I hate that expression!
My "best" friend told me today even though my parents push me away and yell at me for trying to help that I should "be the bigger person" and go clean my father's squalor while my mom is in rehab
she poo poos anything I say ie they don't want me around, they berate me, they tell me not to visit or get involved. They never tried to help me or even cared about me just ignored me and focused on my sister who was constantly in trouble
she still says be the bigger person
Her mom died of cancer but she was never as difficult as my situation.
She got quiet when I said I didn't care at this point but will help if needed
Obviously she thinks I am a bad person. I don't agree
And get some new friends.
If she keeps on about it, insist that she meet you at your parents’ and let her clean up the mess while you watch. She should be the better person, right?
Do what you want to do.
How do you feel about yourself?
The way you feel about yourself and see yourself is what's important and all that truly matters.
Don't let anyone tell you who you are. You know who you are better than anyone.
You are the only person who gets to decide who and what you are and want to be.
Sometimes you have to let go of people who bring you down and only make you feel terrible. The weight of those people trying to drag you down will drag you down, cut the weight and free yourself.
They tell you not to enter their property. To do so would be trespassing.
Tell the Social workers/discharge planning office at the hospital what the condition of the home and the purported "caregiver" is.
Leave this in professional hands.
It's a win/win. Either she will see what you are talking about in terms of his impossible behavior OR he'll allow the cleanup to proceed because she is there.
I'm sorry they can't be there for you, if you otherwise value this friendship you can try to educate them, or you can choose to compartmentalize your life an never share your family struggles.
Take a break from your "friend". She's not very helpful, to say the least. Don't reach out. Just let her drop. Or you can forgive her for her ignorance, but I'd limit the topics of conversation. Don't talk to her about your parents. Ever.
Are your parents competent? If so, back off. Take a vacation. Turn your phone off. If there are things they are depending on you for, let them know you're done doing X and they need to find another way to deal with it. You should do this calmly and matter of factly, not angrily. Set the boundary. Agree with their desire to have you not do what you think (or know!) needs doing. Let them suffer the consequences of their crappy behavior.
If they're not competent, you can still back off but may instead need to keep an eye out. Find others to fill the needs that really need to be dealt with so you don't have to be berated for trying to help.
Best of luck.
So in your situation, you step away from your parents and tell yourself you are not doing anything for them ever again. Let Sis do it all. But then you get the call "we need help". You perfectly have the right to say NO. You sort of want to teach them a lesson that they hurt u not wanting ur help before. But you are the "The Bigger/Better person" because you choose to help them.
For now, you step back. I know its hard but thats what your parents want. You need to honor that. Just tell them when they need you call. Sometimes being the Bigger/better person is knowing when to walk away and just wait for something to happen where you can tell the powers that be that your parents can no longer live on their own.
Either way, the point is usually to project guilt, most likely.
In our situation - our flying monkey is my FIL's sister. Who lives over 10 hours away and hasn't seen him in more than 10 years. But I promise you she knows more about taking care of him than we do - and she - who has what she considers a great relationship with him - will tell my DH and SIL in particular that they should just suck it up and love on their dad because he won't be around forever (because he is HER hero, and she likes to pretend that she isn't aware of what kind of father he was - hint: the narcissistic abusive kind)
Very recently - enough that it is still pretty raw - she overstepped big time. She basically accused them of not taking something seriously enough. But she only knew what he was telling her - and what he was telling her wasn't the truth. It was a story from the mind of 90 year old man with dementia - who is very unhappy that he had to be moved to a nursing home. She accused DH and SIL of not loving their father and of not ensuring that he was well taken care of. And stated that clearly SHE was the only one that was concerned about his welfare.
Except she said all of that to ME.
With their permission - I simply and clearly stated that it was very easy for her to have a quick phone conversation with him from 10 hours away and feel like she knew everything there was to know. But SHE could walk away anytime she chose if they had any issues or problems. The same couldn't be said for my DH and SIL. She considers talking to him and interacting with him a blessing. DH and SIL consider it a responsibility. She has a very different relationship with her brother than his children do - and she just wants HIM to feel loved and special - while he treats his own children and grandchildren and everyone else around him terribly. And my favorite. "You should love him and respect him - even if he has NEVER SHOWN AND NEVER SHOWS YOU LOVE AND RESPECT. He's YOUR FATHER! He deserves your love and respect!"
That she chooses to believe everything he says as gospel and then accuses his children of not doing right by him when she doesn't have the full picture is problematic. And I basically warned her if that is the case, maybe talking to him all the time isn't good for either of them - because as his dementia progresses he is going tell her more and more outlandish things about the nursing home and about us, that if she continues to believe, will cause us bigger and bigger problems. (though I didn't say it at the time - the implication was that if she continued to cause problems - we had no issue blocking her number and password protecting access to him if we needed to because she was agitating him)
At first she blustered and said I misunderstood and she never said any of those things. Problem - she wrote them down. We all read them. I told her I allowed for tone and allowed for her to correct her statements and she doubled down. So I doubled down. Reminded her that SHE wasn't the caregiver and she had no idea how hard it was to actually be the ones who were here doing it all.
She thinks we are terrible people. We know it. We've made peace with it. But you know what. That's her problem. She wants access to him - she has to be nice to us. And I'm sure that kills her. Because she closed the door on really knowing us as people in favor of believing every word he says.
Some people are just judgmental. And don't know you well enough to know the truth. You know the truth. You are not a bad person! If they think you are, they don't know you.
I'll leave you with my favorite Dr. Seuss quote:
"Those who mind don't matter. And those matter don't mind."
When her mom passed away - a part of her world ended. Heck a part of mine did - she was a second mom to me. She was a very special lady. But never in a million years - even before we had to start caregiving for FIL - did I ever judge her for any of her thoughts or feelings about her mom as they were caregiving for her through Dementia. They went through hell for a number of years. Her sweet mama did not stay sweet.
Caregiving is HARD. Any frankly anyone who says it isn't - I wonder if they are really doing it or if they are telling the truth about their feelings. My dad was possibly one of the easiest people in the world to caregive for -according to my mom. And the few times I had to step in to give her respite - he never seemed to need as much attention as my FIL - but just the day in/day out of caregiving - even if you have the most wonderful person around - it still takes it out of you. And even though dad wasn't a difficult person to care for most days - that doesn't mean that caregiving for him was easy.
If someone is judging you because they don't think your attitude is right - that's on THEM - not you. The more I think about this - the more upset it makes me for you.
She's entitled to her opinion. But you are entitled to your feelings. I wouldn't ever share your true feelings on the subject with her again. She clearly doesn't have the capacity to understand or walk the journey with you.