Anonymous wrote:My mother moved into an assisted living facility 7 years ago. She has dementia and has steadily declined. She probably is at the point she needs memory care but right now she is paying over 6,000 a month and memory care is 10,000 a month where she is at.
I have a sister and brother who live out of town. My brother has visited once in 7 years and essentially says he is too busy to do anything or visit. His two kids play travel sports so he says he can never take time off with their sports schedule to visit. My sister is supportive in that she occasionally visits and handles some things - will order things by amazon, make phone calls. So I am left with the endless tasks of taking her to appointments, getting phone calls from the facility, finding things she loses (so over how many hours I have spent looking for things she has hidden because she thinks people are stealing from her), always having her over for holidays. I have two kids and have missed out on their lives dealing with my mother.
After 7 years I am just over it. She doesn't remember if I visit anymore and is not particularly nice when I visit or take her places. I was her least favorite child so I still am resentful. I have slowly stopped visiting or doing much. Now I go every other week and am trying to get that down to once a month. I am tired of getting phone calls from relatives who try to call her and she hasn't remembered to charge her phone. I just don't want to deal with her anymore. My oldest just started 9th grade and I want to spend the last 4 years of her life without being so cranky and stressed.
Has anyone slowly faded help from their parent? Any tips or advice. I really need to focus on me, my spouse and my kids for a while.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I would talk to your siblings and explain that you are suffering from caregiver burnout and have been for awhile. You are going to need to step back and focus on your own health, your kids and the things you’ve been putting on the back burner for a long time. Ask your siblings to look at memory care in their areas. Maybe it’s time for Mom to move to be closer to one of them. If you/ they can find a place that has a doctor that comes to the facility for check ups and prescriptions that would make things way easier.
This is bad advice and will just make OP feel more burned out and alienated when they distance themselves from her too. They made their boundaries clear, now OP needs to figure out hers and step back more. I have been there with doing too much, feeling burned out and resentful and the solution was to have better boundaries. Find out what the facility offers. Outsource whatever you need to assuming there is money.
Anonymous wrote:I would talk to your siblings and explain that you are suffering from caregiver burnout and have been for awhile. You are going to need to step back and focus on your own health, your kids and the things you’ve been putting on the back burner for a long time. Ask your siblings to look at memory care in their areas. Maybe it’s time for Mom to move to be closer to one of them. If you/ they can find a place that has a doctor that comes to the facility for check ups and prescriptions that would make things way easier.