Sad about how the holiday visit to my family went

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All PP's criticizing OP's attitude, did you actually read the MULTIPLE times she has said that the mom has refused to consider a nursing home, and has therefore CHOSEN to be the primary caregiver? The mom is playing the martyr, plain and simple. Sorry, but I lack sympathy for anyone who has the opportunity to make their life a little less stressful and refuses to take it. Team OP.

It is not that simple in less you are very rich or poor to get someone in a nursing home and most suck. You clearly have never needed to do it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All the PPs criticizing the OP, I think you sound like a bunch of cold scolds. The OP's mom's situation is terrible and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. But the OP's feelings are still valid. She had a crappy holiday for a lot of reasons. She gets to be sad that she had a crappy holiday. Her mom doesn't get a blanket pass to be a jerk because she is dealing with this awful care situation. Her attitude is understandable, but it's also understandably frustrating for someone who genuinely sounds like she wants to help and is having a hard time doing that. I don't see what more the OP could do. It doesn't sound like she was awful to her mom, just that she had a bad holiday season, for a lot of understandable reasons, and she is allowed to be sad about that.

We had a similar situation with my grandparents when dealing with cancer. Total refusal to accept help followed by extreme annoyance when people didn't magically divine what needed to be done - including the trash issue, OP. I was falling over myself trying to be helpful and take care of things and was told repeatedly not to worry about it, and then taken to task later for "not noticing" when the trash needed to go out. My grandfather's exact words were "If you wanted to help so badly, why didn't you do that?"

The difference is that OP criticized her mother in a petty way you don't in your post. She also never expressed a burning desire to help like you just wrote. Posters are reacting to that.

[Anonymous]

OP, you mother is suffereing from caregiver syndrome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caregiver_stress. As stressful and difficult as it is on you to give assistance and handle your share of family caring from a distance, it is significantly harder on your mother in the day-in day-out care. As someone who has spent 10 years serving as a caregiver, it's hard and Alzheimer's is much harder than my situation.

You need to find ways to help ease her stress, especially at times like holidays where holiday stress can compound her daily stress and issues. For example, if you come to visit, either pay for a housecleaning service to come and clean or help clean yourself. If you hire the service, do so when you are there, maybe giving her a day or afternoon off to go out and you stay at home while the service cleans; then pay them. Even doing a few loads of laundry or the routine grocery shopping help. If you visit at the holidays, suggest going out or renting a party room/social room for your holiday meal and have it served pot-luck there. You can order a honey-baked ham or a pre-cooked turkey to provide the main course.

When you are a full-time caretaker for someone who needs full-time and often personal care, it can be exhausting. Adding on keeping up with the daily chores and household responsibilities can be overwhelming. Then you add on hosting a holiday event where people come in and increase your work-load, I can certainly understand your mother's reaction. Mayhap the invited guests should not be asked to help with chores like taking out the garbage, but her family should. You were her co-host, so you should at least have been looking out for something like as basic as taking out the trash. And expecting her sister to help is also not unreasonable. From the sounds of it, you wanted to come and have a nice visit with your mother hosting you like a guest in her house. So, despite the fact that she is the daily caregiver (albeit with some limited help), you came to visit and expected her to host you for a nice visit and added more work and stress on her rather than relieving stress and work from her. Yes, I can see why she is resentful. My father is far better than your father, but still requires a lot of help. My mother handles it routinely. When we get together as a family, I immediately help my father to give my mother a break. It always amazes me that my siblings will just watch my Mom and I help Dad. They don't volunteer to help unless we explicitly ask them to help him.

[Anonymous]

OP, usually when we become adults, we realize that not everything is about us. You sound like you are very immature, and have a lot of growing up to do.

And be kinder to your mom.

[Anonymous]

All the PPs criticizing the OP, I think you sound like a bunch of cold scolds. The OP's mom's situation is terrible and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. But the OP's feelings are still valid. She had a crappy holiday for a lot of reasons. She gets to be sad that she had a crappy holiday. Her mom doesn't get a blanket pass to be a jerk because she is dealing with this awful care situation.

Yeah, she gets to be sad about her holiday. I'm the PP whose father has Alzheimers and I'm sad about mine, and sad that my mother died too young as well. But I'm mature enough to appreciate that my sadness over missing out on a wonderful holiday with my extended family is trivial compared to the emotional burden of someone who is a FT caregiver for a loved one with end-stage Alzheimers. I can't imagine how anyone above the age of 5yo could be so selfish to complain about someone in that position. OP and PP, why don't you switch roles with your mother for a week or two and see how cheery you will feel about a house full of visiting family who need to be specifically instructed to pitch in with minor chores like taking out the trash.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

All the PPs criticizing the OP, I think you sound like a bunch of cold scolds. The OP's mom's situation is terrible and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. But the OP's feelings are still valid. She had a crappy holiday for a lot of reasons. She gets to be sad that she had a crappy holiday. Her mom doesn't get a blanket pass to be a jerk because she is dealing with this awful care situation.

Yeah, she gets to be sad about her holiday. I'm the PP whose father has Alzheimers and I'm sad about mine, and sad that my mother died too young as well. But I'm mature enough to appreciate that my sadness over missing out on a wonderful holiday with my extended family is trivial compared to the emotional burden of someone who is a FT caregiver for a loved one with end-stage Alzheimers. I can't imagine how anyone above the age of 5yo could be so selfish to complain about someone in that position. OP and PP, why don't you switch roles with your mother for a week or two and see how cheery you will feel about a house full of visiting family who need to be specifically instructed to pitch in with minor chores like taking out the trash.

+1.

I have twins and a spouse who has spent 10 years having 17 eye surgeries and is nearly blind. I'm the only driver in the house and there are many tasks that I have to handle because I'm the only one over the age of 4 who can see some things well enough. And my MIL used to come visit and sit around and expect to be waited on hand and foot. I'd be cooking and cleaning for the house and she would still want me to bring one of the toddlers to her (when they didn't want to come) and put them in her lap to hold and snuggle. Like I'm supposed to burn dinner to carry a squirming 18 month old who doesn't want to sit in Grandma's lap to her and get him to sit there peacefully? And I would have to go out and specialty shop for the odd things she ate (and her diet seemed to change almost every time she visited so I couldn't even shop before she got there).

Finally I said to my spouse that I wanted to limit the number of times she visited because it was so much work and so difficult. My spouse conveyed this a lot more politely and then my MIL started behaving better when coming to visit. Lo and behold she'll do her own shopping, she'll cook dinner once or twice in a week-long visit. It's a start but every little bit helps. Although I still do the lion's share of the work, it's not as draining as it used to be. Just shopping for her own breakfast/snacks and cooking dinner once/week makes a huge difference in my attitude towards her visits.

[Anonymous]

OP it sounds like your mom has always been a little nuts and you are now chalking up what are truly understandable behaviors on her part to her craziness. Any normal person, including you, would probably act the way she did. I understand why you are sad that the holiday didn't work out. It sounds like you were going for one last nice holiday but it's already too late for that.

Unless you really think she is handling this all wrong, you need to support your mom and make sure she feels that support. It sounds like she isn't feeling that from you now. Can you go back for a visit without your DH and kids and just take care of her for a few days while she takes care of your dad? Especially if you're an only child, you guys need to be a united front.

[Anonymous]

Alzheimer's is tough because the person is usually not coherent, lucid, not really there and sure as heck not sociable. It's incurable and you know that it will only go downhill from where the person is now. It's depressing and it's pretty much a living death. At the same time, every once in a while the caregiver will get a glimpse of the former person, just a glimpse....

It's a cruel disease. I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

[Anonymous]

I sort of know the type of person your mom is because she sounds like my mom. I think you are a bit insensitive. Care taking is very hard work, and she sounds burnt out, stressed out, and depressed. Of course she would never put her husband in a nursing home because she loves him too much to do that. She needs more help and is already exhausted and angry that no one thinks to take out the garbage (probably among other things that needed to be done). Why should she have to do everything (and why can't anyone else recognize what needs to be done) when she is old and already burnt out from care taking? She probably has a hard time asking for help in a nice way because of her exhaustion and age. Stay home if you are not willing to help out your aging parents. Visitors create more work and she is already overloaded. Many hands make little work, but it sounds like she was left with the cleanup. Plus you keep acting like she needs the right medication. Maybe she needs more help and empathy and a break. Your parents are not going to live forever. Are you going to feel good about your attitude when they are gone? You sound self absorbed (and I hate to say it, but bratty) and I'm getting irritated just thinking of this situation. You're complaining you didn't have a nicer holiday. If anyone has a right to complain, it's your mother for everything she has been through and I feel sorry for her that she doesn't have more understanding children. No wonder she is depressed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I sort of know the type of person your mom is because she sounds like my mom. I think you are a bit insensitive. Care taking is very hard work, and she sounds burnt out, stressed out, and depressed. Of course she would never put her husband in a nursing home because she loves him too much to do that. She needs more help and is already exhausted and angry that no one thinks to take out the garbage (probably among other things that needed to be done). Why should she have to do everything (and why can't anyone else recognize what needs to be done) when she is old and already burnt out from care taking? She probably has a hard time asking for help in a nice way because of her exhaustion and age. Stay home if you are not willing to help out your aging parents. Visitors create more work and she is already overloaded. Many hands make little work, but it sounds like she was left with the cleanup. Plus you keep acting like she needs the right medication. Maybe she needs more help and empathy and a break. Your parents are not going to live forever. Are you going to feel good about your attitude when they are gone? You sound self absorbed (and I hate to say it, but bratty) and I'm getting irritated just thinking of this situation. You're complaining you didn't have a nicer holiday. If anyone has a right to complain, it's your mother for everything she has been through and I feel sorry for her that she doesn't have more understanding children. No wonder she is depressed.

We handle difficult situations in the best way that we know how. That does not mean that every outsider (even our own kids) would do it the same way. And that does not mean that every outsider (even our kids) have the time, energy or ability to support our choices in the most helpful way.

Op has a lot on her plate right now with a very sick dad, a depressed/stressed mom and her own children who need their mom. It's tough to be everything to everyone. In fact, you can't be everything to everyone. Op doesn't need this heap of guilt right now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Op has a lot on her plate right now with a very sick dad, a depressed/stressed mom and her own children who need their mom. It's tough to be everything to everyone. In fact, you can't be everything to everyone. Op doesn't need this heap of guilt right now.

I'm sure it's stressful for OP too, but what took the cake was her attitude of wanting to be treated like a guest who doesn't have to take out the trash. So, she has a chip on her shoulder and a little guilt might be useful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why in the world would you push your mom to host this dinner? She is clearly not up to it. Do it at someone else's. And yes, family members who are "guests" should volunteer to take out the trash for elderly people.

+100

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, I posted previously - my father has Alzheimers and I found your original post almost unbelievable. In your followup posts you have offered more detail but what comes through is an incredible lack of sympathy for your mother. Before you criticize her, you have to understand what she is dealing with on a daily basis. Alzheimers is a horrific disease - it robs patients of their lucidity and their dignity and eventually their basic skills of self care.

I speak with my father multiple times a day; I am an adult who appreciates the disease (my grandmother had it also, and lived with us when I was a kid) but it still breaks my heart every time. Your mother is living this. She is seeing the most important person in her life reverted to an infantile state, and she is responsible for his daily care. Can you not understand why she might want a little help with taking out the trash?

I'm guessing from your post you are relatively young. And since your father is only 64, I should mention, my mother died at 63 of cancer. No one should suffer and die at this age. It's awful, and you are probably grieving yourself over what is to come. But please, find a more healthy way to process your grief than heaping blame on your mother. Invest yourself in trying to find high-quality care for your father, either as a respite or in a nursing facility. And recognize that what your mother has done is heroic; try to support her instead of criticizing her for being negative during your visit.

+1

Not to pile on against you, OP, but I hope you take this to heart and so some soul-searching. Maybe it would help to talk to a counselor. I understand your frustration but caregiving and facing the loss of a spouse are huge burdens.

When my grandfather had dementia and was bedridden (being cared for at home by my grandmother with similar help to what your mom has, it sounds like), Grandma was an absolute BITCH due to the stress. Not everyone can handle adversity with grace.

Take care of yourself but try to be the better person - I don't think you will regret being loving and understanding after all is said and done.

[Anonymous]

You sound awful, OP. Why does she need to host you anyways? You should be taking care of your mom and dad when you are there. You or your DH couldn't handle buying the ice and drinks? You sound unbelievable and should be ashamed of yourself.