Dealing with sick/elderly Toxic parents when Low or No contact [Advice Request]

[goofycrumble]

Anyone ever dealt with trying to manage the drama with an sick or elderly Nparent/s while low or no contact? How did you deal with illnesses, carers, financial issues etc and not lose your mind in the process?

I need some feedback really at my wits end right now 

[Spring Butterfly]

Hi and welcome! You're asking really a two part question, the actual logistics of care and the drama.

First logistics. Yes it's a challenge but all that stuff can be managed at a distance. You are simply the "office staff" coordinating care.

I have friends with nonPD parents who live far and coordinate, don't move or sacrifice their life. They just make phone calls, it's ok and their parents don't mind a bit. In PD world you're supposed to give up your life, move in and play nurse and doctor. Not necessary. Not Your Stuff. (Check Toolbox Topic)

Now how to deal with drama. It helps to cultivate emotional distance and boundaries, recognizing them as separate and distinct adults with the responsibility to make their own decisions if they're mentally sound.

My situation is uPDm and enF are medically negligent, refusing to seek help when needed choosing instead to self diagnose and Dr Google helps them choose course of home treatment. Drama. Lots of drama.

It was so tough to emotionally detach from that and finally I had to humbly accept I am not them, what they choose is their own business, their choices will and have lead to failing health long before it needs to and eventually I may need to coordinate from afar, logistics.

What I won't do is play nurse, doctor, etc because not a professional and it's going to take a team. I've had to refuse helping them self diagnose and just go into repeat mode "please let me know what your doctor says" or " that sounds terribly painful, what did the doctor say?" knowing there was no doctor and I get some snotty response about not trusting pill pushers so I end the conversation with a cheery "well then I have no clue what to say" and if I get more snot like "I didn't ask you to say anything" I just say gotta go and end the call.

Emotional detachment and separation, having good boundaries, takes time to work out. Check the Toolbox link at the top of the forum for more information. Medium Chill saved my life and continues to help me. Boundaries was another huge thing and there's even a special sticky topic in Working on Us board.

Welcome and I'm sure others will be along shortly to share more. 

[WomanInterrupted]

Hi Goofycrumble - and welcome! 

The level of involvement you have is up to YOU, and don't let anybody tell you otherwise.   

If you want to do absolutely nothing - that's fine.  You can walk away and others will pick up the slack. 

That's the tactic I took with unBPD  Didi, who lived 3 short miles away.  Once I started putting up boundaries, she upped the ante by faking medical emergencies and having herself hospitalized constantly.

I did nothing and stayed home.  She had unNPD Ray to care for her, and if she needed additional help, they could hire it. 

But Didi was *determined* to get a hospital bed in our living room, so she could drive me insane - so I lowered contact even further, and was contemplating blocking her number when she died, because her Full Metal Waif act was REALLY getting old, and I was sick of listening to her endless complaints.   

That left unNPD Ray, who was 85, refused to use a cane or walked and didn't want Life Alert.  He had me, he said.   

Good luck with that, I thought.    It's just going to be more of the same.   

I again made myself scarce, didn't return his calls, and he did eventually get Life Alert - but refused to use it.  Instead, he'd call his visiting nurse and she'd yell, "Use your Life Alert!" - if it really was an emergency.   

Social workers started pestering me about being Ray's caregiver and I told them all the same thing - NO.  I will do whatever I can from this little room, with my phone and my computer, but otherwise I am NOT getting involved with him.  If he needs help, he needs to hire aides or go into AL, but I'm NOT doing a thing.  PERIOD.   

I went through 4 rounds of that, APS got involved, I told them the same thing - What part of NO don't you understand? - and Ray finally fell, didn't use his Life Alert - and it *somehow* just happened to be on the day his visiting nurse was coming over.   

I told her to call the police and have them break in - Ray was pulled out, taken to a hospital and declared incompetent.

Only THEN did I do the work of winding down his affairs, which took a few months, all while being NC with him. 

Both Didi and Ray had expressed numerous times they thought I should be taking care of them - they were WRONG.  They should have thought ahead to their elder years, when they were busy abusing and invalidating me as not only a child, but an adult, with her own agency.     

You asked the Collective We how we dealt with illnesses, carers, finances, etc.

Well - I didn't.  At all.   

Illness?  Call an *ambulance.* 

A ride home from the ER/hospital?  Call a cab. 

SOMEBODY needs to - kick it back up the food chain to the right somebody and suggest they call Merry Maids, Meals on Wheels, the Senior Van, their doctor, the pharmacist, the plumber or electrician, etc. 

Carers - After a heart attack Ray swears he didn't have, he was sent home from the hospital with a TEAM his insurance company put together, because they finally understood I'd only lift ONE finger for Ray, and it was the sweary one.     He fired them all within a month, because they started sending men he couldn't sexually harass.   I stayed OUT of it, that's when the social workers got involved and you read how that turned out - NO.   

If they NEED carers?  It's up to them to figure it out and you *do  not need to be involved.*   

If they have carers and won't communicate with them - again, NOT  YOUR PROBLEM.   

Finances - HELL no  . Only after Ray was declared incompetent, did I hire an eldercare attorney to shelter assets and do the Medicaid application - that thing is a nightmare, and is NOT something you want to undertake, without a lawyer doing it FOR you.

If your parents need money - they should have planned ahead, shouldn't they?  Or they can downsize, sell the house or condo - their finances are THEIR problem and not YOURS - even if they tell you they're going to be homeless in a month or so - which they probably won't, but even if they are, *this is not your problem.* 

You didn't do that - they did, through a lifetime of bad planning and poor decision making.   

NONE of their problems are your problems if you don't *allow* them to become your problems. 

If they are becoming your problems, you can force the issue with *boundaries* and push all their stuff  back to their side of the table. 

An *excellent* book is "Boundaries" by Cloud and Townsend.  You can get it on Amazon - and I really suggest you do, because *none of their stuff is your stuff* - and you'd benefit greatly by learning the difference between theirs and yours.   

Your life is your own and doesn't *have* to be spent in the service of others, who just don't appreciate a thing, and keep wanting more and more.   

You can make that stop, if you want to!   

And I suggest you do - often, we're not caring for them - we're COVERING for them and not letting those who need to know, really *see* what's going on and how bad things have gotten.

Once you lower, limit or stop your involvement, others (yes, the dreaded STRANGERS! ) will get involved and be able to assess what's really going on - and your parent(s) will get the care they NEED, and not the care they think they deserve, because you *owe* them.   

You owe them nothing - and they'll wind up getting the same level of care everybody else gets, with no perks or privileges, because your days as a concierge *anything* will be over. 

Just to be clear - Didi and Ray were/are my *adoptive* "parents" - and I'm an only child.  I had nobody to help or offload to.  And I walked away with what passes as my sanity intact.   

[Kiki81]

I'm an only child, the Units are 89 and in a CCRC. I'm going the same route as WI above. I went NC 5 years ago after a brief period of contact following a 2-year VVVVVVVVLC. The Units have sent CMs but they themselves are giving me Silent Treatment other than the annual card for "It's Your Birthday Which Is Actually All About Me And Your Father---We Own You."

I have no guilt. My parents controlled the relationship from Day 1 and the only reason it lasted until I was 50 was because I thought I had to accept them in order to have "family."  That price became unaffordable and unsustainable and when my mom treated me to a full on rage when I drove 2 hours to treat her to lunch and shopping, well that was IT for me. Done .

[goofycrumble]

Emotional detachment and separation, having good boundaries, takes time to work out

Thank you so much SpringB. I'm just trying to work it out as you say and stay strong amongst the guilt. That's what makes me cry sometimes just thinking about it all. I've never been regretful but I do wish I had been tougher, vocally stern and with ruthless with defending my boundaries all through my life with them. Your advise is really helpful

[Spring Butterfly]

You're not alone, most of us here wish that very same thing. Before I landed here I didn't even know what a boundary was let alone how to defend one.

Fear Obligation Guilt (FOG) was all most of us knew and as far as PD persons it almost seems to not matter that we do things out of FOG instead of love. The only thing that matters to some is that they get their way regardless of the emotion the giver feels.

When that thought hit me it made me angry, really angry. That helped a lot because I refused anymore to be manipulated into feeling Fear Obligation Guilt. Realizing that sliced right through the FOG.

Have you gone through the toolbox topics at all? They really helped me so much.

Here's some others:

https://karlamclaren.com/embracing-guilt-and-shame/

https://www.karlamclaren.com/2014/01/23/the-difference-between-empathy-and-enmeshment/

https://www.outofthefog.net/forum/index.php?topic=41455.msg379387#msg379387

[goofycrumble]

Once you lower, limit or stop your involvement, others (yes, the dreaded STRANGERS! ) will get involved and be able to assess what's really going on - and your parent(s) will get the care they NEED, and not the care they think they deserve, because you *owe* them.   

I know you are right it putting it into practice lolz especially when the "strangers" text photos etc begging for more help. But thank you, your iron clad 

I'm an only child, the Units are 89 and in a CCRC

I understand about being an only child. I can only say take a tiny bit off solace at least you got them into a continuing care retirement community. My dad's dementia has reverted him back to infancy and Toxic mom refuses to register with a Doctor or even get a diagnosis and is utterly penniless living in a rented property. I'm following WI advice and learning medium chill

Spring Butterfly » thank you for the practical advice, links and words. As parent's situation financially and physically becomes worse these links and info are helping me not completely end up destroyed and lose my health and sanity in the process.

[lightworld]

I think SB and WI's approach are the best, be the administrator of their affairs and stay detached from the drama. I manage F's affairs from afar but he is in a care facility so I've been able to let the staff know I'm not willing to be involved and why.  I used to do it when M was alive (also a PD) and they were living at home with F taking care of M who had dementia. It was a nightmare so I do feel for you, multiple 'emergencies' for which my presence was required, bees in bonnets about everything from getting solar panels on the house to recruiting carers who were promptly sacked on many occasions. I tried to anticipate their needs but F put a stop to it all, meals being delivered, cleaning services, gardeners. In the end I realised that I could not help them, they simply would not accept it despite continually demanding it.

From then onwards I dropped the rope and it wa  up to them to get the care they needed, I stayed in the background and used the PoA to pay for the things they aske  me for. Eventually F had to admit defeat and got them into a care facility, I was not involved in the decision or the move. Didn't stop them blaming me for them 'ending up' there ofcourse but I maintained my boundaries and stayed out of it. You can do it.

[NotFooled]

With OCPDMIL she moved into the ASLF with FIL.  FIL  passed in November and the fear was she would move back into her bed bugged, rat infested home.  DH pretty much put it to her like this: he would no longer help her in anyway if she moved back into her house. Plus she needed to sell her car to pay for an exterminator and put her house on the market.  He meant it and she knew she would be handling all her bills and any issues, plus live in her sh*t hole home with out any help from him.  She did everything that was asked, so he still manages her finances and occasionally does her a favor when he visits. It's working out well right now.  But unfortunately her house is still on the market.

[HaplessRussell]

You know, I've just posted grumbling about this very thing!

I suspect (in the UK at least) the thing is that it's such an unusual situation for adult children to go NC that they will try their darnedest to at least open the conversation with us. *irony button ON* Because we can't be "normal" or "natural" not to want to look after the people who looked after us when we were babies, right? *irony button OFF*

When my alcoholic PD mother was at home she had me down as her "emergency response" for her Lifeline, which involved 4am phone calls to help her up when she'd fallen down drunk and couldn't get up. I have a full time job and a 9 year old son. I explained to them very gently that there was no way on God's green earth I was going into her flat in the early hours of the morning to face who-knew-what and if she was having a medical emergency she needed to have an ambulance, not an unqualified responder.
Calls kind of tapered off after that.

I've had to be stern with my husband that he's not to be rude to agencies when she gives our phone number to them to co-ordinate her care. No, this is not a good contact number for her. No, we are not able to help her with her personal care. Nope, nope, and nope.

[goofycrumble]

Lightworld - Thank you appreciate the cheering on! My situation is not as contained as yours but I agree with you and won't really get involved in the decision as I'll let PD Mom see if no move no help from me but yeah, I'm sure I'll get blamed something! Ha!

Kieveen - I like how your DH got firm I'm still learning. Why do these people live so awfully but act like everyone around them is in the wrong? Did your MIL always live like this or is it recent behaviour?

HaplessRussell – I'm glad your husband helps you navigate the madness. I live in the UK but moved here 14 years ago to basically get as far away from Mum and Dad as possible as they moved to south America for a "better" life back in the early 90's. That never happened and they always were poor and dysfunctional. I feel terrible for thinking this but I see my parents as toxic people even if they seem to mean well, they are missing that one bit of normality and practicality and the consequences spill out onto everyone around them.