How to deal with this burden
THIS IS A SUPER LONG POST!!!! You have been warned. This is also written from speech to text so the grammar is lacking.
My parents aren’t elderly to the point where I need to be a full-time caregiver like in terms of butt wiping and clothing feeding and things like that but they are super needy. They’re overwhelming to be with they hate each other so they’re constantly fighting. I have one older sister who is completely nonexistent in the family and I’m pretty sure the reason she’s nonexistent is because of the way my parents are. I wish I could trade places with her.
I think this is more of a rant than I need advice kind of post. I think I will tell you about my mom and my dad separately because both of their needs are different.
Starting with my dad, he’s in his middle 60s still working planning on retiring in the next couple of years thank God he has an actual pension and retirement situation that will allow him to retire and cover his finances. He is not an educated person by any means he only completed the sixth grade in his country. He can do very minimal reading I mean extremely basic don’t think he has any math skills other than just reading full-blown numbers not able to add or subtract Multiply divide anything. I have to take care of basically majority of his problems that can include ordering things for him handling financial things car mechanical issues those are just super basic things I listed but I have to almost everything except work for him drive from physical stuff and anything that my mom does not want to handle because it does not benefit her at all.
And this might be biased, but I am more willing to help my dad do almost anything that he asked me for because he doesn’t fight me on anything. He respects my opinions and decisions that I make for him he knows that I’m not gonna guide him in the wrong direction. He’s more of an easy-going person when it comes to most things that I have to do for him, but it’s a lot of things that I have to do for him so it’s just the number of things are very overwhelming.
My mother on the other hand is probably the most difficult person I’ve ever had the pleasure of dealing with in my entire life. She can do majority of things on her own like I said my parents don’t need physical care or financial care at this point in time in life, thank God, but they’re both needy and helpless when it comes to everything else other than those two things
my mother chooses when she wants to help my dad do things or get things accomplished, but knows whenever she doesn’t want to partake in something. I will handle it and deal with it. My mother is on disability. She has a medical disability that doesn’t stop her from doing things when she wants to do things, but we’ll use her disability whenever it’s convenient for her, she is a very stubborn person. You cannot tell my mom anything if her mind is completely determined on what the situation is.
My mother is the kind of person who thinks she knows everything in the world and that she is right about everything in the world until she’s proven wrong right before her eyes so if you cannot prove my mom wrong in front of her eyes, you might as well just agree with her because that is a war you’re not going to win my mom is an educated person with some college. She can read write do math use technology but has the personality of nut case.
Both my father and I don’t like to go places with her because she is a very hard person to deal with outside. She has this super entitlement and I don’t know why she thinks everyone is incompetent. She will just flat out verbally disrespect you if you can’t help her with something like a store clerk or like a DMV worker, etc.. and it’s very embarrassing to be in public with her while those situations are happening. I also cannot explain anything to her. She just literally says the words “that’s not what happened”. “That’s not the reason” “that’s not why” “no” she also does this thing where she has a very loud talking voice and when you tell her, hey you’re talking a little too loud everyone can hear our conversation. She then gets mad flies off the handle and gets even louder and just repeat the words oh, I’m not talking too loud. No one can hear me.
She is oblivious to everything I could tell her something 100 times like hey be careful walking. There’s a curb right there you might trip and fall and 9 times out of 10 she will trip and fall. Now, if you take that example and put it into any situation that involves my mother, that’s basically what I have to deal with every time I’m around her. She also cusses like a sailor my goodness just about every sentence she speaks has a curse word and it just an unnecessary thing she won’t stop that my dad and I have after her to many times.
I love both of my parents very deeply, and we do anything for them, but they’re very overwhelming people to be around with their constant fighting their constant meanness, their constant level of misunderstanding or lack of wanting to understand. I wish I had someone to share this burden with like my older sister, but unfortunately it is just me and very rarely help from my husband.