notrydoyoda Posted January 2012
The Caregiver & Dysfunctional Families: How are you doing?
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Many of us, myself included, come from a dysfunctional family which adds a lot of weight to the challenges of caregiving. I have read stores on various threads on other topics and decided it would be good to have a thread just for this topic for people to share, vent and discuss.
The idea for this thread originated on the thread named "The Caregiver....How are YOU doing today?"
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The last private message that you were able to send me that got through was several months ago. I will inquire as to why that is.
I did have my sleep study and the narcolepsy side of the test was positive. The sleep study doctor ran out of ideas. He suggested a neurologist who I had already found given what the online Facebook support group encouraged me to do. He has a problem believing that someone 67 can be diagnosed with narcolepsy, but he treated me as if I do. I found a narcolepsy-specialized naurologist at Duke, but could not see him until June.
Somehow, the challenge to find a CCRC for all three of us to move to fell mainly to me and my SIL who I now call sis because that is due to the siblings that we have become. We at least have agreed on a city. One afternoon while sis and I were talking about the hospital in the city we picked, we almost simultaneously expressed looking there for a specialist. I have a number that keeps the national list of those specialized. 4 of them are at that hospital. One did a fellowship with my present neurologist who is ready to refer me because I need as he says a super neurologist.
Sis & I find ourselves having to clinical with my wife given her resent spending sprey of thousands of $ in 6 weeks. Her psych and therapist are addressing this & have communicated to me what to do right now. The last time sis was here she left depressed over our situation and heartbroken over what I have to deal with.
Years ago, sis & I became like the mental health Jedi for this side of the family. It was a matter of working together & live or stay apart & die, mentally not literally.
Now the push to find a CCRC is pressing. Oh, I'm sorry, a CCRC is a Continuing Care Retirement Center where one begins at independent living & then moves on as once has a need.
Our investment/finance man said we are in good shape for this. I know my sis is. This summer, sis gave me a major gift for my future that is to go to our boys if I die before them.
All of this and having to work together as a team again have meant that our platonic relationship has grown quite deep.
We have our boundaries which we repeat to each other often and we each agree that we never sought to be this close. But, here we are. It is so new, that is both very good and very frightening. Everything else but discussing us is easily done as wide open adult to adult. We only have these conversations face-to-face. Wow, do we have the freedom to communicate with each other without any stickiness. It gets intense at times, but our freedom that allows it to get intense is great! We sometimes passionately disagree and explain why, but we listen to each other and reach an agreed-upon conclusion. Sometimes, we are so straightforward with each other that if anyone walked in on us they would likely assume that our friendship was over, but nope, we are fine.
We don't attempt these "summit meetings" as I call them by email or on the phone. The last such meeting we had was at a retreat walking back to the cottage across a very long open field with a very strong wind. The strong wind provided us the privacy we needed so we talked.
However, when we try to discuss just us, we awkwardly stumble over ourselves and each other emotionally and intellectually. l am going to talk with my therapist about this today,
Anyhow, I think that what we are working on is so important and our ability to do so is so adult to adult, that we can just live with the awkwardness that we feel and let ourselves be guided by our boundaries while all of that stuff, I think will settle down. I am going to see what my therapist says today. I am of this view because of our almost 70s age and our health challenges likely mean this will be our final big effort to the benefit of all. We have known each other for about 40 years and starting with her fight against cancer in 2000, we became a team. I don't know if you have heard the term, ride or die person, but that's us.
It's great that you didn't get very sick with covid. How are those grandbabies? Look after yourself and keep us updated.
Spend the rest of your life focusing on you, not them – your healing, your strength, your joy.”
the people you'd take a bullet for
are the ones behind the trigger."
"If you stop telling lies about me,
I'll stop telling the truth about you."
So sorry to hear about your Covid ordeal. I hope you and your husband have a complete recovery.
Notrydoyoda last posted around the end of September.
Hopefully he will see your post soon.
I haven’t posted in a few months. A lot has been going on, mostly we both became sick with Covid. First my husband, he was coughing a lot on a Saturday, then the next day he slept on the couch. I tried to get him up but he refused. Because he had gone to Oregon on Saturday to get gummies, I assumed he was stoned but I kept trying to get him to go to bed. Monday came, no improvement. I discovered he had been urinating on the couch since Sunday. I called 911. EMT’s came out, my hubs oxygen sats were in the low 80’s,heart rate was up and down. They told me he had to go to the hospital. After getting our dog and cats settled, my daughter and I went to the hospital. We were told he tested positive for Covid, chest x-ray was negative for pneumonia. Glucose was as high as 400. My hubs had not eaten since Saturday nor had he taken his diabetes meds since Saturday he spent 10 days in the hospital and I tested positive 3 days after hubs was admitted. My case was very mild possibly because I keep up on vaccines and the last vaccine hubs got was March 2023. I don’t know if this has any reason why hubs got so sick.
Hubs still has Covid brain fog, he will be fine for a couple days, then he sleeps a lot and his brain is foggy. He has to have a cognitive test in a month. Even before he became sick with Covid, I noticed some small cognitive concerns with him. I shrugged it off as being retired… we can forget what day of the week it is since we aren’t living on a calendar schedule anymore.
have a good October and find joy in small things.
The next time someone is verbally abusive/toxic to you, ask them:
if they need to take a break so they can get a snack and calm down.
When my father died , my sister was doing the deep cleaning, I was doing the errands, appointments, and the everyday thing, like garbage.
My sister, disappeared ( now completely understandable) mom thought I was going to do the deeper cleaning. I told her straight up I'll clean what ever you want if you want to go watch Hallmark, and I'll happily "have at it" she did not like that one tiny bit! And that solved that issue, she never asked again.
But that didn't change her other manipulative control ways. Just the one issue. I thought I was setting boundaries and I was but they just find other ways to manage you. So watch out for the sneaky covert games
Move the office supplies out of the room .
When Mom balks , too bad . Look at it as an exercise for you , to stand up to her .
You can leave her some writing paper if she uses it . But don’t bring her envelopes . You take whatever she writes that she wants mailed out of the room and you take care of the envelope without her input .
Ignore her ranting .
"I should also note she doesn't like how I staple things or how I'll paperclip things. I opt to have the staples going horizontal and she wants them going on the diagonal. I mean, does it make THAT much of a difference?"
You realize you two sound like an old, bickering couple?...
It's like you're married to your mom.
As Bundle of Joy 🙂 recently wrote, when will your life belong to YOU?
That is up to you.
Until then, the two of you will continue to be like an old, bickering married couple...
She'll continue sucking years out of your life. She's not thinking about what is best for YOU.
The room she's stuck in is the room with the office supplies and box of blank envelopes and she watched me do everything. I didn't have too much of a choice. I did put my foot down regarding the 2nd envelope and she let it go.
I should also note she doesn't like how I staple things or how I'll paperclip things. I opt to have the staples going horizontal and she wants them going on the diagonal. I mean, does it make THAT much of a difference?
Why, oh why do they get like this?!?!
Maybe it's natures why so we are not so heartbroken. 🤔🤷
I then filled out the 2nd one. Everything was positioned to her liking, but got on me for my handwriting. She said my Ss looked like squiggles and they didn't look anywhere close to that. It was perfectly legible, but that didn't stop the criticism and like she did the other night following her criticism of writing her cheat sheet, she went on about italic calligraphy and had me google italic calligraphy. I have perfect handwriting. It's not like I have chicken scratch for handwriting. Plus, the insurance people aren't gonna care about my handwriting on the envelope. All they want is the check inside the envelope.
Stuff like that is why you have cases of adult children completely cutting off their parents and going NC with them.
“You can’t build with someone who isn’t trying to help you carry the bricks.”
"When does your life belong to YOU?"
🥰 “Hang in there. It is astonishing how short a time it can take for a very wonderful thing to happen.”
1. Wanting stuff
2. Accumulating stuff
3. Getting rid of stuff
——
🙂🙂 a friend of mine pointed out that this applies to people, too:
The 3 stages of life:
1. Wanting people
2. Accumulating people
3. Getting rid of people
“Sometimes people come into your life and they need to stop doing that.”
“Without freedom of speech, we would not know who the idiots are.”
“Beware of people who are in your circle but not in your corner.”
🥰 “I’m a very nice person, but for you I’ll make an exception.”
Anyways I told her if I do or don't get it, it won't matter, she is still going to need more help, with or without me.
“You can’t build with someone who isn’t trying to help you carry the bricks.”