My husband and I moved out of our home to take care of my mom 9 months ago. My mom is a wonderful person but now that she needs 24/7 care, she is taking advantage of me being an enabler. I have no family near to help me. I spend the day with a baby monitor nearby in case she needs something, I hate this monitor...lol...sometimes. She is capable of doing more than she does and is quick to just ask me to do it. She is 79, has a broken arm, is having chemo for lung cancer. She was using a walker for months but almost fell one day, got scared and now will only use the wheelchair. I honestly feel she can use the walker, I've told her I would follow her with the wheelchair to make sure she won't fall, but she just won't do it. I deal with guilt and stress everyday because I have to step back and hope she will do some things for herself. Don't get me wrong, I do everything I can to make sure she is safe but if I do too much, she won't do anything for herself. Somedays I feel I'm in prison, the thought of help from a caregiver, she totally disregards that thought. My friends I don't see much of, because they all have lives, so I get lonely at times. I signed up to this site because I'm starting to get depressed and need support from people who are dealing with similar situations.
I ask myself WHY? Why do this? Why not accept that she is no longer independent and that you are her crutch?
Has any consideration been given to placing her in a facility? She can be with people her own age, do activities and have 24/7 care.
It is no longer a matter of what she wants, it is a matter of what is best for her and ALL concerned.
I sure hope that you have her DPOA and a plan in place to move on with your life....just as it should be.
You are losing your life, years that you will never regain friends will be lost, nothing will be moving forward in a positive light.
You become not a daughter but a caregiver, responsible for all decisions and resented for that as well. Many say that placement of a loved one allowed the person who was sadly forced to do it to return to being a spouse or a sister or a daughter.
If your Mom is 80 and taking chemo (something I at 81 just refused as I won't be doing those measures at my age) then she is not very likely to be up for helping you much, and that would be the case at her age, and were she only 35.
Have you and your mom had any discussions about her wishes ongoing given her diagnosis, and about how hard she wishes to fight for more life. Some, like me (an old retired RN) are not interested in more quantity if the price is quality of life.
I think you need to have honest discussions with your Mom. There really isn't any way around that. It may be time to understand that while your intentions are good you don't wish to be a 24/7 caretaker. I do know that you know the path forward is going to be even more rocky than the one you are now on. My life as an RN did teach me that I would never have been capable of 24/7 care for anyone.
I surely wish you the very best. Honor your mom's wishes going forward. She has had a long life. She may be ready to face the end of it with excellent medications and a good palliative care or hospice team, or she may be a real fighter and want to do everything modern medicine has to offer. The choice should be HERS and HERS ALONE, and you should be supportive of that choice whichever she decides.
My heart goes out to you. Remember that skirting around these issues is going to frustrate you until you explode into ill words, ill health or both.
"taking advantage" of you and that you are in fact enabling her.
Have you tried having PT come to her house to work with her and get her more comfortable with her walker?
You need to have a heart to heart conversation with your mother explaining that you just can't keep on doing everything for her as it's starting to take its toll on you. At that time you can talk about other options for her care as well, like hiring full-time help(with her money of course)or moving into an appropriate facility where she will be around other folks her own age and hopefully eventually get to live and enjoy her life.
As long as you are the answer and the only option for your mother, things will never change. So it's up to you to put your big girl panties on and let your mother know exactly how you're feeling.
And quit doing so much for her. All you are doing is propping her up, and allowing her to live in a state of denial of all the help that she truly requires.
No child should have to give up their lives for their parents, no matter how much they love them.
And no parent should ever want that from their child/children, as it so very selfish.
Wishing you the best in having this difficult discussion with your mother, and getting your life back. You'll be glad you did.
I hope you can start taking steps to get back your life. As for your husband, I've read so many posts on here where the spouse becomes angry and leaves. Keep that in mind and start planning your exit.
Stop babying her. If you refuse to help with things that she can and should do, she might do them. If not, you need to start talking assisted living or a skilled nursing facility. That might change her tune.
Also, you could turn off the baby monitor. Tell her you're going to turn it off and insist that she tell you what she's going to need for the next two hours. Then off you go to the other end of the house for peace and quiet! If she needs something, she can wait.
I hope you manage an escape soon.
Immediately after he died, my mom felt free to let me know everything she needed. I felt very stressed and anxious, and it broke her heart when I said I didn't want to move her into my home. I really loved my mom a lot, but I needed to step away for a while (and my husband saw how hard it was on me with my dad and didn't want me to do it again).
One of my brothers took over, and we moved her into an assisted living. After about a year I felt differently, but never got the chance to take care of her because she died during covid. I would give anything to do it over and would give her anything I could including my home.
At the time though, I pushed everyone away, including my mom. I am so ashamed and disappointed in myself. I would urge everyone to do the best they can for their parents, assisted living takes some stress off if that's what you need to do. Otherwise, hang in there, say your prayers, and you will get through it.
As for hanging in there, as long as I have more good days than bad and i mentally stay out of the deep end of the caregiving pool , I will
So far in my experience support from outside sources are crucial. Where I live hospice provides palliative care, a lot of people associate the word "hospice" with imminent death and that is not the case. My grandmother is somewhat mobile with very mild dementia and hospice has been providing services to her for a year now. With hospice she is assigned a nurse that visits once a week, a home health aide that visits twice a week to bathe her, a social worker that visits every two weeks to talk with her, my grandmother is very religious, so we have a chaplain that visits once a month and a volunteer that visits as needed for social support, all provided through hospice care. They are absolutely vital to my being able to care for my grandmother. They also help as they will be "the bad guys" when I need help. (for example, my grandmother will often not get up to use the restroom hospice will be the ones to talk with her and reinforce why getting up to use the bathroom is important) I am not sure what the requirements for hospice care are, but it may be worth a phone call to your local hospice.
We also use a local caregiving service, that is a paid service for respite care along with signing grams up for a "buddy" through the Area Agency on Aging.
Wishing you lots of support!