Feeling like a child again with a bossy 86 yr old father and old issues of fear of him haunt me. I can never still please him, and I am 50 yrs old, but he treats me like his little 10 yr old baby girl. My Mum and I were always afraid of his rages (emotional abuse), and still are, she is 93. Any feedback would be appreciated.
The best you can do, in my mind, is to try to detach from his behavior. Tell him that you won't be treated with such a lack of respect and then walk away. If physical abuse is a problem, you may have to make arrangements for your mother and yourself away from him unless he has dementia, which may qualify him for nursing home care.
There are people on this community forum with much more experience on this topic than I have, so please keep coming back to check on their responses.
Good luck with this difficult situation.
Carol
The disease just does not allow them to reason anything out the way that we would. This is hard to deal with, but not much different than when I was a child. I could never be right then either and was threatened probably hundreds if not thousands of times that I would be disowned because she always had to have the last word. Just try to remember a lot of it is the disease, some of it is so ingrained in their personalities that it could very easily get much, much worse.
The counselor that I saw briefly a few years ago said that she knew it was extremely difficult to stay stuck in the same old family roles, and it is.
She was in her early 90s and wouldn't let her 70 year old daughter go out for lunch with friends. Mother would say "What if someone comes to the door?"
Trying to help someone that doesn't want help is an exercise in frustration and will affect your own health. Mother never invited the relatives to come. They just appeared there "to help."
if your dad is abusive and pushy its up to you to push him back. hes doing it because you let him. my mother respected me because i WOULDNT bend to anyones whims -- it made her feel safe and protected.
Its a great thought to give up your life to help your parents stay in their home as long as possible but the reality is your father is abusive and your mom (and You) is living in fear of what your dad might do every day in order to stay in their home. Is that really how you want your mom to live out her last days - In Fear!
Its very hard to do but you have to put your emotions aside and your hope that you can provide the care they really need so they can stay in a home and really look at the situation as it is. If you had a friend in the same situation would you really recommend the choice of having parents stay at home and the mom and the care giver live in fear just to accomplish this??
It sounds like it really is time to consider other alternatives where there are trained professionals who know how to deal with the abusive behavior of your dad and can provide a safe environment for mom so she doesn't have to live her last days in fear of your dad.