Hi, all. Sorry I’ve been away for a long bit. I feel like the last 2 months “happened,” but I “didn’t.” Make sense? As if I was on autopilot. I don’t remember the Holidays — I had a diverticulitis flareup. Luckily, my gastroenterologist turned me on to a new medicine, Dyciclomene, which is an antispasmodic and decreases the contractions in the colon that make colitis and IBS painful. I was really grateful. I’ve begun seeing a nice therapist one evening twice a month, it helps me to gain insight and to vent about my caregiving and other life-stress issues, also from my viewpoint as a middle-aging gay male. Today we snowstormed again — another 8 inches in like our winter’s 5th or so storm…and I felt guilty because I checked in on mom, who told me that a nice neighborhood guy helped shovel out her front way, but then I said in the phone, “Mom, if you see anybody come by again, please ask them to shovel out the difficult-to-do backyard, and I’ll pay them!” Then I actually shoveled out myself where I lived, went to Staples and Home Depot (partly for things for both her and me) and got me a haircut. And came home. Part of me was, “Gary, you should drive down through the snow to mom’s!” But I can’t do it all myself, I can’t do it all the time. Between work and her life-related affairs and my own health, and outside of a couple hours’ out on a Saturday night and maybe 2 hours per weekend at the gym, I still can’t really plan out my life or schedule more than 1-2 days at a time. Then I feel so bad, because compared to what some of you have been and are going through, I probably sound like an idiot. But who recharges ME? Wish me luck…I’m trying to find a brick mason to shore up some of the loose bricks on mom’s front stairs before we can do the whole stairway properly after the warm spring weather ships in!!! Update soon again – Gary 
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Update time again. Tell me, how do some of you cope with the emotionally difficult caregiven parent? That’s the boat I’m in. I refer to my mother’s meltdown occasions as her “Chicken Little” moments. Like I wrote previously, we’re trying to field quotes to get some loosened bricks pointed on her house’s front stairway. Graciously and deservedly proudly so, she’s helping me as we both call around and ask for folks to come by, see the stairs, and offer quotes. But instead of just focusing on telling me about this, my mom goes off hysterically about “They didn’t even sound like they spoke good English!”, and “What if they take advantage of me quotes-wise because I’m an elderly woman living alone!”, “Gary, you have to make sure they let me call you so you can go over any quotes with them!” Before anybody answers yet, if at all, Been-There-Done-That with the proper communications strategies to use, not taking it personally, realizing she’s all alone, she’s afraid and feeling vulnerable, she’s not feeling physically well herself — I understand and know that. But the last time I checked my driver’s license, it seemed to indicate that I, too, am only a human being and not a programmed machine either. My last week has revolved, from 6 am until 8 pm, with work and being in my small cell-like office all week dealing with hysterical faculty, students, contracts and their issues. I drove 110 miles roundtrip yesterday to have to attend an all-day conference. Because I live alone, too, today and tomorrow I have laundry, shopping, cleaning, errands, and maybe some personal time? to catch up with before five more workdays. I LOVE helping my mom — it’s her out-of-proportion anxiety that drives me UP THE WALL, no matter how much I do truly try to be thoughtful about and carefully respond to it. Am I stupid, hard-headed, what? I’m TRYING! I continue to have my own health issues with chronic daily pain from diverticulitis, IBS-C, and abdominal adhesions. I knew this Saturday morning was going to start off quirky when I sensed I’d better check my cell messages and I found “The One” — you know, that dreaded one-message-left…it’s always from Mom. Talking to her can make you want to remove your eyes with inverted rusted forks, no matter how caring you promise yourself to be once she picks up the receiver on her end. Why’s it always me who has to do the behavior and response adjusting, why sometimes can’t someone be able to say to her, Dotty lighten up and you’re not the only one and this will get handled and pass? Arggghhhh!
Gary–I’m right there with ya! I have developed MASSIVE phone aversion because my mom used to call me 800,000,000 times a day before she moved in with me. That is one benefit to living in–she can’t call anymore! And, now I can LEAVE the room if she’s getting to be too much.
So–solutions, adaptations? Fixes. Yeah. Right. NO. There are none!
Sounds grim, but what if it’s true?
I’ve been through YEARS of therapy, coaching and read almost every single self help book ever. I’m doing ‘great’ outside of this one situation. But, the situation is more powerful than me and my ‘improvements’.
I don’t really get the whole anxiety / dependence thing either, and none of my reading/work has shed any real light. I wish I had something to offer other than the fantasizing about my mother going into a coma, dying or me faking my own death. I used to feel bad wanting these things, but now I just laugh.
You might enjoy a book called ‘Magical Thinking’ by Augusten Burrows. He wrote Running with Scissors. And, you can always rent ‘Throw Momma from the Train.’
Thanks, Tara. I hear you, too! I moved back with my parents for a bit when my dad got sick — I was glad we did this, but after a year I had to have my own space, or I would have had a nervous breakdown. Not their fault, per se, just that it wasn’t a healthy, normal situation. One of my friends e-mailed me that his friend, who does masonry, left me a phone message while I was at the gym. I wrote back I’ll get back to his friend and hear his message between this p.m. and tomorrow. I need to make myself not focus on being guilty about not checking my msgs this afternoon, or making “work” calls, today. It’s MY TIME. I can’t be “on” every second — which is how my mom and dad used to behave all the time. Maybe its a generational thing..
I did read a very helpful book called “Coping with Caregiving for the Difficult Parent, and your suggestion sounds like a future good read too. Throw Momma From The Train? More like my mom would find a way to hold on, and the guys would be the ones who’d get thrown! lol
Thank you for reaching out!
Gary
The last few days have given me a chance to unwind, refocus on my goals, and to get a little bit of bigger-picture insight into my mom caregiver role. Friday evening, I dined out with a high school-era friend and current education work colleage, whose family is going through this, too: his 92-year-old dad is still alive, but the mom has Alzheimer’s and needs 24/7 home care. We traded stories. I realiced that in addition to my not having been able to really focus on my own grieving for my dad’s passing in 2005 — because it seems always to be about trying to comfort mom over her losing him as her longtime husband — my friend has it just as bad in another way…he has to “mourn” him mom for what and who she was, since she’s physically still alive but cut off from recognizing and communicating with him, her other children, and her husband.. I came away feeling not so alone — and supported too.
I had some work-related stuff to do on my home computer over the weekend — but I demanded of myself that I made time for the gym on Saturday and to go out for some music and time with friends Saturday night. This Monday p.m., I took a half-vacation day and spent more time than usual with my mom…when I’m not rushed, how easier and more enjoyable it is to relate with her, not feeling pressured by my work hours and late-night commuting home. I’m following some of all your advice on the site, and when my mom dug up some really beautiful old birthday and holiday cards she’d saved over the years from me, my late brother, and my dad, I engaged her purposely in telling me some fun stories, describing to me about her and my dad’s parents — and even asking what she had to eat at her wedding, which she enjoyable shared was a “low-key” affair of sandwiches, sodas and beer, and dancing and laughing with her nearest and best, in November 1947! She admitted enjoying being engaged this way into talking about her memories. It made her feel like a whole person again for a while — and not just a grieving and often lonely widow.
My colitis is acting up today, with our raw cool weather though. I’m relaxing with some peppermint tea — and I’ve earned it. I hope you all have a great day tomorrow with at least one comforting or happy thing that touches you and your caregiven in such a way that it makes each and every one of your respective day.
Have a great night! Gary in Boston