home. Parents who truly loved their kids and really wanted the best for them growing up (not lip service), don't want to see their adult kids become slaves to their elderly neediness.
As to your question about if I had a child with mental challenges and wouldn't I want to look after them myself. Here's the answer.
No. I would not want to if others more capable than me were could do better than me for the child and were willing to. As for the guilt. loss. and pain that would come from such a decision, I would live with it. What else can a person except just learn to live with it.
It's also love to give up a child you can't care for to give them a chance at a good life with people who can. It's love to put an elderly person in a care facility if they need to be on one. On my last long-term care position my elderly client would have been in some ways better off in a nursing home or memory care. Granted she would not have gotten the excellent level of physical, hands-on care she received from myself and my girls, but she would have gotten some socialization. The only people she ever saw were us and the tv. She was invalid and there's only so much you can do in the home. A care facility is able to provide social activities even for people who are invalid like she was. In some cases home isn't always best.
Helpful Answer (7)
Report
CarylorJean Nov 2021
Hi there BurntCareGiver

Thank you for your input. You have enlightened me to the fact that 'you just don't get it'. That someone could Love another human being enough to make sacrifices for them.

You tell me I'm being self righteous or superior to others because I care. That's really laughable.

You judge me but have absolutely NO idea what my circumstances are.

I live in South Africa, I have NO income due to having to take early retirement for health reasons. This is when I first realized that my mom was in the state she was. You don't notice these things when you are not there for 12 hours a day........

In order to seek additional care, it would cost in SA rands R26,000 a month. (I was a business intelligence analyst and was not even bringing home that sort of money). This is without any extra's like medication, etc. The state facilities might be a lot cheaper (which are in the news regularly and not for good reasons, 144 people died in one incident) are shocking. It would be like putting my mom in a concentration camp where staff abuse patience. That's not love.......

My mom and I (remember NO income) pay for the privilege of belonging to a medical aid which costs us a combined R12,500 a month. Yes, we each pay our own. (Before that becomes another point of debate). It is a big stretch and I am sure you can calculate the effects of what this does to one's savings but it's an essential. The medical aid would assist with some of mom's costs but these are very limited.

So that leaves me with only 1 option.
It's about making her comfortable. Life is alot easier when agitation is removed from the equation and this is what I'm learning from people on this platform.

This is not the good old USA (the land of the free). This is a 3rd world country that doesn't look after their aged the way your's does. You should be grateful for that.

My moms best chance is to be around people she recognizes (even if she doesn't know their names), that is caring and that is love and you want to shoot me for it.

It seems that you really have a hang up with people that approach this challenge in a different way to you. This just demonstrates that you will look for any reason to pick a fight with a stranger who is trying to make sense of all of this and find ways to make it work.

I joined this platform hoping to find answers to some of my questions. (And I have). I've, as explained already, have gone through the stages of denial, anger, etc (thanks to the comments of others on this platform and I thank them for their pro-active and constructive advise) and have accepted that this is my life.

I think I have also realised why you are reluctant to understand my situation. You are looking after a 'client' and not a loved one.

Love is not about the big things, it's about the million little things.

I will no longer be engaging with you due to your negative comments however will remain a fan of this platform despite my experience with you.

I prefer to learn from those who have a personal interest with a loved one in their life's journey.

Perhaps it is time for a career change for you. Get out there and follow a dream that will make you happier.

These will be my last words to you on the subject.
(4)
Report
Here is what I see. You had a close, loving relationship with your mother and you were both blessed. But she is NOT who she once was and what is happening is slowly destroying you and YOUR chances in life - you must NOT let that happen no matter of feelings. This is YOUR TIME OF LIFE AND YOU MUST GRAB IT - YOU COME FIRST. You have always been there and what has it done - put you in a terrible situation. Get tough and strong - take whatever action must be taken even if it is not first choice. You take care of yourself and your future life first. The rest will fall into place. Don't lose the only chance you have for a life. I have said it so many times - when what happens as a result of the conditions of others and it impacts you and your life so negatively that it destroys your future, you must act and do what is needed to stop it at once. Not everyone is or should be a caretaker and taking care of people with dementia is a horrible job - not all can or will do it - and I sure don't blame them. Think of YOU.....this is YOUR time now.
Helpful Answer (1)
Report
bundleofjoy Nov 2021
i love your answer. hug!! :)
(0)
Report
Cappuccino42,
We are totally on our own here in the US when it comes to caring for aging parents. That is why we are on this forum. Many seniors cannot access the public systems they have paid for their entire working lives. Your life doesn't sound so great if you want the truth. I read your post and a lot of it is projection and fear.
Yes, I cannot understand exactly what your experience is but you don't understand mine. It's okay that you don't. I read that you love your mother and taking care of her is costing you everything and how to cope with a future that is becoming a shadow of what you hoped. Three years ago I was a total b**** to everyone because of my resentment. I received a lot help here on where to go, who to talk too, when to just let things go. What I did not receive was tea and sympathy and "You poor thing". Cappucino42 you must make yourself a priority
or you will be the one who is placed in care.
Helpful Answer (2)
Report

Prayers for you, my friend. You are in a very hard place. It sounds like your heart and your head are looking in two different directions. Guilt is a powerful thing.

I wish I could offer a magic answer, but there isn’t one.

I am 38 and I understand the crossroads very well. I would encourage you to start looking into options so you can travel, date, and experience life in general. Follow your dream. Give it a shot. If 6 months go by and you are not finding enjoyment, then you at least tried. Your mom will be safe with home care or other living arrangements. Live your life while you can share still your experience with her.

I would like to think that if the roles were reversed I’d encourage my kids to do the same.

A doctor once asked me: “do you want to be a full-time caregiver or daughter?” I said “daughter”. They said, “then it’s time to fine help.”
Helpful Answer (1)
Report

My mother lived with my husband and I for three months. The goal was to get her qualified for Medicaid and a nursing home when she needed the care. I was going to do everything in my power to give her the most qualified care for the rest of her life. Instead she would consult with my sister about her finances. All this whispering behind the scenes caused my mother to get paranoid and she didn’t want to be part of the financial change. She wanted to keep her money, have my husband and I care to her and we would pay for all her expenses. She has a right to her decision, but we have a right to our home and living arrangements too. By the end, she was completely upset with living with us. My sister took her home and she’s walking around with a walker. Did my sister make long term arrangements? Probably not because she’s banking on her death before the nursing home arrangements.

My point, nobody knows how long a person will live and the onset of not walking and being completely immobile will not be manageable by one person. A hospital will require two people to care for such a person. That’s with the proper devices and 24hr watch. It’s your decision, but waiting last minute will destroy your mother’s finances and the government will take the house. My advice, do not sign anything. Hire an attorney.
Helpful Answer (1)
Report

Sorry to hear about your situation. It sounds really tough.

I feel as though you are giving yourself two options at the extreme ends of the spectrum. Hence, a difficult decision. Stay and look after your mum all the time or go overseas and risk not seeing her at all. Where is the middle ground? No wonder this decision is so hard.

What about not going overseas and putting your mother in a care facility where you can visit her as much aa you want. Then you can reclaim your life. Do you really need to go overseas to fulfill your career? I dont know what you do but that does sound a bit hard to believe in a world full of options.

I would suggest you look for the middle ground here. As from the sounds of things, neither of the two extremes you are contemplating seem to be a recipe for success for you.

Baby steps. .Maybe you can revisit the going overseas thing at a later stage. First reclaim your life where you are now and still be able to see your mum.

Step 1 to me seems to me to be, get mum into a home nearby, sleep, get some rest, some sanity. Eat some nice healthy food, exercise. Talk to friends, go on a date. Take it from there.
Helpful Answer (1)
Report

This question has been closed for answers. Ask a New Question.
Ask a Question
Subscribe to
Our Newsletter