I am one of eight children. My mother is 86, wheel chair bound and needs care minute by minute. None of my siblings will help take care of her because they have all had enough of her abuse over their lifetimes. I promised my father, over 20 years ago, on his death bed, that I would care for her.
I built a house directly behind her house with a breezeway that connects the two so that I can live with her and still be near my wife and family. I have been living with her and taking care of all her medical, financial and physical needs for over a year now. However, my family is not allowed in her house and she gets infuriated when I visit them even though I rarely stay for more than 15 minutes at a time and make sure she has everything she needs before I go.
She has always been just plain mean, but recently it is more like evil. She contradicts everything I say. She accuses me of stealing meaningless things that she has either hid or forgotten that she had packed it away and had it put in the attic. She hides her purse somewhere different everyday and then when she can't remember where she hid it, even accuses me of stealing it. She is constantly calling me a liar.
I cant wash the dishes right, do laundry right, make her bed right, fix her hair right and I have been doing these things for over a year. I am not allowed to watch her TV, answer her phone, etc.
She has appointed me power of attourney over finance and medical. She has had her will done and has named me executor. She has changed all life insurance policy beneficiary recipients to me to distribute. Now that she has done all that she says she is relieved because she know I am the only one that has or will take care her outstanding bills.
Now her view has changed and she is saying I got what I wanted and now I am acting like she doesn't matter. She even said "To hell with me now, you dont take care of me anymore now that I put you in charge."
Nothing about my routine has changed. She is getting excellent care. I have a nurse that checks on her every week. I have a physical therapist that comes twice a week to work with her. I have a woman that comes every other day to bathe her. I get up with her 3 and 4 times a night to get her to the bathroom or clean up where she has messed the bed, rearrange her pillows to make her more comfortable or massage her feet because they hurt and are keeping her awake.
I feed her 3 times a day and keep snacks available nearby. I give her her medicine in the morning and as needed throughout the day.
She swears I am trying to kill her by laying her pills out and not putting them in front of the bottle they came out of so now I do that. She is constantly carrying medicine bottles around the house in her wheelchair and then losing them throughout the house which causes yet another hunt of the whole house.
She is in chronic pain. She has ticdeloria, arthritis, is diabetic and steadily loosing weight. The further away I am in the house, the louder she wails and cries. If I leave the room to go to the bathroom, even if she has been fine all day, she will begin wailing and crying until I come back. She pulls at her hair and throws fits like a child if she even suspects I might go see my wife for a minute.
Thing is, she is sharp as a tack. She does not have dementia and is playing these games as if she gets satisfaction from the turmoil it causes me. She is mad that I am the only child that will have anything to do with her. I have 5 sisters and there were 3 of us boys and I am the only one. They dont call for birthdays or holidays, may show up once or twice a year out of the blue and cant get out of there fast enough once they get here.
She treats me and talks to me like a dog. She talks to other people about me like a dog. She tells them I am not taking care of her, that I am never there, that I dont feed her or give her the proper medicine and I am right in the next room when she is telling it and can hear it all.
I am at my whits end. She throws things at me and screams at me and when I try to calm her down she just gets madder. Please help with some advice that will help me keep my sanity. I am just barely hanging on. Thx.
7 months ago, my husband and I plus our two kids moved in to care for my 96 year old Grandfather after he became very depressed after my Gram passed away.
He’s controlling manipulative deceitful he lies also accuses us of stealing. Like you I can not do anything right and he tells everyone how I do don’t anything for him and he takes are of himself.
After Gram died no one came to visit anymore because he always was so mean.
He played on my sympathy Said everything sweet as pie to get us here, he promised us the house if we moved in. I left my community and house that I loved, transferred my 16 and 12 year old children to a new school all for us to get abused. He plays my kids against each other tries to instigate fights between me and my husband and he seems to only care for my daughter and curses at my son and calls him names.
In the beginning he said “you have a lot of friends and we will always have company!”
But now he gets angry when they come says- why can’t they stay home tells all my friends how stupid I am and that I don’t do anything and three times he had to go to the hospital while they were here. He’s very pity and attention seeking.
Since Gram died he hit the life alert button 18 times in the past year. Emts said he has survivors guilt. The rehab said no one will deem him incompetent they said we know his kind. He knows exactly what he has to do and say to get his way. The social workers check in and told me to set boundaries and not allow any kind of abuse. They have recommended leaving the room until he’s ready to talk nice.
The other day he wanted to go for a ride in his car. But he has not been allowed to drive for a long time. Well he put on his hat and coat and grabbed his keys. I rushed to pull my truck up to the garage door to block in his car. He got his cane, put the garage door up and proceeded to walk outside. He said you think your truck will stop me? I’ll push it out of the way with my car. I warned him I was going to call the police. He said call them and call the judge too while you’re at it. As he tried the car door I called 911 for a Psych evaluation. I was shaking and crying. I said please hurry he’s getting in his car!!
They said do not stand behind him and don’t try to stop him.
Two officers two detectives and an ambulance Came.
He told the first cop he was out there looking for a garden hose. It’s 10 degrees and the end of December. They got him inside and he started screaming that I was a nut and I belonged in the nuthouse. He said I was crazy. He told the second cop, “I’m 96 years old! I can’t drive! You think I’d smash my own car? She’s the crazy one take her away “
Thankfully the detectives saw through his lies but when the emts evaluated him, he knew the day the month and the president. And the one emt finally got him to admit the he said it. Emt also told the police that he personally has responded to many calls here from him (before I got here) he was saying crazy things.
They didn’t take him but warned him if I called again they would.
When family members do visit, all he talks about is negative pity seeking things leaving people wanting to run out of here and before they even get in their cars, he’s telling me hateful mean things about them. “He blew up like a balloon he get so fat he never shuts up all he does is blab”.
It’s very depressing and hostile here. We live on eggshells and my family hides upstairs like flowers in the attic leaving me down there with his wrath.
Did I mention he’s very selfish? He will go to any means to get his way even if he has to change his voice and lie.
I’m also at my wits end. Social work has recommended joining a support group.
So here I am.
Even the poor visiting nurse and Pt are not safe from his fury.
Just on Thursday he said to his nurse when she Came “just what I need your G@d@__n fata$$ big mouth”
She tried to tell him, that’s abuse and I do not like when you talk like that. He said just shut up shut up shut up and do your work. Also he refuses therapy when she comes but then repeatedly asks me when therapy and the nurse are coming. They come and he absolutely refuses to cooperate. It’s all manipulative controlling behavior.
So I thought he was one of a kind. Reading your story, he apparently is not
I moved my widowed 87 year old mother in with my husband and me 5 years ago when my father passed away. I've been
her slave for 45 years, she poisons everything and complains about everyone. She calls my husband a pric*k because he doesn't pander to her. Unless she's everyone's center of attention, they're sh*t in her book. She told me so. She's a self centered, spoiled, unapreciative bi*tch who complains about everyone and everything. So, are you going to ask me if I have taken her emotional and verbal abuse all these years am I willing to consider myself dysfuntional/borderline normal also? YES!! Would any well adjusted person put up with Only1of8's situation or mine? No.
I would recommend this blog to anyone dealing with a parent who lacks empathy and is asking too much. It helps to answer the question of what should we do if we can take an objective look at what is going on.
I am a big proponent for ongoing counseling when faced with the challenges of taking care of your parent/parents. I would also spend less time at the nursing home. It is important for you to have your own life too. My best to you.
ANYONE would feel bad about. If you felt happy and hopeful about having a depressed, negative, narcissistic mom who can still find ways to make you feel like crap while she is living in a skilled nursing facility, it would not even make sense. Maybe give yourself 15 minutes a day when you simply do not think about her.
much easier for me to say because MY time of caregiving of my mom is past
now...
However, the point we don't see clearly is that -as others have mentioned- we lose sight of what that promise to someone else or to ourselves really meant, I think we take it as ensuring that mom is as at peace, taken care of as well as possible. The question is, is she? Taken care of I think she is, at peace I don't think so. Your mother and mine are in fact sick, were sick all their lives as the doctor told you, and that illness included us as active and key participants since in order to exercise excessive and demeaning control you obviously need someone to control. We have been in that role all their lives, and ours.
At this point, that mean, arrogant, intolerable control is like someone said, the only way they feel they are still the person they used to be, the one in charge. Can you imagine the tragedy of fighting against the most terrible enemy? Themselves.. Age will debilitate everyone, so that unending terrible daily fight your mom and mine are fighting is against their own deterioration, their own conflicts, their own head. We just happen to be part of the situation, sometimes a bleeding participant that gets hurt trying to protect them from themselves.
So, the way we are trying to fulfill and honor a duty that comes from love is not correct. We are simply not doing what we so desperately want to do, want to achieve. Yet we are sacrificing our lives for something that will never happen. They will never be happy, no matter how much we do. Let me just briefly tell you, I quit my job, sold my house and moved to another country (not married, no kids) because my mom wanted to be in her own home and die at peace here...she says I mistreated her when she visited me for about 5 month in my home in the US, a home I made hers, and I know I didn't mistreat her. If I lost my temper was slightly shown to her and it was because I literally was taken to my end on certain occasions, but I know I didn't mistreat her...well, now that I'm here and have literally given up my life and just joined hers to try to improve it, she says she hates her life here, hates this house and she knows she'll die alone -I'm right here- and wants to be left alone (wants me lo leave her alone because I'm taking away her peace). She's never at peace, can you see the truth through my example? So, those changes that you were able to make are great and STICK to them, even if things get more difficult later and she says that she doesn't want to be taken care of by any person other than you, including your paid sister (btw that's life, people don't cease to surprise and money seems to rule some people, but don't mind that).
Get part of your own existence back, you can. I feel I cannot after all I have done, but you can. Do it in peace, with true peace in your heart, no guilt as there's no reason. You are a good son, you are honoring you promise to your dad and you have to give its place to your family. You have more than one role in life, you are not only a son, you are a husband and a parent. And you are also a person, an individual with rights that don't get postponed until life changes.
Your children and wife are equally as important as your mother, and YOU are equally or more important as all of them, as like I've been told many times, if you are not well what will you be able to do for them?
Be kind to yourself, sending love your way. God bless you.
You promised your father you would take care of her but he would not have wanted you to give up your family, your life. Obviously your mother was never a nice person or your siblings would be helping. What you are doing is way beyond what your father would have wanted.
Your mother needs to be medicated and cared for by people who she cannot control. You need to stop what you are doing. This could go on for years. When she is gone, you will be alone.
If you can, get her in to a psychiatrist for evaluation. This sounds like a long standing mental illness. But first and foremost, protect yourself by not sticking around for the abuse.
It is infortunate that you chose to move her so close to you. I would never suggest that someone do that with an abusive parent. It is far too hard to care for someone who you absolutely adore, never mind an abusive parent. I can guarantee that my mother would do the same rhings that your mom is if she lived with me. She tells me now who I can and can't say hello to in the NH and if I go against her and speak to certain people, look out!
But all that aside. I would look into having more help come in. You need a break and your family needs you as well. I would also suggest that you have the VNA or whomever comes in to check her for a UTI. They tend to get very loopy and aggressive when the get them and this could be why she is getting more out of hand.
I would also have her checked for dementia. The only real way to do this is with an MRI. It has only been three months since my mom's diagnosis and I can tell you at first we weren't sure about the diagnosis but almost like ripping a switch as soon as they said she had it the change was swift and there is no denying that she has it, it was almost like she said well the cat is out of the bag or something the change is that drastic. From what I have been told they become very well versed in hiding the symptoms. This what not only the case with my mom but also with my husband's grandmother. I remember my MIL asking her mother what day it was and she would reply if you don't know your in worse shape than me. The whole time she had no idea what day it was at all.
People who have lived their entire lives in an enmeshed situation with someone who has psychiatric problems (diagnosed or not) and was never treated for them come out of that with a lot of programming to stay near and comply.
This is not something you decide to ignore one day. It takes A LOT of work on yourself to eventually reach the point where you can stand on your own two feet and make logical decisions about that parent & the relationship. And I mean a lot of very hard work to help yourself.
I realized this (finally) after a lot of decades of self-torture and trying to do something - anything - to make my mother say "good job". It's never going to happen, so I had to get on with the life I wanted. Moving far away was a key element in learning to be me and please me.
Ultimately, she could not be alone safely anymore, so we had to intervene and take steps. Mom's been in my home, in an independent living apartment, skilled nursing, secure dementia care, and now hospice. My only goals for her were safety from herself and the world, and a quality of life that was impossible were she to stay on her own. And it happened. It involved a couple hospitalizations where she got the geriatric psych care she needed for years.
Nowdays the goal is just comfort. I can sleep at night knowing that I took care of what she needed, even if she didn't like it. She was safe, clean, fed, got medical and psychiatric care better than she'd had before ever, and was living in the nicest place she ever had been in.
That would not have been possible if I had left her in place.
God Bless and Good Luck!
Thank you for those kind words. They are appreciated.
She was involved with us growing up but it usually involved creating a tremendous amount of chaos. So much so that we eventually became estranged. She has been terribly viscous to my father and I and extended her venom to our children on many occasions. The only one of her children she seemed to care for and dote on was my other brother who systematically abused & financially exploited her.
Now that she is elderly, sick, frail, and penniless this dirtbag moved out of state called us to step in and threatened U.S. With elderly affairs which I had already been calling for multiple years. It is a very strange position to be in to be caring for someone who was never emotionally there as a parent and was often abusive. We had to place her in long term care. While going through her belongings I found pictures of myself and my kids that I had sent over the years with some of the most terrible things written on the back of them u my mother. She has said some of the most horrible things about her own grandchildren, it is painfully sad as my dad who I was close to, passed when my daughter was 18 months old and before my son was born. I know that he would have loved to have been able to be involved with them it my mother has always been too bitter to put her own issues aside and therefore lost out on so much.
So the only thing I can say to you is this. I take care of my mother not out of love, that would be ridiculous, but out of compassion. I try to keep in mind that my mother was never fully healthy. She has been dealing with undiagnosed mental disorders for decades that have left her incapable of being kind and loving to her children. When the end comes I will rest easy knowing that I did all I could for s woman who could not do for herself and could never be the mother she should have been to her children.
You've known that your mother is a mean person. This is not new. Health problems very seldom improve a person's personality. So why did you let this nasty, mean, and suspicious person move into your house and disrupt your sleep and take over the kitchen?
Alzheimer's with psychotic episodes is not for amateurs to deal with. What made you think you could do it?
I've heard lots of different reasons on this site. "Obligation," "Guilt," "To be sure I inherit" -- and a lot of "I don't know. It just seemed like the right thing at the time."
If you can tell us what you were trying to achieve by moving her in, perhaps someone has suggestions about how best to achieve that without putting your family through this stress.