Dreading every day!
Hi everyone. I'm here to vent and see if anyone else is feeling so overwhelmed by elderly parents especially one with Parkinson's. I have a Mother with Parkinson's (86). I think she is stage 4 or 5. She won't ask the Dr. My step father (83) has pulmonary hypertension and is on oxygen 24/7. He can't walk 20 steps without being out of breath. He coughs and coughs I think from fluid in his lungs. I moved in with them around 2 months ago. I had some very stressful things happen in my life and I was in another country alone so they said to move in with them to relieve the stress. Well what a shock I got when I actually lived with them instead of visiting. When I was visiting last year they were more functional, ie. they could go out and get groceries but now they are totally housebound. The Parkinson's has seemed to progress a lot. If anyone on here can give me some insight as a caregiver for someone with Parkinson's please let me know if you see some commonalities. She cries a lot out of no where. She clings to me for every decision. She can't start a task without pulling me into help her make decisions to finish the task. Sometimes I feel like she just gave up all together. The cleaning lady was cancelled so I said Ok then look up companies online. She just says it's too hard for her. Her voice is getting so quiet and sometimes she slurs quite a lot. Her back is hunched and she is only about 103 pounds. She refuses speech therapy and physical therapy. It's such an effort to just get her to take a short walk with her walker, which I have to go with her as she is too scared to go by herself. My step father is bed and chair bound and won't even try to walk or help or make household decisions. He can have big outbursts and his hearing is going so and he blasts the TV news all day. He gets mad easily. He bellows to my mother to get breakfast, lunch, tea. She goes to speak to him in his chair in his office then walks to the kitchen and asks me what he said he wants. WTF I wasn't there. She sighs, skrinches her face and says ugh I don't know what he wants. Her face shows such anguish is so hard to see. Dinner must be on the table at 6pm or she just hovers around me. She won't read a book, do a puzzle, or anything that engages her mind. She just stares out the window with a blank face and I don't understand how she can do that for hours on end. When she wants to talk there is no back and forth. She ask me a question then does not respond with any feedback. Everything overwhelms her. Her anxiety/emotional state dominates the household rhythm. I've now got dinners organized because everyday she was coming to me with anguish and dread on her face about what I am going to cook for dinner and how I can get it on the table for exactly 6pm. I just don't understand how she can be so emotional over dinner. It's got to the point now that when 4:30pm rolls around and I have to start thinking about dinner I get panicked. When we tell my step father in his office chair that dinner will be 5 minutes he doesn't show up for at least 20 minutes so my mother and I eat dinner and he rolls up 15 minutes later gasping for air leaning over a chair to catch his breath. It's really scary. I am an empath so it affects me greatly. I'm exhausted trying to calm my mother's emotions. My step father has flat out said he will not deal with her emotions anymore. She is distressed so often I just don't know what to do other than to say please calm down, this isn't the end of the world, you're going to be ok, please breath - in and out. I try to set boundaries around her emotions dumping on me but she just comes back and does it again and again. She is negative about everything in life. I'm completely exhausted. Why can't she control her emotions or at least understand that the constant distress, worries, dependence, frustration and strain is utterly draining. I'm constantly trying to sooth her which leaves me completely depleted. Please, anyone living and caring for someone with Parkinson's help me to figure out ways to deal with this. I love my mother and it's breaking my heart into pieces to see her like this every day. The dread and anxiety of living with two very ill people has completely taken it's toll on me. I don't want to go out, take a class, meet people anymore because I'm so unbelievably anxious from this constant stress. I take really long walks outside to get air and be away from them and as I approach the door to come into the house, I'm so sad, depressed and anxious to open the door and step back into this depressing, anxiety ridden, demanding place and put on a fake face. I can't get mad at her and I can't break down myself because she looks to me to just keep her going everyday. I'm at loss and dread everyday now.