Can’t find help; at a total loss

Thank you grammy82, simba2018 and ce1b for your comments and everyone for your support! Right now you are all I have to vent to. My husband is a wonderful and loving man, but there’s only so much a person can listen to, plus he’s a “fixer” and these things are not something he can fix so it can really stress him out and I don’t want to do that.

(Hopefully I will type properly, I am still seeing wavy lines and dark spots since I walked our dog a little bit ago; it hard for me to read or tyor because of it. Is that normal? Anyway…)

I talked to a counselor a few times before getting married. I was struggling so much then and my husband (at the time we were still dating) paid for my to see a counselor. She said some of the same things those here on the forum have said. It was after that a doctor started me on antidepressants.

I took a med for several years. I recently weened off them because they didn’t seem to be helping and seemed to make my physical symptoms worse particularly the tiredness. I have terrible fatigue and have had since childhood. Docs often attribute it to “negative thinking” or dehydration. I can drink water till my pee is clear. Doesn’t help. And of course a person will have negative thoughts if they feel like crap all the time, right? Grrr, their solutions frustrate me.

Right now I have too many thoughts (and too many wavy lines) to put things into words, but I appreciate everyone’s support and reading and responding to my comments and vents.

Hugs

To @1k194

Lots of truly excellent advice here! But, Where to start?
I tried to set up this post like a check list for you. Hope it helps!

I suggest you start with:
1. Grammy82's reminder that you are doing so much and you are great!
Keep repeating to yourself what she said.

2. Get help! Try these:
a. your church, your parents' church. Just cold call and ask if they help seniors.
b. your family: aunts, uncles, cousins, siblings.
Tell your siblings that you are maxed out for now, and that they need to step up now.
Try to give other helpers specific tasks at specific times: eg. pick up meds at drug store on Tuesday.
c. your local government, county, state. My county has a "Services for the Aging" department. (Maybe your daughter/husband could Google search this for you.)
d. your parents' health insurance. Are your parents getting every service available?
e. social worker- You might be able to find one through church, county, or insurance. A social worker knows the resources to get you help.
I probably should have put "social worker" first, because they can get you other helpers.
f. Hire help, if you can. Can your parents afford to pay?
Do your parents qualify for any home health aides under medicare or their health insurance?
It's faster to get paid help than to get volunteers.
Hire a cleaner for your house and theirs. Some cleaners will do bathrooms and kitchens for cheaper than whole-house cleaning.
Order groceries on line.
Get stuff delivered.
g. This suggestion is tricky.
Are your parents doing everything that they are able to do? Or are they leaving stuff for you to do? In other words, are they taking you for granted and adding work for you?
Maybe talk to your parents about how the current situation is not sustainable. Maybe they could do the "asking" of other people they know (their siblings who are your aunts and uncles) for help. Maybe they could call medicare, agencies, etc.
Maybe it's time to talk about nursing homes.
What do they need to be more independent of you? Move dishes to a lower shelf? Ask them to think about it, too, and you can help them set it up.

3. Give yourself a lot of slack.
Are you demanding perfection of yourself?
*Focus on the tasks that really matter: the sink has to be sanitary, but the floor doesn't.
*Do the minimum effort and time on a chore. The sink needs to be sanitized, but it doesn't need to shine.
*You need to cook, but it doesn't have to be from scratch.
See if you can get casseroles from church volunteers or "Meals on Wheels" for your parents.

*****
I have been in a similar situation: my own bad, mysterious health and taking care of parents and my own kids and husband. You are in a tough spot. It can be hard to know where to start. I hope this "checklist" post helps.

Good luck! Keep your chin up. : )

Thank you all for the virtual hugs 🙂

Thank you Anne for the suggestions. The
caregivers for my dad are my mom, my brother who lives with them and works full time and myself. Sometimes one of our sisters also watches my dad sometimes, but she also works full time. There is no one else in the family to help. I have asked for things a couple times from siblings…we are not able to count on them. There is no one else as far as family. We have tried in home help from healthcare providers; it did not pan out. They are either not covered by insurance or are not what we need. I am still working on finding in home help. There is a social worker from my parents primary care provider who has helped us.

Still waiting, trying, to figure things out….

Hi 1k194,

Geez, sounds like you have tried a lot !

Do you have the energy to circle back to the undependable sisters? If you do-- or if your brother or your mother have the energy-- then maybe try these 2 ideas:

1. The only way I got substantial help for my mother from my siblings was to have an outright hissy fit. I told them I was at the end of my rope and they had to step up. I used a group text message so they all knew. It's been about 10 years since that happened, and it still upsets me.

2. More recently, my therapist suggested to me that I make a list of specific tasks (with deadlines) and ask who will do the task. (This is for help for me; my mother has since passed.)

Maybe you, your mom and brother could keep a running list of chores in a notebook for a little while. Then look it over and offer tasks to the siblings. Have your mom and brother talked to the other sisters? Maybe your mother or brother could spearhead the requests? Start the undependables off with chores that don't matter much.

I suppose it's conceivable that the undependable sisters don't know/understand how much help your dad and mom need. If you give them a list, then they will know for sure...and they will have to face up to the fact that they are not doing their duty by their parents. In fact, they will have a list of the ways that they aren't doing their duty. At that point, it's on them and their conscience.

I'm so sorry that you have to go through this, too. It's frustrating in the moment and heartbreaking over time...

Wishing you good health and lots of energy!

Thank you all.

I didn’t know whether to start a new post.

I’m having a really bad day. Yesterday was exhausting. I took my mom to an appointment. Sounds simple, right? I can’t explain it all…it would take hours, but being with my mom all day is absolutely draining.

I am so angry. I am so done. I am miserable. Worst is that my husband is miserable. I don’t know how to fix it.
We have our own mental and physical struggles. Maybe everyone does. But it’s all we can do to deal with our own problems. Now, once again, my family is bogarting me. I feel consumed. Used. Hopeless. My parents can’t help their health situation. So I’m a terrible person to feel irritated about the stress it’s causing. My brother is worse off…he lives there. And he doesn’t have an incredibly supportive and loving spouse like I do. So I shouldn’t complain.
But I’m not handling it. I’m angry…all the time. I blow up at little things. I hate myself to begin with…I can’t tolerate myself like this.
We (my husband and I) feel lost; exhausted; depressed; just going through the motions.
He’s still on the med he’s taken for over a decade. I don’t think it’s enough/the right thing. I’m no longer on meds; but I feel like I need it. My husband says “he has his wife back” since I went off the meds because more of my personality is back, I guess. I don’t feel well. I don’t think I can deal with life without chemicals numbing my brain/emotions.
I vent here because counselors are expensive and time consuming. I’m back to wanting to stay in bed or give up trying, like I was before I met my husband. I love him more than anything in the world; I’m failing him and I can’t stand it.
There’s no solution.
I have a responsibility to my parents and brother. They need help; in many ways. I’m so inadequate.
But the most important thing is my responsibility to my husband. He deserves a wife who puts him first and is there for him. I’m so inadequate and failing at that (though he is too good of a person to ever admit that to me; even when I’ve asked). If I fail at that; if I fail him…life isn’t worth living;….and I am failing him.

Like @annewoodmayo mentioned, you need help. Who it might end up being, how you get it, is irrelevant right now. The thing is, today you need help in the worst way! You sound exhausted, physically, emotionally, mentally. You can't be a good person to yourself, let alone anyone else, until you solve at least part of the situation.

Is there a faith community you are part of, who can recommend some help for you? Can you tell your non-participating family members today that they need to step up to the plate and take over some dutues before they have no choice? Can you call a family meeting over Zoom if not everyone is local? [I recall having a sibling meeting over a conference call]

In my family, it seems like it was the opposite. We had members who were willing to step in and help, but one person decided that she would "do it all herself". Of course it became too much, but she wouldn't back down. It wrecked a lot of our family dynamics. Resentments exist even now, more than 10 years later. How far the pendulum swings!

Life is indeed worth living, remember that. You deserve to have help.
Ginger

It sure doesn't sound to me that you are "inadequate" in any way.
Sounds to me like you are climbing Mt. Everest without a sherpa guide.

I completely understand about one day=complete exhaustion. Been there, done that, felt that, too.

I hope some other readers offer their opinion on the suggestion I am about to make, because I'm not sure if it is any good.

Is it time to try again with the paid help?
None of my relatives (mother, mom-in-law, aunt) liked paid help.
Some of the aides were really good, some were OK, none-- that we had-- were outright bad.
For a period of a few weeks, my mother absolutely could not be left alone in her house. When I was at the point of desperation, none of my siblings stepped up, so it had to be paid help, covered by insurance. So, tough beans for my mom, I got some paid help. I had to. Turns out, one lady was fabulous!

Sounds to me that you have reached the point where I was. You just have to take whatever help you can get now, whether you and your folks like it or not...
Are your standards too high?

I hope this doesn't sound too harsh. I'm trying to channel the "fabulous lady aide" mentioned above. She bossed me right out of my mother's house (!). It took me about 20 minutes to realize that she was absolutely right to do so! Sometimes you need somebody to "boss" you into a sensible, necessary course of action.

Ginger and other readers, what do you all think?

Good luck! hugs!

Thank you all for continuing to post with your support and suggestions! It really is the only “outsider viewpoint” I have right now.

I definitely think we need help! I’ve been trying to find some. Trying my best to find one covered by my parents insurance. It’s been tough; exhausting; disappointing. They had one place for about two weeks; turns out they didn’t actually “qualify” (someone apparently mislabeled paperwork or pushed it through when they weren’t supposed to) and service was dropped. I’m still looking. Had a social worker from my parents primary doctor helping us to find in home care, but haven’t heard back for awhile. Gonna try to call her today.
The service they had wasn’t really helpful anyway. My dad wouldn’t cooperate with the bath aide and there was no provision for someone to regularly stay with him while everyone else left.

I’ve been trying to analyze why I’m so very angry. I think a big part of it is the lack of cooperation or acknowledgment on the part of my mom and other relatives. There are things that could be done in physical ways (safety issues in the house, clutter that needs to go, repairs that can’t be done till the clutter goes) and in practical ways (mom take a nap or leave the house when someone is there to give her a break, her let things go that are trivial and don’t need argued with my dad…). I’ve tried the gentle approach and I’ve tried the “slap them in the face with reality” approach. Nothing works. I know that my mom and brother who lives with them are incredibly exhausted and stressed! I know that. But when someone offers solution after solution and nothing is cooperated with…..ahhhhh! there’s no word strong enough to express how frustrating it is!
I feel like I’m the only one who is practical or reasonable.

I’ve tried to see things from their point of view. And I just don’t understand why when someone offers a solution, they won’t move forward with it.
I’ve been on my own with dad too. Both times he was in a hospital for days (first was an ulcer; second time with covid) it was since he’s had Alzheimer’s and I was exhausted. I had to stay RIGHT on top of everything there because he couldn’t speak for himself or take care of himself (including in the bathroom) and the staff kept messing up what meds they were trying to give and if I hadn’t stopped them, they would have given (and did a couple times) stuff he wasn’t supposed to have! (That really upset me, but that’s another story).
The last time I literally got no sleep. By the time we went home, I had been up for 60 hours. So, I know. I know exhaustion can and does make you not think right.

But if someone offers to make things better, why refuse it?

I am willing to do the legwork of clutter clearing, house repairs and making schedules to get everything delegated so no one person gets overwhelmed. ….. but no one’s wants to make changes or work in cooperation.

My parents health situations are incredibly stressful and sad in and of themselves….but I think all the other stuff that is making the taking care of them so needlessly difficult is what makes me so angry.

Of course you are angry. Who wouldn't be?

Sounds like you may have written out enough of your ideas to come to a recognition of why you feel so angry by the end of your post. That's a really good thing. 🙂

Do you know the Serenity Prayer? It makes a lot of sense from a psychological angle, even if you don't much believe in the prayer part. It goes something like: let me know what I can control and what I can't control and to know the difference.

You are angry because they are making your job harder. You have tried to "control" (reason with) them, both nicely and strictly, and it hasn't worked. So for now, they should be considered one of those things "I can't control."

You can control your "job."
If they won't cooperate about item X, then you should take item X off your list-- at least for now. Let them see the result of not doing item X, and maybe in a few weeks they will cooperate. It may be really, really hard for you to NOT do item X. You seem sensible and dutiful, but you have to let it go. You need to take care of / protect yourself, too.

You can (try) to control your reaction to their not cooperating. This is sooo much easier said than done! Maybe make up a little chant to repeat to yourself when you feel yourself getting angry about item X.
"This is their choice, not mine."
"They've made their bed, now they have to lie in it." "They own this problem now; it's not mine to worry about anymore."

I'm not suggesting that you just dump your parents. I am suggesting that you dump the things that you cannot change. You can't change it, so give it up, for your own health.

****

Have you tried to lure in the undependable siblings with compliments?
"Sis, you are so good at X (housekeeping/cooking/record-keeping/money/ chatting with dad to cheer him up),
can you do X next week [time frame]? Oh, you can't do it next week, then when works for you?"

*****
Typing up your last post seemed to help you work through your ideas and come to a conclusion about your feelings. Have you ever tried writing in a journal?
Writing things up on this site might continue to be helpful since you can get ideas from other people in similar situations...

Good luck! We are here for you! : )

This is just a funny anecdote about how good some of the aides are...

After surgery, I wasn't allowed to go to the bathroom by myself. And, I absolutely did not want to get out of bed to take a shower.
I called the aide when I needed to use the toilet. While I was on the toilet, she said, let's wash your face...It felt good. Then she said, let's wash your neck and front, as long as you're here...It felt good. Then she said, as long as your gown is off, why don't you step into the shower? And I did.

When I got back in bed, we had a good laugh together about how she tricked me into doing what I didn't want to do: take a shower! And that had been her plan all along! She really knew her job and her way around uncooperative patients (me!).

It still makes me laugh!

I think I forgot to mention in one of my earlier posts about aides, that eventually my mother also came to appreciate them, too, especially the lady who shooed me out of the house! That's still a funny recollection for me. I kept trying to get around the kitchen table back to my mother, and the aide lady kept shooing me out with a dish towel, like I was a bothersome gnat-- which I was at that time. That lady also knew her job well.

Take it easy! 🙂 , or as easy as you can!