I am old enough to BE a grandparent myself never mind a parent but I feel the need for some sympathy comfort and yes praise too! The past decade or so has been so stressful as both parents become increasingly ill, dad died, leaving mum stressed out and struggling as dementia slowly and sneakily progressed.
I have dealt long distance with scammers and charity chuggers stealing and threatening her, storm damage to her house, cancer treatment, the pandemic destroying all her activities and locking her in her home alone for a year, moving her against her will to assisted living then memory care, multiple strokes, taking over all her healthcare and finances and worrying about how to pay for her care, clearing out decades of junk, trying to reduce her distress – all the while no longer being able to have even a simple conversation with her, ever again.
Also it caused real harm to others by taking my attention off my teens at critical moments for them.
Finally she died this year – not gonna lie it was an absolute blessing for her- so now I am dealing with so much financial and legal stuff and all the while thinking – who cares? We are all going to die, after all! None of this stuff matters in the end.
Had to search all my emails last night looking for some more crap for my tax preparer- WOW what an eye opener! how traumatic the last few years have been! I don’t know how I did all that! I feel dead and frozen myself at this stage.
So internet mums and dads, please reassure me I did my best and that soon this storm will fade away and that I can maybe look forward to a bit of happiness again, one day.
Comments
Hello, I have been through quite a bit of what you have, and I do feel for you. It took me 18 months+ to get past the caregiving and situational trauma of all that service to my declining parents. However, I do think that there is a different subreddit for adult children caregivers and for grief after a long care period. They have all kinds of people who can relate. For me, I don’t think your issue is what we should be doing in this subreddit, which is for younger/youngish people needing help adulting. Because the other groups are really right for this — it is so common and so hard and would provide you real community and better healing.
As for me, I learned that one never regrets what one does in caregiving, although it does take its toll. It’s a difficult responsibility but such a beautiful blessing for those we ushered over to their end of life. The administrative is heavy at the start and does peter out over the next year or two.