Caregivers and Stress

[TruTexan]

Originally Posted by girl_dee

Thank you, and thank you for the PMs with lots of information.

For me, i DO enjoy her company, i can talk to my mom about anything. We love doing the same things, flea markets, garage sales and good ole trip to wal mart. i love that someone is around here, what i don't love is her smothering me.

She will apologize this way "go, go have fun, its not your fault you have a life and i don't" Thats her version of an apology.

She sits in pity land watching my neighbors come and go, She misses working. Work was her ONLY social activity. She still goes to visit people where she used to work and envies them. She just point blank hates getting old.

Is there some type of community center that is open to the elderly during the day near you so you can get your mom some activity going like being around folks her age and playing dominos and card games , bingo, etc. That tends to help if you can find some stuff for her to do during the day. Here where I live, the elders get together and do those things so they aren't stuck at home bored and such. They can visit and talk, etc. I kinda figured that your mom was as you described above. She's bitter about not being able to work. Heck, it might even help if you got her into therapy if you could so she can talk to someone else besides you about how she's feeling. My mom doesn't think she needs any help so I have no way to get her behavior any better, so It's me that gets the therapy.
I get you when you need to have a life of your own and need not to be smothered by your mom. I think I"d go nuts if my mom smothered me on top of all the other stuff that goes on. I KNOW I'd lose my coping skills in some way. When I Lived with her, it was worse than it is now, so I moved out, couldn't take it anymore. It's better than it was at least for now.

This past year, my sister bought a place that she remodeled, in TN down the road about 10 mins from her house, so she could try to convince mom to move into so she could be closer to her when she needed to be. I"m game for her moving, but mom is adamantly saying NO WAY. She doesn't understand that she can't afford to move into low income housing and her house is falling apart due to termites over the years. I"ve done all I can do with keeping if livable, but the time is coming soon that she will need to move out of it. Thanksgiving my sister will be here a week staying at mom's and I'm sure she's going to talk to her once again about her moving to TN to live in that home she got her and fixed up. It's in excellent shape and is on a beautiful piece of property. Mom could live there and not have to pay rent, just bills and if she can't afford all of them, my sister would help her pay them. I hope that she comes to realize that it's the ONLY option she's got. I can't help her financially.