I am the difficult neighbor, I am the difficult employee, I am the difficult family member. I hate my life and I hate myself nowadays.
My older sister moved out of state 40 years ago. My older brother moved out of state 35 years ago. When Mom got older and had physical problems, I moved back, both for her and for my child who needed a home to start adulthood in (I was in the Army then).
I have a job that asks for 150% effort due to Federal government deadlines. Mom can't walk well and a physical therapist is beginning to come to our home twice a week. My 21-year-old grandson moved in with us, and frankly, he's pretty much useless around the house and home. I'm tired. I'm tired of having to unpack gifts from brother and sister to my Mom and having to bag them, wrap them, or put them in a vase and water. I'm tired of having to buy all the groceries. I'm tired of nobody giving me suggestions for what to make or buy for dinner. I'm tired of working for a thankless government job. I'm tired of Mom asking me to buy and pack gifts for her out-of-state children, of her insisting I find the right storage container, making dinner her way, hearing her complain of her minor aches and pains. I have lost all my friends and any kind of social life at all.
And really, it has come to the point that I just about hate everybody. I feel like I am going crazy,
I applied for Medicaid for her, she will be going to a nursing home probably within 30 days. I don’t feel guilty anymore. Something to think about. You owe yourself a life!! If no one around you is helping, they can go too!! Be kind to yourself. Stay on this site, you will have a lot of support.
Or just keep posting here. Really, just keep posting.
As far as hating yourself, and your life, and everyone else?
You are not going crazy. And, admitting to feeling "hate" is just fine.
I feel the same way sometimes.
Please, understand. It may be your nature to believe that if you try hard enough then you can solve all problems, and that if you run into insurmountable roadblocks, you feel you failed.
It's all based on lack of control. Lack of being able to make things happen and get past incompetent people.
I have had increasing self-loathing since my mother became very ill and now is in a nursing home.
I think I understand what you are asking.
It probably feels like hate, but maybe it's extreme frustration from not being able to control what's happening, and feeling as if you should be able to make it all better, or at least not worse.
My totally uneducated guess is that you worked very hard on your education and getting a job you liked, and then....BOOM....at some point, family issues came in like an asteroid and blew up your world.
And, that's okay. It happens to a lot of us.
I'm really not trying to diminish your concerns. I have to take my mother to outside doctor appointments in a wheelchair with oxygen attached, and a secondary rolling oxygen tank. Not exactly physically easy.
Every time, when I can't handle the wheelchair and get a doctors' office door open or bump her into a wall, I say.....because there are always people there.... "I am sorry, I really suck at this." I don't know why I say that, because mostly people try to help me. But, I feel as if should be able to handle it on my own, and I feel like a failure when I cannot.
That's....I think...maybe....what you are feeling. It feels like self-loathing, and maybe it is, at the time.....but it's really being overwhelmed with being asked to do what we cannot do, on our own, and not being used to failing......not being used to being not in control.
I think that I understand. And, I'm just a regular person.
Keep posting.
Your grandson is 21. He's sort of supposed to be borderline useless. Does he have a full-time job? In addition to being gainfully employed, grandsonny boy must learn to become a man. Whose teaching him how to do that? Whose his role model??
Getting back to your mother. Recognize that the more you enable her to not do things for herself, the more you are disabling her. Of course you're tired. You're acting like her personal assistant. And that's a full-time job on top of the full-time job you have with the government, which provides you with good benefits and retirement? If you want to reach and enjoy retirement, stop forgetting about yourself, Forgotten, and *decide* to put yourself first for a change.
Stop asking for suggestions for meals. Cook what you want. If the others don't like it, they can learn to do for themselves.
Stop buying groceries for everyone. Buy what you need. If the others want groceries they can learn to do for themselves. Most grocery stores have online ordering and delivery.
Stop acting like the USPS. Your mother has plenty of time on her hands and so I don't understand why you're doing these things for her.
Stop being her personal shopper. Can she use a computer to browse online retailers? If not, there are a *ridiculous* number of catalogs she can browse for gifts and have them shipped to her out-of-state-children.
Stop finding containers. Show her the website to the Container Store, where she can find the right container for every single purpose. If they don't have it, it probably doesn't exist.
I know this may seem as though I'm making light of your situation but really I'm not. Your situation sounds to me like it's exhausting. You may be asking yourself "How the heck did I get here"?? You're wondering if someone will understand. And I do understand, along with so many other people on this forum.
I also know that the longest journey begins with a single step. Your journey to remembering who you are, what you want, and how you want to live your life begins with a single step: doing something good for yourself. And today, that may have been asking your question on this forum, where you will get lots of support.
I am not the kind of person who wants to be admired and applauded. Caregiving to the point that you have reached, is unhealthy and, in my opinion, that is nothing to admire or applaud.
As 1954 wrote - "keep posting". You are not alone. We care.
I decided I wasn’t going to be treated that way anymore. I push back big time now and they think I am being mean. I told them if they are not going to be positive and part of the solution I don’t want to hear it? Those that are able can wash there own cloths. I made a list and stuck it on the fridge. I would find someone to go have coffee with but after 10yrs of care giving I don’t have a list of people I can call. So I go on my own. It is very hard and lonely and frustrating but I want you to know that you are not alone.
Contact department of aging and ask ask them for help. They can arrange for someone to come in and help to give you a break. They can also arrange for care so you can have a vacation even if it is a stay vacation. They have been a lifesaver for me.
and I just want to say thank you for your service.
You have performed all these duties to the extent that you may have burnout.
You need to stop, and save yourself first.
Don't try to do things perfectly. You'll always fail. Do the best you can and let the chips or packages or recipes or whatever you are trying to do perfect fall where they may.
I know of what I speak. I've always been a perfectionist. I think I inherited that quality from my Mom who I took care of imperfectly. In the end, all you can do is the best you can.
Like that old stupid saying goes. Don't hate the player, hate the game. In this case you are the player( in case that didn't go without saying. )
I also doubt if your brother and sister know how you feel about the ‘presents’. They probably don’t have a clue, because they wouldn’t be sending them if they knew how you feel. One step you could take is to let them know. Perhaps you could write something along the lines of this: ‘I was talking to someone I met about how mother likes most of your presents, but how they have turned into a real problem for me... particularly when she insists that I organise presents for her to send in return. The suggestion I got was that I should really explain it to you, so I am going to try. Please don’t be offended, but it’s like this….”. Include suggestions for some other things they could do, including phoning at agreed times that you think would be good, and also something that you would enjoy too – for example paying for a take-out delivered dinner from the best joint in town.
With luck they will respond helpfully. Don’t send the first draft you write, and keep it nice. With even better luck they might be more understanding of how this is working out for you, and find other ways to be supportive.
There is no way to make this problem (or the trials in your job) go away completely, but try to chip away at difficult bits if you can. Little wins can be a real boost.
Everyone will save time and money changing this tradition of gift giving.
There is no need to explain how hard it is on you. It leaves you open to criticism if any in your family are narcissists.