If you feel guilt for not visiting your mother with dementia, then go visit her! Every single person living in managed care of any kind needs an advocate to make sure they're being properly taken care of. You don't have to stay all day, or even for hours on end, but it's a good idea TO visit and pop in to see that she's okay.
Nobody "enjoys" making these visits, they're very difficult, but also very necessary for a variety of reasons.
Posting a 7 word title only isn't going to get you many useful comments bc you're not proving any details about why you aren't visiting.
I welcome you to the forum. Complete questions with details will get you great detailed and varying answers. Brief sentences which tell us nothing will get simple brief answers to the best of our abilities.
As to guilt in general? I ask myself two simple questions: "Did I CAUSE this?" If the answer to that is "yes", then I ask myself "Can I FIX this?" If the answer is yes, I do so. I wish you the best.
Why do you not visit? You don't say why. Does your mother behave abusively to you when you're there? Does she work herself up into hysterics begging and demanding to go home?
No one can really give you any advice here unless you tell us why you don't visit.
Every resident in a managed care setting needs someone to visit regularly to ensure their care remains good. The staff needs to see this is a person who’s cared for, it has the side effect of helping them to care more. If this cannot be you, I hope someone else is acting in this role. Guilt is largely a useless emotion, unless a person has truly done wrong. You may be feeling sad it can’t be better or trauma from old wounds, perhaps some therapy might be of help. You may also consider visiting mom without her seeing you, some here have done that, peeking around a corner, seeing that she looks dressed, fed, and cared for, checking in with the staff, and then leaving. I wish you peace
I'm not sure why you're feeling any guilt when perhaps it is instead grief that your feeling as you watch your mother decline. People often get those 2 words mixed up. So call it what it is....grief, and go visit if and when you want to. And if you choose to not go at all, that's ok too. You can call the nurses station and check on her if you want to know how she's doing. It's hard when you're dealing with someone with a broken brain and there are no right or wrong answers as everyone deals with things differently. Wishing you peace in whatever decisions you make.
I don’t know what to say to you. I suppose you have your reasons for not visiting your mom.
Do you check in with the staff about how she is doing?
I felt badly when I stopped visiting my godmother in her nursing home. She went blind from macular degeneration and her Alzheimer’s disease was had progressed to an advanced stage. She didn’t even know who I was anymore, so I felt like my visits weren’t helpful.
You are equally as important as your mom and if you feel that you simply cannot visit then accept how you feel.
Let us know if there is anything else that you want to discuss. There are many posters on this forum that will relate to how you feel.
What is the question? I suppose I am not looking correctly for your question. Anyway, yeah it's a bummer. No idea how far away you live or the dynamics of your family. Attempt to think ahead like five or ten years; would you be okay with yourself for not visiting? You might do it once/every three months or something just a suggestion. Are you okay with your kids avoiding you in this way should it dare god happen to you? Yeah. I've been through the crap of my Mom's alzheimer's she died in '18 then my dad who never gave one fart about me needs me now. Great. all the drama with his caregivers bullsh*t This is Life. I just have to laugh at how ridiculous it is, my a hole dad leaving my mom and me on foodstamps no child support now here I am. Paying out of my pocket for his ass.
Forgive me my friend if I speak plainly but, OH HELL NO You are not paying for his care out of your pocket!?!
That stops TODAY. If he cannot afford homecare, he goes into a care facility no if's and's or but's about it.
My father was very similar to how you describe yours only he left us in poverty with our mentally ill, abusive, manipulative narcissist mother. When he became needy, he went to a nursing home. I did in-home caregiving for 25 years as my employment for more care clients than I can even remember, and he went to a nursing home. I was a decent advocate for him. I made sure his finaces didn't get fleeced by the nursing home, but I didn't take care of him myself and I've never had a moment of guilt about it either. I did nothing wrong and neither did you.
You don't owe your father a damn thing. He abandoned you and your mom when he wasn't sick and needy. Remember that. The fact that you even have any relationship with him speaks to your credit as a human being. Not his. So you don't pay one moment of attention to any caregiver drama. You don't listen to one second of complaining or one moment of orneriness. Make sure your father knows that you will be fine with putting him in a nursing home and walking away just as he walked away from you and your mother.
I often have a message for so many parents who don't take their family responsibility to raise, love, and decently provide for their children seriously. That message is if you aren't around when your children need you don't expect them to be when you need them.
If a parent planted a field of resentment and indifference, they will not get a crop of love and compassion when harvest time comes.
Nobody "enjoys" making these visits, they're very difficult, but also very necessary for a variety of reasons.
Posting a 7 word title only isn't going to get you many useful comments bc you're not proving any details about why you aren't visiting.
Complete questions with details will get you great detailed and varying answers. Brief sentences which tell us nothing will get simple brief answers to the best of our abilities.
As to guilt in general?
I ask myself two simple questions:
"Did I CAUSE this?"
If the answer to that is "yes", then I ask myself
"Can I FIX this?"
If the answer is yes, I do so.
I wish you the best.
No one can really give you any advice here unless you tell us why you don't visit.
People often get those 2 words mixed up. So call it what it is....grief, and go visit if and when you want to.
And if you choose to not go at all, that's ok too. You can call the nurses station and check on her if you want to know how she's doing.
It's hard when you're dealing with someone with a broken brain and there are no right or wrong answers as everyone deals with things differently.
Wishing you peace in whatever decisions you make.
You haven't given us much information as to your situation.
It's just to hard to visit, to see them in that situation?
There mean when you visit?
Your to far away ?
If you want to fill us in more, we could answer better.
Do you check in with the staff about how she is doing?
I felt badly when I stopped visiting my godmother in her nursing home. She went blind from macular degeneration and her Alzheimer’s disease was had progressed to an advanced stage. She didn’t even know who I was anymore, so I felt like my visits weren’t helpful.
You are equally as important as your mom and if you feel that you simply cannot visit then accept how you feel.
Let us know if there is anything else that you want to discuss. There are many posters on this forum that will relate to how you feel.
Wishing you peace. Take care.
Attempt to think ahead like five or ten years; would you be okay with yourself for not visiting? You might do it once/every three months or something just a suggestion. Are you okay with your kids avoiding you in this way should it dare god happen to you? Yeah. I've been through the crap of my Mom's alzheimer's she died in '18 then my dad who never gave one fart about me needs me now. Great. all the drama with his caregivers bullsh*t This is Life. I just have to laugh at how ridiculous it is, my a hole dad leaving my mom and me on foodstamps no child support now here I am. Paying out of my pocket for his ass.
Forgive me my friend if I speak plainly but, OH HELL NO You are not paying for his care out of your pocket!?!
That stops TODAY. If he cannot afford homecare, he goes into a care facility no if's and's or but's about it.
My father was very similar to how you describe yours only he left us in poverty with our mentally ill, abusive, manipulative narcissist mother. When he became needy, he went to a nursing home. I did in-home caregiving for 25 years as my employment for more care clients than I can even remember, and he went to a nursing home. I was a decent advocate for him. I made sure his finaces didn't get fleeced by the nursing home, but I didn't take care of him myself and I've never had a moment of guilt about it either. I did nothing wrong and neither did you.
You don't owe your father a damn thing. He abandoned you and your mom when he wasn't sick and needy. Remember that. The fact that you even have any relationship with him speaks to your credit as a human being. Not his. So you don't pay one moment of attention to any caregiver drama. You don't listen to one second of complaining or one moment of orneriness. Make sure your father knows that you will be fine with putting him in a nursing home and walking away just as he walked away from you and your mother.
I often have a message for so many parents who don't take their family responsibility to raise, love, and decently provide for their children seriously. That message is if you aren't around when your children need you don't expect them to be when you need them.
If a parent planted a field of resentment and indifference, they will not get a crop of love and compassion when harvest time comes.