When is it okay to surrender?
I always read, and respond to, comments from people who are laying guilt trips on others for needing to place a parent in a care home environment; Skilled Nursing, Memory Care or Assisted Living.
If you LOVED your mother, they'll say, you'd care for her at home, even if it's killing you to do so!
How's that for a guilt trip? Yet we read comments like that ALL THE TIME here!
What does love have to do with the need to place a loved one in a care home environment?
As a receptionist in a Memory Care community, I DARE you to tell ANY ONE of the sons, daughters, husbands, wives or other loved ones that they do not 'LOVE' their family member and 'put' them there in this place to rot away! I'd sure love to see the fight that would break out as a result of such an insensitive comment.
Not many people would have the chutzpah to make that comment in real life, to someone's face, yet find it perfectly acceptable to do so under the veil of anonymity here on the forum.
I call FOUL!
When is it okay to say you've had enough and that you're human and can't care for your loved one any longer? Do you have to be in the hospital yourself before it's acceptable to surrender?
I will say this: my parents have been in Assisted Living/Memory Care since 2014; Dad passed in 2015. My mother is almost 93 and still alive precisely BECAUSE she's in a care environment with a staff to look after her 24/7! Had she been in my home, or living in the 'heaven' everyone seems to think is her Own Home all this time, she would have died long ago.
Having a staff 24/7, round the clock, is safer and a lot more effective than trying to care for a loved one yourself day & night! And knowing when to call the doctor, or when to call 911, or when to get an xray and on and on. In a care environment, those things are a known quantity, as a rule, and done FOR the elder.
It's okay also to take care of your loved one in your home, or their home, if that is what you truly want to do, and if you're happy doing so, and if THEY are safe in that environment. But please, do not pass judgment on those who MUST place their loved one in care!
You actually may find YOURSELF in that boat one day and I promise you that you will not welcome comments telling you that if you 'loved' your mother, you wouldn't have 'put her in a home.'
Some decisions are out of our hands. Some decisions are made FOR us. And some decisions have to be made for the sheer necessity of it.
Be kind when leaving a comment here on the forum. Lots of people are hurting and genuinely in need of a sincere word of understanding and empathy rather than judgment.
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Earlier this year a difficult set of family circumstances meant we had to place our mother into Respite care for a fortnight. The first night she was discovered continually wandering in search of the non-existent music; walking into walls and not knowing how to turn around; and looking for her mother who had died more than 40 years ago. Within just a few hours she was identified by RN as needing to be in a memory care unit. She had well and truly crossed from mild cognitive impairment into dementia, but had been hiding her symptoms very well - either that, or we were blinded by our promises to never place her in 'one of those dreadful places.' We thought her behaviour eccentric but what else does one expect from a 93 year old? And there was our always our ''promise''.
So we rocked up to her regular GP asking 'when is it time?" Would you believe his response was almost the same as the vet's regarding our cat? ''The fact that you are asking means that it is long past time!" He had been suggesting the idea of moving into assisted living to my mother for a number of years but she resisted - vehemently. "Family has to look after family" was her way of guilting us into compliance with her wishes. The GP said she was extremely lucky to have been looked after so well at home until then, that most people throw in the towel much earlier, unless they are gluttons for punishment or just plain naive. That ''love'' has nothing to do with it.
The GP's advice was grasp the opportunity to leave her at the aged care facility where they had a lovely room available in the memory care unit, otherwise it would be doubly difficult to both prise her out of my sister's home where she was then living, or to surrender our caring roles. In that instant we indeed surrendered our ''carer'' roles and became ''just family'' again.
How did mother take the news? We have never really told her. Like so many dementia patients, she hates it where she is and just wants to go home. But she has no concept of what home is. At times she is sufficiently ''with it'' to still try guilting us, that family should look after family, that we want her to die so we can have her money.....you name it, she has, and continues, to try to shame us into taking her home.
Not quite the final trip to the heaviside layer that we sent our beloved moggie along, but the relief for us has been incredible. Is it still stressful? Of course it is! But we can now walk away from the facility whenever we want, knowing that mother is well cared for. We recognise she will never be happy there, but her happiness has to be overridden by her safety and need for heavy nursing.
The more advanced her progressive dementia becomes, the more we realise we did do the right thing for our mother. It was, indeed ''time''.
I have been hurting and struggling for so long now I don’t even remember what it feels like to be truly happy about anything. There is always a dark cloud hanging over my life. That looming sense of dread and fear. I’m so tired of feeling this way. I look at others without parents to care for and wish I were them. I wonder what I did to deserve this fate. So when others try to judge and blame they should step back and realize the damage they are causing. And think maybe, just maybe everyone’s situation is unique.
Bootshop girl is tired. Mama has had Alzhimers 11 years. She has been in Memory Care for 1 year. I am closing our family's western store in the next 2 week's. It has been in our family 138 years. She is the owner. She will never know. I watched over her 7 1/2 years until I crashed. I KNOW Memory Care is best in my head. But my heart is a 1st class rebel. It is Christmas. I'm sad. My husband just said "Honey, all these people are coming. Everyone is a little sad. Let's go get a tree." I just got done reading all these posts. Thank you all so much! I feel better already. We are all in this boat together. If we keep shoring each other up.....this ship won't go down like the Titanic. Bless you all.
My DH does not like ALs or NHs. He very rarely will enter one. I have told him I will keep him home as long as I can but cannot promise him anything. He weighs 80 lbs more than I do.
When Mom came to live with me, it was not going to be permanent. I hoped to sell her house. With those proceeds and money she had I was hoping to get her into an AL. Which I later did. No one should have to care for someone 24/7. Plus, for many is a history thing. No one should have to care for someone who has been abandoned or abused by the person they r asking to care for.
I at one time wondered why people didn't take a parent in. My eyes have been opened an I judge no more.
Now however all the siblings are in their 90’s and all want to stay in their own homes. Three of them are not safe or capable of living on their own.
It’s scary to think that one of them who is alone still drives at 95.