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<blockquote data-quote="Copabanana" data-source="post: 708847" data-attributes="member: 18958"><p>My g-d, with the further detail you have given, and the effort you have put into this, anybody would feel besides themselves, despair. It sounds like the professionals are tearing their hair out, with an hour or two of consult let alone 24/7. For 5 years.</p><p></p><p>I understand what you say about his treatment for tumor and how you feel YOU DO NOT have the option of residential treatment. Let me put it this way: you have sacrificed yourself now for 5 years? Has it helped? Of course nobody could know because it could have been worse without your self-sacrifice.</p><p></p><p>I have to say that while I was a single parent and handled things myself, my son did not have the intensity of problems and his did not manifest within our relationship until he was much older. But I was in a similar situation 4.5 years ago when my elderly mother was ill, and I volunteered to take care of her, eventually in my home.</p><p></p><p>I did not realize she was in the course of dying. While I saw that she had declined mentally, I did not realize what a commitment it was to care for a demanding, entitled and completely dependent mother, from whom I had no defenses. I became infantilized. I followed her every command. I was intimidated and enslaved in my own home. 24 hours a day. Every 2 minutes she graciously commanded me to get her: water, tissue, help her to the bathroom. And I complied. I became a person without a will; without substance or value.</p><p></p><p>I had quit my professional job to take care of her, believing that it was my responsibility as a daughter, without a clue of what I was getting into. And I abandoned myself.</p><p></p><p>My SO watched this and he gave me an ultimatum, and said: <em>you will die before your mother does if you do not do something to help yourself.</em></p><p></p><p>He gave me my out (sort of). Permission. After 5 months of this (not 5 years) I was spent. I told my mother: <em>we need to find a place nearby where you can live and get the care you need. Because I cannot do it. I want to go back to work.</em></p><p></p><p>Very proud my mother was. One time she said this: S. <em>More than anything I would want to stay with you.</em></p><p></p><p>I said: <em>No.</em></p><p></p><p>Well, this is what happened. (The very short version.) My mother had been a princess-type person who put her needs first. A warm, sophisticated, beautiful and elegant, but self-serving woman.</p><p></p><p>We found a board and care home maybe 6 blocks away. We had arranged for her to be transported to a day program. She liked it and was enthused after the visit. After a week at the new home, when I would visit she began to scream. She became incontinent. She completely regressed. Staring blankly. This was all within a couple of weeks. When the van came to take her to the day care program she screamed and told them she would file elder abuse charges.</p><p></p><p>And so it continued. Within a month the cost had doubled because of her behavior and needs. I had visited every day but she would just rage at me when I came. Or stare blankly. When I called, she told the owner she could care less if I ever came again. One day they dropped her off at the doctor and left her there. She began screaming and they had to call an ambulance. Imagine how I felt.</p><p></p><p>Within the first week, my response to al of this was to go to bed. I became overwhelmingly depressed.</p><p></p><p>Nothing got better. Eventually we discovered that she had untreated pressure ulcers which the owners were concealing. She was hospitalized and she never returned there. It was clearly elder abuse but I felt so guilty and responsible I could never mobilize to make a complaint. My rage/and sense of helplessness/guilt and despair were too great.</p><p></p><p>Five months later she died in my home. I devoted myself to her care for the rest of the time she lived, with M's great help (my SO.) We went through valiant efforts to keep her alive (guilt, I ask myself). And I blame myself for this, too.</p><p></p><p>When she died I was devastated. I believed my whole life had been lived badly. Three and a half years later I am only now emerging from this.</p><p></p><p>Why do I tell you this story? The rehab hospital staff asked me: <em>why are you doing this? Why do you need to take her home? She is so much better off in a facility equipped to meet her needs.</em> (We set up a mini hospital to care for her. Eventually she was on a feeding tube. The ambulance came 5 times, with fire engines.)</p><p></p><p>But you see, my decisions were not based upon her needs, but my own. I had such an exaggerated sense of my own responsibility to meet her needs at the expense of myself, that I made one wrong decision after the other. Oh. I may get the martyr award.</p><p></p><p>And I may have done the very same thing, the same way, again, without much changing. (But let me tell you what I would have done differently: I would have acknowledged my own wonderfulness and my humanity. I would have allowed myself to fall short or to not do it all. Because nobody can.)</p><p></p><p>To know that I chose to care for my mother despite all the water under the bridge in our relationship and all of the exhaustion I suffered, and the sacrifices we made, DEFINED ME as a person. But I would have given myself the opportunity to CHOOSE. I would have been able to see that I had options. I would have allowed myself options. That is the difference.</p><p></p><p>I wish all the time that I had never told my mother she had to move. But at that time I did not know she would be dead in 7 months. I could have been the one dead.</p><p></p><p>I do not know the moral of my story except that I do not believe I deserved to suffer for 4 years at my own hand. I needed to acknowledge myself for who I am, and who I tried to be. Even if I did it wrong. Instead of indicting myself as a failed daughter and person, because I could not make it right for her.</p><p></p><p>Sometimes there are no right answers. Or maybe it is better to say, sometimes everything is a right answer if you meet responsibility head on, like you do.</p><p></p><p>What I want to tell you is this: You would not be a bad mother to save yourself. It would not be wrong to save yourself. <em>It would not be wrong to share the responsibility</em>. It may even be selling your son short, to believe he will not have the capacity one day to understand your sacrifice and your limits. And to forgive you. Whatever you do. My own son forgives me every day. Not in words so much. He is becoming the adult he needed to be. He wants to be near me. He is trying to make a life and a relationship. </p><p></p><p>Tonight as I was writing this post he said: <em>Mom. Don't think I am not grateful for what you do for me and how you try. Just because I do not say it does not mean I do not feel it.</em></p><p><em></em></p><p>Isn't that interesting that he said this very thing, (in a phone call) right when I was posting to you? Maybe this is a communication to you.</p><p></p><p>It is you who seems to have a hard time forgiving yourself, just as hard, possibly as it was for me. But in writing this post to you, I feel some healing.</p><p></p><p>I was not wrong to want to live. I was not wrong to want to survive. I was not wrong to want respite. I served my mother by getting help. Whether she could see it or feel it or not. I did not do wrong.</p><p></p><p>You see. Sometimes love looks like a screaming fit. Sometimes love looks like demonic rage. Sometimes love does not give us one hundred percent. But it is still love. Your son loves you. He will love you even if it becomes a little bit easier on you.</p><p></p><p>Writing this made me realize that my mother was not mad at me. She was mad at what life had presented her: and she raged. It was not me. It was not my fault. I did the best I could.</p><p></p><p>I want you to get from this post that it is OK to share the responsibility. It is OK to get support. That your son will be OK. That it is OK to take care of yourself, too. I want you to know how much he loves you. That you are worth this. That you are noble. I send my love to you. And all of the respect in the world.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Copabanana, post: 708847, member: 18958"] My g-d, with the further detail you have given, and the effort you have put into this, anybody would feel besides themselves, despair. It sounds like the professionals are tearing their hair out, with an hour or two of consult let alone 24/7. For 5 years. I understand what you say about his treatment for tumor and how you feel YOU DO NOT have the option of residential treatment. Let me put it this way: you have sacrificed yourself now for 5 years? Has it helped? Of course nobody could know because it could have been worse without your self-sacrifice. I have to say that while I was a single parent and handled things myself, my son did not have the intensity of problems and his did not manifest within our relationship until he was much older. But I was in a similar situation 4.5 years ago when my elderly mother was ill, and I volunteered to take care of her, eventually in my home. I did not realize she was in the course of dying. While I saw that she had declined mentally, I did not realize what a commitment it was to care for a demanding, entitled and completely dependent mother, from whom I had no defenses. I became infantilized. I followed her every command. I was intimidated and enslaved in my own home. 24 hours a day. Every 2 minutes she graciously commanded me to get her: water, tissue, help her to the bathroom. And I complied. I became a person without a will; without substance or value. I had quit my professional job to take care of her, believing that it was my responsibility as a daughter, without a clue of what I was getting into. And I abandoned myself. My SO watched this and he gave me an ultimatum, and said: [I]you will die before your mother does if you do not do something to help yourself.[/I] He gave me my out (sort of). Permission. After 5 months of this (not 5 years) I was spent. I told my mother: [I]we need to find a place nearby where you can live and get the care you need. Because I cannot do it. I want to go back to work.[/I] Very proud my mother was. One time she said this: S. [I]More than anything I would want to stay with you.[/I] I said: [I]No.[/I] Well, this is what happened. (The very short version.) My mother had been a princess-type person who put her needs first. A warm, sophisticated, beautiful and elegant, but self-serving woman. We found a board and care home maybe 6 blocks away. We had arranged for her to be transported to a day program. She liked it and was enthused after the visit. After a week at the new home, when I would visit she began to scream. She became incontinent. She completely regressed. Staring blankly. This was all within a couple of weeks. When the van came to take her to the day care program she screamed and told them she would file elder abuse charges. And so it continued. Within a month the cost had doubled because of her behavior and needs. I had visited every day but she would just rage at me when I came. Or stare blankly. When I called, she told the owner she could care less if I ever came again. One day they dropped her off at the doctor and left her there. She began screaming and they had to call an ambulance. Imagine how I felt. Within the first week, my response to al of this was to go to bed. I became overwhelmingly depressed. Nothing got better. Eventually we discovered that she had untreated pressure ulcers which the owners were concealing. She was hospitalized and she never returned there. It was clearly elder abuse but I felt so guilty and responsible I could never mobilize to make a complaint. My rage/and sense of helplessness/guilt and despair were too great. Five months later she died in my home. I devoted myself to her care for the rest of the time she lived, with M's great help (my SO.) We went through valiant efforts to keep her alive (guilt, I ask myself). And I blame myself for this, too. When she died I was devastated. I believed my whole life had been lived badly. Three and a half years later I am only now emerging from this. Why do I tell you this story? The rehab hospital staff asked me: [I]why are you doing this? Why do you need to take her home? She is so much better off in a facility equipped to meet her needs.[/I] (We set up a mini hospital to care for her. Eventually she was on a feeding tube. The ambulance came 5 times, with fire engines.) But you see, my decisions were not based upon her needs, but my own. I had such an exaggerated sense of my own responsibility to meet her needs at the expense of myself, that I made one wrong decision after the other. Oh. I may get the martyr award. And I may have done the very same thing, the same way, again, without much changing. (But let me tell you what I would have done differently: I would have acknowledged my own wonderfulness and my humanity. I would have allowed myself to fall short or to not do it all. Because nobody can.) To know that I chose to care for my mother despite all the water under the bridge in our relationship and all of the exhaustion I suffered, and the sacrifices we made, DEFINED ME as a person. But I would have given myself the opportunity to CHOOSE. I would have been able to see that I had options. I would have allowed myself options. That is the difference. I wish all the time that I had never told my mother she had to move. But at that time I did not know she would be dead in 7 months. I could have been the one dead. I do not know the moral of my story except that I do not believe I deserved to suffer for 4 years at my own hand. I needed to acknowledge myself for who I am, and who I tried to be. Even if I did it wrong. Instead of indicting myself as a failed daughter and person, because I could not make it right for her. Sometimes there are no right answers. Or maybe it is better to say, sometimes everything is a right answer if you meet responsibility head on, like you do. What I want to tell you is this: You would not be a bad mother to save yourself. It would not be wrong to save yourself. [I]It would not be wrong to share the responsibility[/I]. It may even be selling your son short, to believe he will not have the capacity one day to understand your sacrifice and your limits. And to forgive you. Whatever you do. My own son forgives me every day. Not in words so much. He is becoming the adult he needed to be. He wants to be near me. He is trying to make a life and a relationship. Tonight as I was writing this post he said: [I]Mom. Don't think I am not grateful for what you do for me and how you try. Just because I do not say it does not mean I do not feel it. [/I] Isn't that interesting that he said this very thing, (in a phone call) right when I was posting to you? Maybe this is a communication to you. It is you who seems to have a hard time forgiving yourself, just as hard, possibly as it was for me. But in writing this post to you, I feel some healing. I was not wrong to want to live. I was not wrong to want to survive. I was not wrong to want respite. I served my mother by getting help. Whether she could see it or feel it or not. I did not do wrong. You see. Sometimes love looks like a screaming fit. Sometimes love looks like demonic rage. Sometimes love does not give us one hundred percent. But it is still love. Your son loves you. He will love you even if it becomes a little bit easier on you. Writing this made me realize that my mother was not mad at me. She was mad at what life had presented her: and she raged. It was not me. It was not my fault. I did the best I could. I want you to get from this post that it is OK to share the responsibility. It is OK to get support. That your son will be OK. That it is OK to take care of yourself, too. I want you to know how much he loves you. That you are worth this. That you are noble. I send my love to you. And all of the respect in the world. [/QUOTE]
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