One of the hardest parts of caregiving for me is that I don't mentally connect with my mother. I don't know how much is me and how much is her, but I've never been able to get a relationship going with her. Sometimes I think that maybe I'm going to spend time and talk with her or maybe watch some TV together. It never works out that way. Pretty soon I pull away and go about my tasks. She doesn't seem to want me around and is not very nice to talk to.
Sometimes she'll be doing things and I ask her if she wants some help. She says no. She doesn't want anyone to touch her when she walks. If I get too close to her, she stops moving and says I'm in the way. She doesn't see well, so likes to have a big area around her walker to navigate.
I have a feeling that most of this isn't my fault. It does make caregiving empty feeling, though. Mostly I feel like a visitor in the house that does all the tasks of keeping the house together. I don't feel like a daughter. I think caregiving would be a lot more rewarding if I could find a way to connect with my mother.
CM, I don't think my mother is autistic. My father was probably on the spectrum, though never diagnosed. Asperger's wasn't even heard of in his day. I suspect that my mother's childhood was not as rosy as she portrays. She talks only about the wonderful things of her childhood and marriage to my father. I think she keeps all the bad stuff buried, probably even to herself. I doubt that I will ever know any of the bad things, but I can sense that all was not well.
my3kids, it sounds like your dad resurrects old childhood memories you have tried to close the door on. Sometimes I wonder if they are trying to push buttons, talking about things they know are upsetting. Or I wonder if they find the conversations more interesting if there is a bit of conflict.
I am finding it difficult to stay positive when there always seems to be a black cloud looming. I try to have compassion, but honestly...I am weary of all her suffering. Placing her in a nursing home would fill my sister and I with so much guilt and I know my mom would never forgive us.
I am in transition myself with employment, and returned to school last year to better my career skills. It has been a huge struggle. I recently turned fifty and am hungry to really live fully, but most days it feels like my life has basically ended.
I pray everyday that I will be released from this confinement.
My mother was a hermit too, but her dread didn't extend to her children - she wasn't cuddly, but she could be affectionate. The dislike of your being "in her way" and her edginess with you just made me wonder, that's all. Maybe, too, there might be some useful techniques you could pick up from that world?
Wouldn't it be cool if our houses were social hubs of friends coming and going? Maybe not all the time, but sometimes would be fun.
Now that they are both elderly, don't drive, and have multiple health problems they are reaching out and asking for help. I am ashamed of myself for resting this, at the same time I have compassion for their situation and the way their lives are changing as they age.
A big problem is instead of spending time visiting and talking I find myself spending my visits doing chores, changing lightbulbs, picking up prescriptions, and other time consuming tasks. I have offered to find someone to run errands and help with cleaning and chores but they don't want anyone else in the house. It terrifies me to be responsible for taking my Dad places because he is much larger than me and if he falls I could be hurt too, I am 60 so I am not that young either! And I resent the fact that when I was starting out on my own they gave me very little support or assistance but now have no hesitation asking for help. I am single and my siblings are all married with children and grandchildren so I am usually the go to person since I apparently have no personal life.
Anyway, back to the main topic, their lives have contracted so much that it is hard to find anything to talk about, so much is repeated so many times I have a hard time being polite or its a discussion about neighbors I don't know or TV shows I don't watch. I have begun to dread the phrase "I've probably already told you this!"
karen, I'm one of the lucky people who don't have to be with my mother all the time. I can come and go during the day as I want, so don't really need respite. A vacation in the mountains would be nice, but that will come in time. What you said about letting ourselves off the hook is important. The feeling of guilt from not spending more time with them can hook us, even if they don't want us to spend more time. I imagine that if my mother had a bucket list that "Spend more time with my daughter" would rank somewhere near the very bottom. (Really, it probably wouldn't be on there at all.) Come to think of it, spending more time with my mother may be high on my guilt list, but doesn't appear on my bucket list at all. :)
We'd at least have more personalized insight into their feelings and behavior and could understand their lives much better.
And imagine the applications for the medical profession - they could tailor advice to specific behaviors, whereas now it's all observational - once someone is in that state, I'm not sure it's possible to be objective and share feelings and observations in a scientific manner.
I often wonder how people can be so different as I sat next to an elderly lady while getting blood work done the other day. She was a little "off" but she was so HAPPY and talked to EVERY person who came through the door but she really latched onto me. As we sat waiting, she was talking to me about her family and how she loved to sing and how she hoped we'd meet again sometime even if it were on the other side. She left me happy but wanting. Why is it that I could connect so deeply with this person and so easily but not with my own MIL. Life is just so tricky some times. I wish there was a handbook to direct me through the rough stuff or just that Happy pill I spoke of above:)
I know that we can become their arms and legs for them. Some people think I should cook my mother's breakfast and do other things for her that she does for herself. It would actually be easy to do these things, but I don't want her to stop doing what she can. These tasks are the things that keep her up and moving.
I moved down to Florida when my mother started needing help. I thought she should have a family member close by in case of an emergency (my two sisters were two hours away from Mom but there had never been a close relationship with either one) and I wanted to take over those household tasks that were unsafe for her with her balance problems, like changing the batteries in the smoke detectors. I quickly learned that my caregiving plan was not her caregiving plan. Her attitude was "Good, I've got you here, now I want you to do A, B, C, X, Y and Z." Including some stuff she could do herself, stuff she could figure out how to do herself, stuff she didn't really need, etc. etc. For example, she wanted me to come by daily to take out her garbage and walk her dog, which were things I never contemplated doing or offered to do. That's the key point. I wanted to do what I offered to do out of the goodness of my heart. I didn't want to be seen as an unpaid service provider, at her beck and call for whatever she wanted.
That's the first part. The rest of it is that, due to our close friendship, my mother knew that I had plans for my own retirement, and that I was the last person who'd want to spend years of it stuck in one place (a place where I hate the climate, BTW) doing somebody else's chores. She knows I feel oppressed by this arrangement, she knows I feels trapped. She acknowledges that from time to time, long enough to wish out loud that I felt differently.
So the silence between us is dense and heavy, fraught with unsaid things, unexpressed resentments and hurts. It hurts her that our friendly relationship is gone. But not enough to release me from the prison of caregiving. She thinks if she ignores my feelings they will go away (that's a hold-out from old times - she always thought that way about me). At this point I hate to spend time with her, and wish every day that I could just pick up and leave.