How do you deal with work and caregiving stress at the same time? I've worked for a large bank for 8+ years in head office. Last year, my 90 year old mom fractured her spine and now is disabled (uses walker). She used to do all the caregiving for my 91 year old dad who is disabled and blind. I'm an only child and had to spend a lot of days fighting for decent care in the hospital for mom (I live in Canada and healthcare is atrocious). At that time, we had nowhere for dad to go, so he ended up in a longterm care home for a short stay, where his much younger violent roommate beat him up on his first night there (nursing home care in Canada is disgusting with over 10,000 beaten up each year by the residents).
I took at 3.5 month sabbatical and had to hire 2 PSW's to care for each of them (dad could no longer walk, and they drugged him so much it took me 3 months to get him to know us again) and mom had an Altzheimer's patient sharing her room who used to hit and kick the nurses. I was not prepared for any of this and spent my whole years' salary on the PSW's. No free healthcare there.
After 3.5 months I went back to work on a reduced workweek of 3.5 days. Unfortunately my compassionate manager was "deployed" to another part of the bank and now I have a micro-manager who gives me more than 5 days work, and expects me to work and answer email on my days off. I have a caregiver coming in for 4 days so I can have half-day off to get meds and groceries, but the rest of the week and evenings, I'm the sole caregiver for my parents.
Now because of work pressure (they're sending all the work to India and hiring young cheap staff) I'm treating my parents callously, and shouting at them for any little request. I'm only working because I need the money. It has turned into the most toxic work environment I've been in since starting work in 1972!
Due to the terrible state of the ruined economy (don't believe the employment numbers), there is always a threat of being fired but I'm exhausted working for the bank at night now after caregiving because they won't understand that I'm actually being paid much less now for a 3.5 day week.
How do I sort this out? There's no more money to get more care, the people at work who used to be in my team are now really nasty because they're trying to impress the new director and back-stabbing is the norm, especially as I do some work from home sometimes as my commute is 1.5 hours each way.
I feel so guilty about neglecting my parents to do emails as they may not be alive much longer and I love them so. I pray that God forgives me for my stress and anger and for a new job closer to home where I can work only the hours they pay me. But I'm falling apart and my heart is breaking when my parents are so sad that I'm so horrid - they don't demand much, have always accepted worn out clothes, simple food and the humble (but very messy now) home we live in.
The bank CEO gets $55 million a year salary, but they're squeezing every minute out of us (get 15 minutes to gobble lunch). How can I not resent this evil in a big corporate that used to value its employees?
I just don't know what to do - a big apocalypse now to wipe all of us out would be the nicest thing that could happen today!
