u/Zen_Cutie

This happened years ago and I was maybe 21 or so and I was an hour away from home. It was the first time being so far away on my own and I was really nervous. I was at a psychiatrist office And I used an insurance service for the ride. I was waiting so long for someone to accept my ride home that the office actually closed while I was waiting and I had to wait outside alone in an empty parking lot. It was terrifying and my phone was low battery. I got into my uber, But as we were driving away he realized how far the drive would be.

My heart sank as he said that he was going to go to his girlfriend's house to see if she could drive me. I was frantically texting my family and friends because I was terrified. He drove me there and I sat in the car waiting anxiously as he went inside. The only thing that kept me calm was the fact that he left me outside and the car wasn't locked so I could run for it if I needed to. My phone died while I was waiting so I was scared for my life. I just kept telling myself that if he was a murderer that he wouldn't leave me in an unlocked car outside of his house. His girlfriend ended up yelling at him because she could tell that I was scared and he ended up driving me home.

When I got home, I ran inside and it was the scariest moment of my life. Since my insurance company was responsible for the ride, I couldn't leave him a review so I just didn't say anything. I was just happy to be alive at that point.

I'm 24 and the full-time caregiver of my 57-year-old mom with dementia. I've been taking care of her full time alone for 8 months straight and I'm disabled myself so it's been very hard. Today I just broke down because I watched my mom take a test where she had to draw a clock and she drew it wrong. She put all of the numbers to one side and drew three hands instead of two. I knew she was getting worse and it's so hard being the only one in my family to see it clearly. The rest of my family is in denial and dismisses it, blames her for most of the things she messes up on. It feels like I'm constantly defending her and reassuring her that she's not doing anything wrong and protecting her dignity. My two older brothers have left me to do this alone and I'm drowning. I'm trying to get her into a nursing home, but I just haven't had the energy to make the calls or anything when I'm taking care of her constantly. If you're curious to know more, You can look at my past posts in this sub. It's a lot, But I just needed to vent honestly.

I'm 24 years old and I'm the sole caretaker of my mom who is bedridden and has dementia. I'm disabled too so it's very hard that everyone in my family has abandoned me and doesn't offer support in any way. It feels like they've just given up and have been ignoring it. My older brother lives with me and the other night she was begging for whipped cream and I was exhausted from being in pain all day because I was having a flare up and I told her that I would give her some tomorrow. The next morning she asked for the whipped cream immediately and I went to get some for her to be met with half what was in there gone. I thought it was my brother and thought nothing of it, though I did find it weird because my brother doesn't really eat sweet stuff like that. Turns out I was wrong. My brother gave her the entire container of whipped cream unsupervised. She has had addictions to certain foods in the past and I've been trying to get control over the one that she's having right now, But I am helpless alone. My mom is the one person in control of the groceries we get because she's the one who has the income and I don't. We are nearly out of all of our food right now and she's addicted to eating pretzels. She buys like seven bags at a time and she will eat it all day. She's been having trouble with constant thirst, peeing like a gallon of pee in one night. (She poured the pee in a small trash can and it nearly filled halfway, which is more than a gallon most likely.) And then she's been having constipation and trouble eating regular food because she's so full on pretzels. She will eat two or three bites of food and then go back to the pretzels. I wish I could cut her access to it, But without support I don't know how. And then my brother giving her access to yet another addiction that she could start is a big problem. She's diabetic and that scared me.

I told him not to do it again and he said okay, But then I wake up this morning to find out she ate the rest of the whipped cream. He did it again because she "guilted him" and then started saying "she's an adult, talk to her" as if I haven't already tried doing that with the pretzels. She is stubborn because of the dementia and I don't know how to stop it. She spent $65 on pretzels just this month alone when that could have gone to real food. I brought that up to her and she just said it was her money. I honestly don't know what to do anymore and I feel like the only sane person in my family to be seeing this as an actual problem. To be treating her like a person with dementia and not the same person that she used to be. She's not the same person, even if she's mostly the same. She's cognitively declining and nobody sees that and everyone is ignoring the signs, But I can't ignore it because I'm with her 24/7. I am at my wit's end because I have been her caretaker for 6 months straight with no help at all. I've been having hallucinations, passing out from exhaustion, constant hypervigilance and anxiety, severe depression... I only really have one friend and I feel so alone