Does anyone else deal with depression from being a primary caregiver?

Thanks sandy, you know how I feel. I'm 45 and love my dad to bits but i was thinking my needs were not important to other people. We always think of ourself last. Dad of course doesn't understand but everyone else does. Social services great and nurses wonderful.At last I feel I can breath again, he was being very suffercating with his attention. This included unwelcome touching and affection,the sort not wanted or expected by a male relative. I found that i could not relax in his company. Dad had been living with me for 5 years and the last 2 have been at times unbearable.

Tina,

I think a whole generation was raised to not value our own needs, but to swallow our feelings and focus on the needs of others at the expense of our own.

That was me growing up and for years later for my mother had absorbed me emotionally into herself to meet her emotional need without ever meeting mine which she did voluntarily admit to 20 years ago or meeting my dad's emotional needs or her second husband's emotional needs which she has not clue.

I'm glad you can breathe. Breathe and let all of that toxicity from stress that's built up in your muscles, etc. just flow out bit by bit.

Wow Tina...that is an icky predicament..and a mind blower as well!

your telling me it is icky had to seek help because it was freaking me out. Dad sees nothing wrong but my whole family have given me the support I need. I am now closer to my sister than I have felt in a long time, she has pushed me to realise I am entitled to a life .

Tina - you did the right thing by getting out of that situation. Bless your sister for her support. No one needs a life of misery. We didn't ask for any of this. If the caregiver doesn't get help, then someone will have to care for them. It isn't worth it.

Thanks to everyone for their support. I hope that people in the same situation as me ask their family and out side help facilities for the help that they will need to put a stop to this behaviour. It is very distressing to admit to what is happening and it took me a long time to even tell my husband. God bless him, he's been very supportive. He is now encouraging me to make a new life and hopefully keep some sort of relationship with my dad.
Dad been for a scan today to see if he has the dementia.I go to the hospital every day to visit. Soon he will be in a home and i am looking forward to the future.

I have been on meds for a very long time and I know I can't function without them. I have no other alternative for my mom and so I will just have to deal with it. I do think about drinking sometimes though. Maybe I think I'm paying for my past sins. And, I love my mom so much and she is sweet and grateful. tina, I am proud of you. Your situation had to stop.

I can't function without my meds and not doing so well lately at their current level along with just being told by my psychiatrist that I'm self-institutionalizing myself but will not increase my anti-depressant because he's afraid of mania. A little mania would be much preferred.

I don't think any of us are like paying for some past sins although it might feel that way.

If I am paying for past sins then I must be overdrawn at the bank.

Tina, believe me you aren't paying for past sins. My mom is and always has been a heavy smoker and due to this, she now has emplysema, chronic COPD, osteoporosis, congestive heart failure, dementia and chronic cough. Due to the CHF she can barely walk and if we take her out we now have to use a wheel chair because she can only walk a few steps at at time - (but she manages to walk to the front door and out on the porch to smoke). My sisters and I have never smoked but growing up both parents did. Dad died from all of this in 2001. He stopped smoking 10 years before he died and luckily kept a clear mind until he died although the damage was done to his body. Now Mom is still smoking and due to this and what it has caused, us daughters are having to take care of her needs as she 'is not able' to even take a bath by herself. She forgets to flush the commode, she doesn't want us to wash her hair or take a bath so it's a battle that we go through to do these things. If we mention quitting smoking, she has a fit. So it is the sins of the parents, not the sins of the children that puts us into this role.

I can relate to feeling like I am paying for past sins---I have felt that way myself--- and it is so helpful to read here that someone else felt that way, and that we shouldn't. And Sandy, when I read your post about your mother and her smoking, it is like a deju vu for me. My mother smoked so much that she had a pack right by her bed and would light up before she even left the bed in the morning. She also developed COPD and congestive heart failure, and eventually lung cancer. It was the lung cancer that took her in the end; she died a year and a half ago. ( miss her!) She was a great lady, but boy was she controlled by those cigarettes! Mom used to say it broke her heart to see young people smoking. She knew she had done this to herself. She finally quit at about age 70, and that probably gave her a few more years than she would have had, but so much damage had already been done. i am sorry you are going through this with your Mom now...I know how heartbreaking it is to see our mother so weakened. The addiction is sooo strong---hence why she is still smoking. Mom used to tell me that she never got over the addiction; the pull was always there. Toward the end of Mom's life, she was desperately trying to extend her life; on the doctor's orders she started "working out" at a pulmonary gym, and she'd be on the bike with her oxygen tank and tubes hooked up to her. I went with her one time to watch her ( tried to make it a fun outing) and it was all I could do to hold back the water works.

Anne, my mom will never stop smoking as long as she can get them. She spends $40 per carton and smokes 3 a month. She said it was the only pleasure she had. She has given up, wants to 'go be with daddy' in Heaven. We have tried for 3-4 years to get her interested in something, such as TV, reading her Bible ( which she used to love), folding clothes or anything to do with her hands. But she refuses anything now. She admits she has 'given up'. Now she had dementia with paranoid hallucinations. Thinks the TV people are talking to her; thinks she hears people talking to her and no one is there. Thinks someone is going to hurt her or hurt us. Nothing we do or say makes it any better. I am so glad I don't smoke. My mom is only 17 years older than me. I am now 61 and she is 78. She got married so young, had 3 girls in 3 years. My sisters and I are old getting older and are not able to handle the situation any longer. Mom has agreed to an assisted living but when that days arrives, we wonder if she will fight it.

Sandy48,

The continuation of these psychotic breaks with reality also known as auditory hallucinations means her anti psychotic medicine needs adjusting by her doctor. It would be good idea to accomplish this before she goes to assisted living. For some people who struggle with these psychotic breaks, they find smoking a comfort.

Thanks Crowemagnum - I never thought of that. Her anti psychotic med is Risperdal. She was having these auditory hallucinations before going on it and I definitely can't tell the meds have helped at all. She is taking 0.5 mg of it now.

Funny you should say sins of our parents. I feel totally opposite.

My mom has said her rosary for many a year. Even now she ask someone to hand it to her so she can pray. I really don't even know if she says complete our fathers, or hair mary's but she does something.

For many years when I wasn't being quite the ideal person, good things would happen to me. Sometimes when I had no money, a check would just appear out of nowhere. Sometimes when I would feel alone, someone would call and say "come on over". Sometime when my sonz weren't being to well behaved, all of a sudden they would become someone special all over again.

Now for many years I just thought it was luck, then one day my mom and I had a conversation and she told me she prays for me and my family all the time. It was then that I knew that through her prayers God was seeing me through. Certainly it wasn't because of me praying, because at that time I wasn't.

Depressed yes I am depressed because after all that praying my mom did for me, now she needs God to see her through.

So praying is what I continue to do. There is power in prayer, there is power in believing and I have to believe that. Maybe there will be no miracle, but I will settle for peace.

Sandy48

Taking 0.5 mg of Risperdal is entry level for this med. Doctors do tend to prescribe lower doses to older people though. Please take some time to research this med online for it does have some important possible side effects at higher levels.

i believe in rosary !! i always felt comferts in those , i truely believe it . i shall go find it ! i had forgotten all about it ! i think its in one of my bible i had when i was a child , i kept it in there . mm now u said it and im gonna go find it cuz i sure need it !!!
thanks pamela !!

One of my mom's med's is this.

Sandy - I like how you put that about 'sins'!!!!

Tina and everyone else after reading the past several posts I felt like saying

GROUP HUG

Are rosarys CATHOLIC tools of prayer or can other religions use them?

Rosarys are Catholic tools, but not restricted to Catholics. Not in this day and age.

Good because I just bought one.I didn't want to offend any CATHOLICS.

For me? Everything has always been all right, so there is no reason to thnk or believe that it will not be in the future!

What a lovely thought.

oh gosh i am so bored . i dont feel good i have no enegry left out of me . alli want to do is sleep .
pa s been awake ovr 24 hrs big bright eyes . am waitin for him to sleep for 2 days . i think i ll sleep for 2 days . i am so cold and freezing , lazy , tired , gotta cook supper too . whats to fix ? nothing sounds good . :-(
i wonder if that is a sign of depressions sinkin in ? i sure do feel down ...

I know alllllllllll those feelings!!!!!!! Think SPRING!!!!!!!!!! KNow that everything is going to be all right! You are doing just fine!

Yes, lhardebeck, that's depression. I can spot it a mile away or farther. Just get through today and maybe tomorrow. It will lift. I know it. :) Hang in there. Do something that makes you smile. Hugs to you!!

Yes, lhardebeck. That's depression. I can spot it a mile away or farther. Just get through today and maybe even tomorrow and it will lift. I know it. Do something that makes you laugh or smile. Hang in there!! Hugs to you!!

Sorry about the double post. I'm so bad about that. :P

thanks u guys , i just think i neeed to go back to sleep . ah now i hear pa hollarin , prob needs t o bathroom . hahaha

hardebeck......hugs...yep it gets to be where you are just a caregiver...and I pay my mom's 20 bucks an hour...but then I am there on Sunday practically all day...hey where's my 20 bucks an hour...lol..

How about comfort food, perhaps papa will like that too:

mac n cheese (even nukable ones are good)
scalloped potatoes ( the box ones are just as good as homemade)
steamed veggies (fresh veggies cheap at the 99 cents store)
fried fish (Lousianna fish fry - no salt pkg - dip Talipa fillets in a mixture of 1 egg and cup of milk -dip in fish fry fry in light Wesson oil - fast and easy)
german hamburgers (kinda like mini meatloafs - ground beef, minced onion, eggs, bread soaked in milk, salt/pepper, paprika - shape into fat patties and fry)