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Feeling like a failure and when the siblings DO come around I wait on them and feel like I'm the hired help. should I bow and scrape or just kneel and wait for instructions?
Years ago, I'd told her my fantasy: that I'd drive coast-to-coast and that she's come with me. She kind of took to the idea. We never did it. Now, we never will.
Still, her health isn't the worst, either. I'm not really complaining as much as feeling the hard and swift passage of time breezing by me.
I find myself cringing when I hear his bedroom door opening or coming through the kitchen door. I find myself having to hide in my husband's and my bedroom, which is off limits to him. My only haven of privacy away from him. I can't even go to church on my own any more on Sunday mornings. He insists on me coming with him on Saturday nights and If I don't he bungs on a " dizzy spell" which miraculously disappears when he gets his own way. My life is no longer my own.
I'm snapping at my husband all the time out of sheer irritation of my father's never ending existence. We were so happy before this.
The irritation stems from her unwillingness to do much of anything for herself. I cook all the meals, do all the housework, all the laundry, all the dishes, all the shopping, take care of the bills and financial matters including getting her life insurance (she's never had any), getting her a medical alert pendant to wear (and paying for it myself), etc. She is perfectly happy to sit in her chair and have me jump and fetch things for her when she wants/needs them - even though she is perfectly capable of getting up and getting it herself. I find myself getting annoyed when she gets up from her nap, because I know the demands will start again.
It's hard to narrow this down to the "one thing" that annoys the most - there are so many - no help from siblings who act as though Mom doesn't exist until Sunday morning when we go to breakfast together - and then they forget about her again; the lack of personal space, privacy or freedom; the fact that I had to give up a home I loved to move in with Mom to take care of her - and the resulting guilt I feel for feeling that way, like I'm being selfish; and the fact that despite my best efforts to keep her mobile and her mind sharp, she is declining slowly but surely right before my eyes. She is becoming more and more forgetful, asking me to repeat things I've said several times, refusing to move around or walk unless I force the issue - and because she's not walking much and is morbidly obese, her muscles and joints are starting to become uncooperative. (sigh)
Let me add one more thing that bothers me: Not knowing how to react when mother over reacts.
No, it isn't. My husband and I don't want kids, ever, and this is not practice. When I tell them that, they tell me caring for my grandmother isn't the same cos there generations are the wrong way around. I'm sorry, I didn't know bathing her, changing her diapers, feeding her, paying for everything, dealing with tantrums, not allowing her off the toilet till she's had a pee, and stopping her from hurting the dogs was totally different from having a toddler just cos she's 85 instead of 3.
So…. I do understand the selfishness, but remember, that was the way my client was before her Alzheimer's and now that she has it, she is very incredibly selfish, and everything has to be her way, but you know what, after about 2 days of being angry over that, I thought to myself "how selfish am I, I am normal, I have not terminal illness or disease, and I am angry because I am working 8 hours a day with a very selfish person." To me, after I looked in the mirror and stated that, it really was about me, and if I did not like the taxing, hard hard, incredibly hard work that it takes, then I needed to find another position.
Please note: I am not stating that all cases are textbook, they are all incredibly different, but remember you anger comes from the selfishness or stubbornness of someone else, but that someone else, now has an incurable disease. I am not stating you are right, or what ever, all I am saying, is that these people really want us people without the disease to try to understand that all of their character flaws are not because of them, they do now have a disease, regardless of what they were like before. They will more than likely die before their natural time because of Alzheimer's so, I guess with words of wisdom, I would say, stop, smell the roses, remember the good qualities of your MIL, focus on those, but also, remember that when an Alzheimer's person becomes combative and violent possibly it is time to move them to a more structured environment so that you are not emotionally bruising, and it is not acceptable for anyone to be violent, with or without a disease, however with a disease, they will just put them in a place that is a memory care, or such. It is a hard place to be, that I know. My mother has it, my mother in law had it and my father in law had it. I have been through three live in's and I am now a paid care giver specifically for Alzheimer's and Dementia, because I really feel that with the extra education that I took, that I can offer this world some respite, one person at a time. Be good to yourself!!!
Have a great weekend.
People who think being a full-time caregiver isn't a "real job" make me madder than he11 and I let them know it!