I'm tired of cooking/preparing 3 meals a day. It's just the two of us but boy oh boy can that woman eat!! She stays slimish, I get fattish. It's bad enough I do everything here much less start making her one thing and me the other. At times I feel guilty when I buy her fast food cuz of the nutritional value....not to mention I eat it too.
I can't imagine what it's like living so close to it
Those of us who come from dysfunctional/abusive families face additional difficulties when caregiving.the people who abused us. Relationship problems are the biggest part of it for us and are a very legitimate issue.
So, cw, I disagree with you. I don't think there are an excess amount of relationship threads here. I think there are the number of threads that reflect the needs of the members of this forum. If we were not caregiving mentally ill and abusive people, we would not need this kind of support.
way - I understand being between a rock and a hard place as regards caring for a narc parent. It is a very difficult spot to be in.
geaton - yes!!! Thank you.
I agree . The families with the pleasant elderly person who agrees to hire help to come in the house or go to assisted living when they need help are not needing to come here for the same type of issues as those with a narc parent . It’s difficult to understand what that is like unless you’ve lived it .
I’ve tried to steer new posters away from the ‘everything’ thread to ask their own question. Also urge them to complete a profile. Perhaps we should not run with everything that comes from ‘newbies’. It turns the general threads into a one-off complaints session, not really what was intended. My 'whine moment today' is starting to seem like something we should all go 'gray rock' on! Like the other general complaints.
As way says - if you haven't been there you really have no idea what people who are living it are facing.
It explains all the people with guilt here.
Guilt trips obviously were a common way of parenting back then .
Then when a parent needs you they rely back on their parenting ways .
geaton, EMDR does work to reduce trauma around specific memories according to what I have read and first hand experience of a therapist. I wouldn't know where to start with the traumatic memories. There are too many. But over time and with counselling they do not carry the same weight in my emotional life. And there is more to recovery than dealing with trauma. It's also a matter or relearning how to deal with your emotions, how to deal with people, communication skills , repairing self esteem and more. However, it can be done. People are resilient.
way - I'm not so sure it is a generational thing. I have known delightful people from my mother's generation. My grandmothers and grandfather were good sane people, All of my aunts and uncles were lovely caring people. My friend's mothers were kind and caring and normal. However, these days therapy is more openly accepted which it wasn't in those days. My dd asked me once why didn't our family go for counselling. I said there wasn't any. Even if there had been mother would not have gone. In her mind she was OK, it was everyone else who was the problem.
Golden I just looked that up EMDR that's interesting, I've never heard of it.
Waytomisery, I truly think Golden is right, I wish it was a generational thing. I ended up here because no one understood me and what I went through, with the guilt manipulation. So personally I think that really there isn't as much guilt used parenting , I think we just all end up here because we are desperately looking for answers and no one around us has them because they have never been though this.
Then I found AC, and it was extremely overwhelming to me. One minute I'm being loved bomb by strangers, when I didn't feel worthy of any of it, or being feeling like I'm stupid for not knowing what people thought I should already know.
Personally I get what they are feeling and I get where they are and if they want to vent a little at the beginning or if there not clear , or there punctuation is not perfect.I get it. They are so overwhelmed, by what what's going on in there life, there brain is thinking with emotions , not logic.
On top of everything I was going through, I have a learning disability that made it even harder to express my feelings.
Apparently this is not gooo]d for you or for her. She needs to become far more independent and she won't do that as long as you are catering to her.
What do you do?
1) You don't nag her. She knows by now what isn't good for her and what she needs to do to help herself. You nagging her is not helping you or her.
2) you stop doing those thing that are enabling her so if she wants food or anything else she can get up and get it herself,
3) when she expresses unhappiness about these change, walk away, Don't engage in any conversation and don't listen to her complaints (abuse?)
4) You don't have to explain or justify yourself. You can make a statement that you will not be doing x,y z anymore and then let it be.
You are the one who has to change to make this tolerable for you. At some point you may want to look into assisted living arrangements for your mother. Her health will not get better. With an older husband you need to be enjoying your time together now.
All the best going forward i a healthier direction!
I was woken up by Amazon delivery at 5:09 am this morning.
Yesterday was a busy day with R tackling all sorts of accident-related paper work. Forms, forms and more forms - police, insurance. medical...The printer was going like crazy and was misbehaving, which is not unusual, It's an old one. And I am the one do the printing and to resuscitate it, which sometimes takes a bit of work. After clearing the print queue many times, rebooting the computer and the printer, clearing the paper path, and finally finding that the connecting USB cable was failing and the ink was low, I ordered both from Amazon.
In the rush I neglected to tick the right box.
So I was woken up from a dead sleep at crazy o'clock in the morning by a call to buzz in the person delivering the ink. Aaaargh!!!
Thankfully, I went back to sleep.💤💤💤
We are experiencing same here, then ran out of paper.
But I have my flyer printed up early.
I usually console myself with the phrase:
"What can be done with paperwork can be undone by more paperwork."
The printer was given to us instead of throwing it away. My dH is in charge of keeping it running.
I like your phrase. lol.
I advertised on a Ft Mc site free furniture which includes a real leather chair and love seat in very good condition. Just pick it up at the arranged time.
Well long story short it didn't work out a couple of times with one person. I got the excuses, the health history, the child problems and so on, but no arrangement to pick up until I said too late. Then seemingly they found someone in 5 minutes.
So I got a long fb message explaining yada, yada yada. I sent one back saying it wasn't all about her. I had things to arrange to and if she couldn't follow up at the times she said, I couldn't deal with her.
I really wonder what this was really about.
On to the next person who wants it and hope I can get it done. I am relying on the good nature of the lady who has been cleaning and keeping an eye out on the place for me to be there to let people in to take the furniture and I can't waste her time and good will.
IMO R is not really ready to drive up even if I did some of the driving or we could do it. If we can move most of the stuff, before coming up, say next month when he is stronger, the rest will be one trip to the dump which I have a good company for and one trip to the Thrift shop, then bring a few things here. Sounds simple doesn't it, but when dealing with people it often isn't!
It seems to me it's a victim's "poor me" game.