My situation is similar to other situations I've read about here. My loved one lives in memory care. My sibling, who lives 30 minutes away, visits once every few months ( so maybe 4-5 times a year max??). No other help or input between those infrequent visits. However, my sibling either outright criticizes or makes snide comments to me about the decisions made for my LO. However, to everyone else, my sibling puts on a big show during and immediately after the visit, and receives lots if kudos from those who don't realize the situation. I've gotten better about letting it go. I used to provide regular updates, but stopped after getting tired of the criticism. Maybe there's no real question here but it shocks me that someone can provide such limited help yet criticize (unfairly criticize IMO)
My oldest brother got it. He would help - when I asked - with things like clearing out the house or moving mom - again - but hands on care or even regular visits? Forget it. He had distanced himself from our parents years earlier. I understood it, even. BUT - you don’t get to find fault with my care. And, he didn’t. “Whatever you decide is fine with me” he’d say. Perfect.
The other brother? He seemed to think that visiting for one hour, once a month was helping. That is - if he didn’t have a ski trip planned or a vacation in Europe or was hosting his friends in his little five bedroom “cabin” in the Columbia River Gorge. He lived about 15 minutes further from our parents than I did. And I was there - with our parents a lot. A whole lot.
But you can bet he had time to call me - tell me what I needed to be doing better or instead. Heaven help me if I disagreed with him or had the gall to flat out say “No, I’m not going to do that”. Disagreeing with his superior intellect always brought him to a raging tantrum.
One of his biggest points of contention was my opinion that our mother had dementia and it was worsening. Mom was “JUST FINE” during his once a month, hour long visit. But, I’ll never forget the time he called me after mom had gone all bat-chit crazy on him. You’d of thought she had sprouted another head and wings and flew about the room spewing pea green soup. After I hung up with him - I literally laughed until I cried.
Finally, during one particularly ugly phone call I’d had enough of his BS. I told him he couldn’t talk to me like that - that I was no longer the little girl he use to beat up for fun - I was a grown azz woman and unless he could talk to me in a civil manner, not to call. And then I hung up.
Things got better after that. Mainly, I think because he - at last - began visiting more often. Daddy had passed a few years prior and mom had the game changing fall that landed her in a nursing home. Yeah - once he began to visit every week he could no longer say mom was fine. More importantly, as he had decided he was going to be “more involved” - he finally had the little eye opener of what a hellish situation it all was. And just how hard it was to deal with day after day.
Yeah, at the end of year five of my doing it all myself and him giving me grief every step of the way - my brother finally backed up off my azz and admitted that - Gee, I wasn’t doing that bad of a job, after all. Year five of what was a six year caregivers Hell.
Better late than never? No. Not really. But it was the best I was gonna get from him.
I always said this brother had a rule book on how everyone else ought to be living their lives. Problem was - he had the
only copy.
OMG I could have written this! I recently had a similar experience with my brother. He had this attitude like I was this weak overly sensitive dolt who couldn't handle anything and was just dealing poorly with my mother-- who he too thought was "Fine".... until as in your case my mom went bat shit crazy on him. He too called me in an unhinged rage. LOL!
And I had the same reaction- that weird space between laughing hysterically and breaking down in tears.
People that don't deal with this up close and personal just do not get it. It remains to be seen if his revelation that day will change his attitude/behavior in the coming years. I expect he will distance himself as much as he can, but we'll see.
Throw the ball to him occasionally. Flat out say it sucks how infrequent your visits are that you don't really know the whole picture of what's going on, perhaps you should start visiting every week?
That should shut him up. Sorry you are dealing with this, venting helps, so vent away!!!!
But, if they did criticize, I might thank them for their concern, but, advise them that dementia is a very complex condition. That there is so much to learn about it. So, I'd volunteer to send her written materials, books, etc. for her to read and suggest some classes that would help educate her so she could be fully informed of why things are the way they are. I'd explain that it's hard to understand, unless you are informed and that she needs the help. Does she want to be on the call list, so she can get called at 3:00 a.m. to meet mother at the ER? Does she want to take on laundry duty? What about alternating her being on call every other weekend, so you can take some respite time?
Perhaps, if she sees the responsibility and depth of your commitment, she'll back off.
At the first care meeting at the nursing home my sister sat there with her notepad and pen. I half expected her to say " this meeting is called to order" or whatever it is a judge says. It was quite comical though when the nursing home staff had specific questions that only someone who was handling my mom's care would be able to answer. My sister would flounder for a bit and then look at me like I was going to bail her out. LOL, Nope, I almost said you're on your own cookie.