Everyone who loves their old parent is so lucky

[Anonymous]

The title should be "Everyone who has not been emotionally abused by their parent and never recovered is so lucky."

I'm sorry about what you've gone through, OP, and I'm sorry you were never able to create healthy boundaries. But "I hope this gives comfort..." is rubbish. It's not too late to start taking care of yourself. The PP above has some good suggestions. Go to therapy so you can have help doing it and sticking with it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This post is so obnoxious. There is to gauge or threshold to one's grief.

You missed the point.

[Anonymous]

Totally understand OP. Right there with you. My mother also has vascular dementia. I keep looking up life expectancy for vascular dementia. In my mind she has already died.

What makes it even harder is going to visit her in the assisted living place for 6 years. So many of the other residents are just so friendly and nice when I chat with them walking into the place or waiting for the elevator or when I am looking around for my mother.

Then I walk into my mother's apartment and it is just so negative. I never do enough, I have gained weight, people are stealing from her, her neighbors are annoying, etc.

Then I walk out and again meet women who just seem so consistently sweet and nice. It just makes me so sad to think I could have had a supportive and loving mother.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Totally understand OP. Right there with you. My mother also has vascular dementia. I keep looking up life expectancy for vascular dementia. In my mind she has already died.

What makes it even harder is going to visit her in the assisted living place for 6 years. So many of the other residents are just so friendly and nice when I chat with them walking into the place or waiting for the elevator or when I am looking around for my mother.

Then I walk into my mother's apartment and it is just so negative. I never do enough, I have gained weight, people are stealing from her, her neighbors are annoying, etc.

Then I walk out and again meet women who just seem so consistently sweet and nice. It just makes me so sad to think I could have had a supportive and loving mother.

Op here, same!! I totally agree and understand! Like why can’t she be one of the nice batty ones!

Thanks to everyone who recommended stronger boundaries and more self care. You’re right, it’s just hard for me. Thanks for the reminder!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Totally understand OP. Right there with you. My mother also has vascular dementia. I keep looking up life expectancy for vascular dementia. In my mind she has already died.

What makes it even harder is going to visit her in the assisted living place for 6 years. So many of the other residents are just so friendly and nice when I chat with them walking into the place or waiting for the elevator or when I am looking around for my mother.

Then I walk into my mother's apartment and it is just so negative. I never do enough, I have gained weight, people are stealing from her, her neighbors are annoying, etc.

Then I walk out and again meet women who just seem so consistently sweet and nice. It just makes me so sad to think I could have had a supportive and loving mother.

Op here, same!! I totally agree and understand! Like why can’t she be one of the nice batty ones!

Thanks to everyone who recommended stronger boundaries and more self care. You’re right, it’s just hard for me. Thanks for the reminder!

I was the one who wrote the previous message about wishing I was visiting one of the nicer residents. It's hard to explain to others because it wasn't that my mother was so horrible, she just wasn't a good mother to me - never said I love you, was never affectionate, always put her needs first, etc. She can be social - I really think she was a mean girl in high school.

It is just really tough realizing that if she were in my position, she wouldn't be visiting me or putting in all this effort. She never took care of her own mother, a sibling did across the country and she complained about the care that sister gave for 10 years. So glad you totally get it, OP. In real life I can't tell people I really just want her to pass away so I can be done.

I started to step back and have drastically reduced how often I go visit because she doesn't remember anyways. But even that is tough because the facility will call or I have to take her to the dentist, eye dr. etc.

[Anonymous]

You all sound really bitter. Still holding on to parental angst into midlife?! How sad.

[Anonymous]

To the poster above, here's the thing: There's this commercial that's popular in my area of the country for some kind of nursing assistance program in your home, and it concludes with this line "She has done so much for me. Now it's my turn to give back" and it makes me so mad!!!
A lot of us are now in the position where are being asked to mother and nurture someone who never mothered and nurtured us, someone who perhaps shouted at us and shamed us when we spilled something as children, when we tore a shirt while playing too roughly on the playground, when we came home from school with paint on our clothing from art class, when we lost a library book, etc. We are now being asked to exhibit patience and love, to be forgiving and kind to people who were not forgiving and kind to us. To literally feed an old lady who neglected to feed us as children, to make sure that she has warm clothes in the winter and cool clothes in the summer when she didn't do that for us. Even if you THINK you are over all the trauma, even if you think you have worked through it all with the aid of a professional, etc. this particular stage o life brings it home in a new and painful way. As my abusive father was dying, he literally asked us "Am I a good person?" He was afraid he was going to go to hell and wanted us to assure him that he was an awesome dude, even though he wasn't. Unless you have experienced this, you don't get to judge.

[Anonymous]

OP I have an awful, toxic mother who is now in a nursing home with some dementia.

You need boundaries. It's hard. Sincerely, talk to a therapist who will help you create boundaries, validate and affirm they are needed, and hold you accountable to keeping them and remind you why you have them if you waver. Which you will sometimes because it's hard.

I visit once a year and call one day a week. That's it. She does not have my phone number to reach me. The staff calls me with updates and as needed. She is somewhere safe and she is very well cared for. That's my obligation and where it starts and ends. I am not obligated to allow this person to have a hold over any part of my emotional life or well being. Neither are you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP I have an awful, toxic mother who is now in a nursing home with some dementia.

You need boundaries. It's hard. Sincerely, talk to a therapist who will help you create boundaries, validate and affirm they are needed, and hold you accountable to keeping them and remind you why you have them if you waver. Which you will sometimes because it's hard.

I visit once a year and call one day a week. That's it. She does not have my phone number to reach me. The staff calls me with updates and as needed. She is somewhere safe and she is very well cared for. That's my obligation and where it starts and ends. I am not obligated to allow this person to have a hold over any part of my emotional life or well being. Neither are you.

Op here- I actually love this. I have a therapist but she doesn’t help me explicitly with setting and keeping boundaries, although I could definitely ask her to do so in more specific detail.

I am religious (Catholic) and have a hard time not being altruistic and helping and putting myself first. I know Biblically why this is wrong, but it’s still long engraved behavior that haunts me and comes back often.

I would be so thankful if my mom didn’t have my cell phone number as it upsets me (despite everything) to get weird, accusing, and mean texts from her at all hours. Maybe I should block her? But I feel so bad doing that. Definitely a therapist conversation to be had.

Thanks so much for your thoughtful responses, for defending me from other posters, and (most importantly) for sharing your understanding of what I am doing through. None of my friends can relate to this struggle as I am early 40s (mom had me late in life).

[NYC212718]

My mother passed about 12 years ago and I have not missed her since. The years have flown by and my life has truly been peaceful without her.

Please put yourself FIRST, I wish ai had done more of that myself. It was nothing but wasted energy on my part to try to make things better for her, she wasn't grateful or thankful.

Use your energy to nourish yourself. She's taken enough from you. You are #1 so don't ever feel bad for prioritizing your own mental health. No one is looking out for you more than you will!

[Anonymous]

For those wishing you were visiting one of the nicer residents - do. I mean, you're there. Mom isn't always looking. Have some favorite residents you talk with. Feel good about the time you spend there. A connection to what's good about the place will probably help you to manage the bad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To the poster above, here's the thing: There's this commercial that's popular in my area of the country for some kind of nursing assistance program in your home, and it concludes with this line "She has done so much for me. Now it's my turn to give back" and it makes me so mad!!!
A lot of us are now in the position where are being asked to mother and nurture someone who never mothered and nurtured us, someone who perhaps shouted at us and shamed us when we spilled something as children, when we tore a shirt while playing too roughly on the playground, when we came home from school with paint on our clothing from art class, when we lost a library book, etc. We are now being asked to exhibit patience and love, to be forgiving and kind to people who were not forgiving and kind to us. To literally feed an old lady who neglected to feed us as children, to make sure that she has warm clothes in the winter and cool clothes in the summer when she didn't do that for us. Even if you THINK you are over all the trauma, even if you think you have worked through it all with the aid of a professional, etc. this particular stage o life brings it home in a new and painful way. As my abusive father was dying, he literally asked us "Am I a good person?" He was afraid he was going to go to hell and wanted us to assure him that he was an awesome dude, even though he wasn't. Unless you have experienced this, you don't get to judge.

Don't feed the troll. This person just goes around and criticizes everyone on every thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes this is one of those things I think but you can't really express because people who have loving parents with whom they have good relationships just can't really understand. And it's hard if not impossible to explain to someone in the midst of grief (even if their parent died some time ago) that their grief is a gift in a way because it represents how deeply they loved and were loved. No one wants to hear that but it's true.

Those of us who don't have that kind of loving parent have been living with grief pretty much our whole lives. I think I started grieving the lack of love and affection from my parents when I was still a child. And as with any grief you can find ways to carry it easier but it never really goes away. But people who ha loving parents will never understand this and they will always just assume that if you have a living parent you are more fortunate than someone who has lost their parent. They don't understand what it is to live without parental love as a child and adolscent and how deeply painful that is -- they only know what it is to lose the love of a parent who has loved them and treated them well all their lives.

They know loss but not true absence and they never will.

There are lefty of us who recognize that there are millions of children then adults who were loved and cared for as they should have been. You have my empathy and prayers, you deserved better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes this is one of those things I think but you can't really express because people who have loving parents with whom they have good relationships just can't really understand. And it's hard if not impossible to explain to someone in the midst of grief (even if their parent died some time ago) that their grief is a gift in a way because it represents how deeply they loved and were loved. No one wants to hear that but it's true.

Those of us who don't have that kind of loving parent have been living with grief pretty much our whole lives. I think I started grieving the lack of love and affection from my parents when I was still a child. And as with any grief you can find ways to carry it easier but it never really goes away. But people who ha loving parents will never understand this and they will always just assume that if you have a living parent you are more fortunate than someone who has lost their parent. They don't understand what it is to live without parental love as a child and adolscent and how deeply painful that is -- they only know what it is to lose the love of a parent who has loved them and treated them well all their lives.

They know loss but not true absence and they never will.

There are lefty of us who recognize that there are millions of children then adults who were loved and cared for as they should have been. You have my empathy and prayers, you deserved better.

*Plenty of us who know
*NOT* loved
I hate autocorrect !

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To the poster above, here's the thing: There's this commercial that's popular in my area of the country for some kind of nursing assistance program in your home, and it concludes with this line "She has done so much for me. Now it's my turn to give back" and it makes me so mad!!!
A lot of us are now in the position where are being asked to mother and nurture someone who never mothered and nurtured us, someone who perhaps shouted at us and shamed us when we spilled something as children, when we tore a shirt while playing too roughly on the playground, when we came home from school with paint on our clothing from art class, when we lost a library book, etc. We are now being asked to exhibit patience and love, to be forgiving and kind to people who were not forgiving and kind to us. To literally feed an old lady who neglected to feed us as children, to make sure that she has warm clothes in the winter and cool clothes in the summer when she didn't do that for us. Even if you THINK you are over all the trauma, even if you think you have worked through it all with the aid of a professional, etc. this particular stage o life brings it home in a new and painful way. As my abusive father was dying, he literally asked us "Am I a good person?" He was afraid he was going to go to hell and wanted us to assure him that he was an awesome dude, even though he wasn't. Unless you have experienced this, you don't get to judge.

As another formerly abused and neglected child, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for these words.