Caring For Aging Parents Support Group
Caring for aging parents can be a difficul time as we become the caretakers for our parents. This broad responsibility can encompass such services as assisted living, adult day care, long term care, nursing homes, hospice care, and in-home care. Whether you have just started caring for your parents or just need a place to talk, we're here.
On my last post (on some thread I started here that I can no longer find) I believe I said my mum had gone home and we parted in good terms (with the agreement that she'd spend a month or so at her home and then the same time here).
We've been talking on the phone while she's been away. I ring her from 2-4 times a day. She's been seeing neighbours, cousins, etc. Everything seemed more or less OK (usual rants, but that's normal).
She returned here yesterday afternoon and after dinner she was already making a full report of how terrible her time at the village had been. How ignorant people are over there and how lonely she is. And then she added in a crazed, louder voice: I'VE NO FAMILY, I'M ALONE IN THE WORLD!
I really don't know how I held it together. What a fool. I though she had finally seen sense and realised that I need my space and time with my husband. After all she's healthy - well, has high blood pressure, always has done, but that's probably more due to her personality and issues than something physical.
This is the woman who when my dad and grandmother were alive, rang me every single day to complain about them. EVERY SINGLE DAY. Now she misses them. If I die then she can compare what she has now to really not having a family. This woman deserves nobody. This is not a mother. She gave birth to someone she expected to own.
Now she's going around the house cleaning and fixing things. She has to show me how wrong I am as a daughter, as a housewife and as a human being. This is soul destroying. She doesn't even deserve to be in this house every other month. She has no respect for the friends and neighbours because she's oh so superior. I've had enough. She really has no respect for anybody else other than her superior self.
We've been talking on the phone while she's been away. I ring her from 2-4 times a day. She's been seeing neighbours, cousins, etc. Everything seemed more or less OK (usual rants, but that's normal).
She returned here yesterday afternoon and after dinner she was already making a full report of how terrible her time at the village had been. How ignorant people are over there and how lonely she is. And then she added in a crazed, louder voice: I'VE NO FAMILY, I'M ALONE IN THE WORLD!
I really don't know how I held it together. What a fool. I though she had finally seen sense and realised that I need my space and time with my husband. After all she's healthy - well, has high blood pressure, always has done, but that's probably more due to her personality and issues than something physical.
This is the woman who when my dad and grandmother were alive, rang me every single day to complain about them. EVERY SINGLE DAY. Now she misses them. If I die then she can compare what she has now to really not having a family. This woman deserves nobody. This is not a mother. She gave birth to someone she expected to own.
Now she's going around the house cleaning and fixing things. She has to show me how wrong I am as a daughter, as a housewife and as a human being. This is soul destroying. She doesn't even deserve to be in this house every other month. She has no respect for the friends and neighbours because she's oh so superior. I've had enough. She really has no respect for anybody else other than her superior self.
You do not deserve to have your mom treat you this way. Tell her how this makes you feel and what you need from her so that all of you can live in peace.
Use this technique
SAY, "I feel _________ when _________ happens. I need ______ ."
This is respectful adult communication.
"I have no friends" is GUILT! That statement only puts you on guard and places the blame on you. It is not respectful adult communication.
This sounds like a narcissist. There is a great book
"The Narcissistic Family: Diagnosis and Treatment" by
Stephanie Donaldson-Pressman, Robert M. Pressman.
It explains the dsyfunctional family dynamic of narcissism and has lots of suggestions for how to have healty relationships with family.
I am sure your mom would be much happier in a home where there is respect for every adult. Or she needs to realize that she will be alone.
The track record of people on my mum's side of the family on care homes is not the best. There is a tendency to narcissism on her side of the family: from my grandmother, to my grandmother's brother, my mother's cousin, etc. They drive everyone insane with their demands, tantrums and arrogant behaviour.
I best give up and grieve the mother I never had. I know in my heart that as a kid I took on my own shoulders every bit of guilt inflicted on me. As an adult, up until recently I did the same.
I have heart tests on Monday at the hospital and a friend wrote to me today to tell me to try to have a relaxing weekend. I am such a nervous person that the smallest thing will send my heart racing. They destroyed my nerves.
I just ask all of you to PLEASE PRAY that I find a job soon. I need to move away from here. I need a complete fresh start away from these home where I lived so many bad moments. I am so grateful that my husband has stood by me. He has been sober for over two years and just by being with my mother for 24 hours I already feel like hitting the bottle (and I'm not much of a drinker). He doesn't deserves this either.
I will pray that you get a job and have some freedom very soon.
It would be easy for me to give advice but I go through the same thing with my own mother but she's not the subject of this conversation.
Sometimes we all have to do whatever it takes to make ourselves whole. To have a loving relationship with our spouse and have some general peace of mind. To know that when you go for a job interview that you can give the interview your best in first impression without the inward feelings of low self-esteem due to someone that's supposed to love and support you.
There are some times in our lives that we can't continue to take care of parents without it costing us either emotional or physical problems.
You do what you need to do to get yourself in a better place, surround yourself with people that support and care for you. I don't believe that's a selfish motive; I believe in certain circumstances walking away for however long a period of time it takes, this absolutely needs to be done, for you.
We're all here for you and I for one totally support your decisions.
You've always been there for all of us out here with kind and supporting posts. You are an amazing person! Don't let anyone make you feel different.
Hugs,
Pam
Regards.
Thank you for your words Pam. I feel so much better after posting this. The anger started to diminish but still certain that I must not go back on my decision (she can live with us but one month here and one month at her home). I have to look after my marriage and the inner child that's still inside of me and who is scared and very hurt. HOWEVER, if she says again that she has no family I'll tell her not to contact me for one whole month when she goes home and then she can experience not having a daughter.
I loved my parents SO, SO, MUCH. Despite my dad's drinking problems, depression, and my mother craziness, manipulation, guilt trips, tantrums (with wailing involved). I never smoked, never drank or dated until I was 20 (and even then all hell broke lose). When I was a teen she told me I was no longer pure in God's eyes because I had a crush on a boy! I had a feeling then she was nuts...
I AM still struggling to be a whole person. I left a country I loved because of guilt. I returned to be near my parents 3 years later (and came to see them several times while abroad). Every time my dad was ill I was there (and his illness got worse due to mixing drink with medication or failing to take medication). We once drove 4 hours to a hospital to take sandwiches where my dad was waiting to be seen for an appointment. I couldn't do enough for them.
I now look back and feel empty. Nothing was ever enough and I tried so hard to be a good daughter but even then wasn't good enough.
What a useless battle I've been fighting.
Others simply can not understand the devestation of being raised by a narcisitic parent. They don't get the selfishness and total self centerness of parents who think children are to be used by them for their own purposes. We SURVIVED! We are struggling to learn how to be adults who have boundaries and healthy relationships now because they were so abusive while we were children. That is just rotten.
You have every right to stop contact with mom until she stops telling you that she has no family. That is just rude to you. She is saying that you are not her family when you are taking time to call her many times each day. It is just rude.
It sounds like you have done much to try and have normal relationships with mom. She is choosing to demand that you stay in the LITTLE child role that puts her on top of you to tell you how you can feel. This is not healthy or normal parenting relationships.
I know you get comments from others who have no idea what we are talking about. Ignore those who think that narcissistic damage is nothing or that you can just get over it easily. It is a struggle to live when parents are so mean that they use children for their own needs rather then help them grow.
Are more likely to be have symptoms of depression or anxiety
Are more likely to have a long-term medical problem, such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes, or arthritis
Have higher levels of stress hormones
Spend more days sick with an infectious disease
Have a weaker immune response to the influenza, or flu, vaccine
Have slower wound healing
Have higher levels of obesity
May be at higher risk for mental decline, including problems with memory and paying attention
One research study found that elderly people who felt stressed while taking care of their disabled spouses were 63 percent more likely to die within four years than caregivers who were not feeling stressed.
Part of the reason that caregivers often have health problems is that they are less likely to take good care of themselves. For instance, women caregivers, compared with women who are not caregivers, are less likely to:
Get needed medical care
Fill a prescription because of the cost
Get a mammogram
Also, caregivers report that, compared with the time before they became caregivers, they are less likely to:
Get enough sleep
Cook healthy meals
Get enough physical activity
SunnyBun that research is spot on. I've had severe anxiety from a very young age. I had insomnia since I was a small child. I have heart issues which I am looking into again this week but have had heart palpitations for years.
I've always been overweight. Interestingly I eat really healthily and can look after myself so well when my mother is away. Since yesterday I find myself reaching for things I banned from my diet. Today I reached for marshmallows in a supermarket - something I never have. I ate bread which again it's something I haven't had for months (she bought it).
I've been diagnosed with pre-diabetes (that's why I try my best to look after myself but doesn't work when she's around).
Some doctors (4 in total) say I have either arthritis or rheumatic because of very high Protein C-Reactive levels and because I wake up in a lot of pain all over my body (was sent to a specialist who was very uninterested and just told me to lose weight - other doctors are puzzled).
I do have trouble paying attention (it made life very hard at school) and my memory is just horrid. My husband jokingly calls me "goldfish".
Cortisone levels were high. As were insulin.
So yes...research is extremely accurate.
Thank you!!!
My mother was so narcissistic that I can tell stories about things that happened to me that make others nearly faint! I had considered that I was taking care of my parents even from a very early age of childhood!
You put those together. I have many of the same symptoms that have to be from all those years early on of worry about mother and father and how I would manage to make them feel better every day.
I had to tell dad that he could not cook in my kitchen anymore. He was spreading gluten all over constantly. I nearly died again from his rudeness. Now he stays away. But I guess Harpie is right about those boundaries. The moment dad relized that I really have an illness that he must respect, he cut contact. No appology for making me sick or claiming it was not real or not as bad as I said or anything. He just stopped talking to me.
Guess I have some work to do now with this new information.
I feel bad for the children whose parents are still abusing them in their own homes after they have grown up and tried to find a place of safety and rest.
Thank you so very much for sharing here and helping me learn to grow.
I pray that you find that job quickly!!
You deserve to have a life to live! Your mother's job was to raise you and protect you from harm. She choose not to do that. You have done an amazing job trying to continue with her but while she refuses to grown up, you maintain the right to stop walking into a war zone.
Take care
Sunny
It started when I was watching a television program on Casey Anthony. They had a panel of psychiatrist on there and they were discussing her psychiatric disorder. Sociopath. That's what they called her and as they described the sociopath, I realized they were describing my father. I'd always known that he had some sort of disorder, but never could figure out which one.
Anyhow, after the program I rushed to my computer and started researching this disorder and found out that my father fit nearly 100 percent of the description. I was amazed. All these years and I never understood what I was dealing with.
Now, they say knowledge is power, so I used my power to free myself from his vindictive nature. I spent a few days reading up on sociopaths, even purchasing a book on them. I read about how they don't care about other people and how they're manipulative. And then I out manipulated the manipulator. Life is good. I realize all the things he says and do is made to create pain and terror. They enjoy seeing you suffer. They don't like to feel that someone is doing better than them. The see pain and if they can't find it, they'll inflict it.
So, one of the things I do is to ask God to forgive me and then I make up a few things to let him know that I am suffering. I can actually hear the glee in his voice when I tell him the job is not doing well or that I'm lonely. I complement him often, making him feel supernaturally superior. This keeps him from wanting to argue. I really do hate doing this, but before I started hardly a day would go by without him arguing with me or making up stories to tell my family. I've chosen the lesser of two evils, but this one is far easier to live with.
That is great for you!!!
It always amazes me that out of abusive situations we can help each other grow in grace and freedom to be whom we were meant to be. God is not worries about these little things that we do to keep ourselves safe!!! He is glad that you ahve found some freedom from abuse. She meant for you to live life and share your unique gifts with the world. Not to be trapped with a parent who neither cares for you or wants the world to receive the blessing that is you.
I wish it was that easy with the narcissit. That kind of thing would only empower them more. Most therapist suggest NO CONTACT when one is dealing with a narcissist. When they grow old and ill, they get so much worse. There are some here trying to care for narcissistic parents whom they have not freed themselve of yet. That is just so sad. But we can only help the ones who really want the help.
sofia - I am so glad that you found something healing in what I wrote. I am working hard to find freedom so I can share my many gifts with those whom God puts in my path. Some listen (the fertile ground where the seed grows), some write hateful things (the rocky soil), some really nasty ones accuse with such obvious lies it is laughable (the rocky soil where the seed sprouts then dies fast).
It is up to them to learn or not.
I am very glad that you are looking for a job!!!!! HURRAY!
May I pray for you too along with Sunnybunn?
I will anyway. I am praying for a serious salary so you have to figure out how to invest some in a tax shelter (just kidding)!
God bless you with peace and employement
Harps
This morning I saw this on my facebook:
"You are not responsible for the programming you picked in childhood. However, as an adult, you are 100% responsible for fixing it".
The hard thing here is really to give hoping that our parents will approve of us and will all of a sudden try to compensate and love us enough to erase all the harm they did in the past. It won't happen. it's an illusion.
Whereas we've carried their burdens for years (burdens they should have been responsible for) but they look back and think they did a very good job as parents. What went wrong was the child's fault, even if the child was 3 years old - never theirs.
If I couldn't sleep at night, had horrendous headaches from the age of 8, was painfully shy (to the point that the school was worried), it was because they were unlucky. They got a broken child. It was never anything they've done.
They clothed us, they fed us, they sent us to school and that was their definition of a good parent.
When it comes to arguing with a narcissistic it's pointless. According to one of the books we have here they actually want us to engage in the argument. And they know exactly what buttons to push. We mustn't bite the bait and just reply with neutral answers "jee, I'm sorry you feel that way".
I feel sorry for my mother today (the anger has somewhat subsided thanks to coming to this forum). What a sad, sad, woman. Was never happy when others were trying their utmost to please her (my father - who would stand by her side when she was abusive towards me - my husband who tried his best and lost himself in the process and myself). Now she wants it all back to how it used to be, as if back then she was happy. Living in fantasy land must be quite something.
Claims he can read minds and that he knows more than his doctor or lawyer.