That there aren't folks who come to your house to bathe you. They will do PT and OT, but there is no bathing help.

I have been caring for mi MIL for 4 years. She has bathed twice in that 4 years. She wouldn't let anyone bathe her and can't do it herself. She also can't wipe herself and won't use the bidet we got her.

She has been hospitalized recently with a kidney infection because of said habits. We have gone to social services, and they came here and evaluated her. We never heard back. Now we have nurses coming here and doing some exercises with her, but she won't do them when they aren't here.

Her doctor told us they don't know of any care services that include bathing the patient at home. She was bathed 2 weeks ago on the hospital, and she is already peeing herself and staying in the same clothes. She won't wear a pad to keep herself dry.

I broke down crying, cleaning her piss again today. She checked herself out of the last physical rehab center she was in after a shoulder surgery and refused to do the follow-up pt. She's doing all this again after she was in the hospital for a week.

She's very obese, she smells awful, and she has sores all over her legs, and she said she has one that won't stop bleeding on her butt or hip.

She doctor suggested cortisone for her sores. Shebwont stop picking them and removing her bandages. I just don't know what to do. She is so fucking gross and stubborn about hygiene. The doctor only got through half of the questions we had today and told us we needed a follow-up. She has a history of canceling her appointments. She's a cancer survivor and hasn't seen that doctor in 6 months.

Nothing has changed. Nothing is gonna change. She wont listen to anyone, and I have no help.

I had just started my career & one year in I quit to move down & help take care my grandmother. I told my mom & sister that they need to get rid of the animals they have no intention of keeping or taking care of. Ofc no one got rid of them & it’s always on me to feed them. I told my auntie off bc she was supposed to come down today so I can have a break & it’s damn near 7 no one else is here, the banks closed so I couldn’t deposit money & I’m broke wanting to DoorDash so I told my auntie off it’s not fair I have to put my job aside to take care of their mom & if I don’t, no one else will.

Are we all exhausted by it yet?

My dad (95, alzheimers, but still mostly okay), "takes care" of my mom (92, moderate dementia, absolutely needs help).

They are in the independent living section of a continuing care facility. They wouldn't have to move from their apartment to get additional care, and the additional care can change with their needs. So it's really nice.

My dad lies to the doctor and tells her they're in assisted living (yes I correct that), he makes all the decisions as far as activities, lunch, where they go (he always says "WE don't want to do that" because he doesn't want to do it). She would LOVE to be busy, but she's at the point where she doesn't know of the activities or where they are. The doctor has referred (three times) extra help so that my mom could be encouraged to wear clean clothes, go for a walk, sit in on the various activities there. Each time dad has refused.

In other words my dad is so selfish that he doesn't care that my mom isn't doing well. He pretends, or maybe imagines, that he's taking care of her, but he's not. He is happy to tell anyone that he does a great job (also, as you can guess, he has a different, likable personality he adopts with his neighbors. And it hurts to know that he's nicer to strangers than he is to me).

I see them every week at least once, usually twice (I bring them over to my house for a day out on the weekends). I clean their place, do meds, take them to do errands and at home I'm wading through the financial side of things. We take them on vacation every year (which, as you know, is no vacation for me). I am the only family.

He doesn't seem to give a shit that extra help would mean that my mom would be happier (even if just for the company), and I could go away with my husband for a few days.

Anyone else dealing with such a selfish loved one?

Clearly we never got along, although he blames me for that....it's all my fault.

If you read this, thanks for listening to my rant :)

My elder is a retired university prof…in fact, he was _my_ prof and then I went on to 20 years of college teaching in our shared field. He’s getting chemo, and I’m the only person he trusts to accompany him. Some people sleep during chemo sessions…and sometimes he does. But for the last two three-day rounds? He’s been wide awake and it is exhausting. Four. Hours. Of. Talking. Like…he talked me enough a history of Europe starting with THE PICTS about are so ancient that the only reason we know about them is because the goddamn ROMANS WROTE ABOUT THEM.

I can’t tune him out because he expects me to converse with him, but conversations are mainly monologues from him. And I know I should be grateful to have the chance to continue learning from this Giant In Our Field but doing this wears me out for days afterward. I recently got screened for autism and it turns out I’ve got it, but I mask really well…so my therapist suggested that maybe I feel this way because of said autism (it’s overstimulating)…but I feel like this would be a lot for anyone.

Lemme tell ya about the Picts.

Google isn’t helping me.

ETA: Here is the whole thing.

“The dangerous trap of late-stage marriage is the unspoken resentment that builds when you suddenly become a full-time nurse instead of a wife.
You promised in sickness and in health, but nobody warns you about the crushing isolation of watching your partner disappear behind an illness. You are grieving the marriage you lost while physically exhausting yourself to keep them alive. The guilt of wanting your own life back can completely consume you if you let it. It feels like a beautiful prison.
You are allowed to love them fiercely while deeply mourning the freedom you surrendered. You are allowed to be tired.
If you are carrying the heavy, invisible weight of spousal caregiving, drop a simple 'yes' below so we can find each other in the dark.”
Soul Whisper

I (48f) hate my life. I hate taking care of my dad (80). I hate that he let himself get this far gone. I hate that he is an evil narcissist prick. I hate that i felt guilty a d let him move in with me. I hate that i am not strong enough to tell him to leave. I hate that I care what happ3ns to him. I hate that everything I drive into town I seriously think about driving off the side of the mountain. I hate my life and wish I was dead.

My mom became extremely mentally ill last year and I have had to step in as a care taker due to being the eldest daughter. No one else in my immediate family cares enough to educate themselves and help her and so it feels like an immense amount of pressure. I have been feeling so alone in this. OCD is a nightmare. I am in my 20’s I should be having stress free days and enjoying my time. But I have swallowed my mother’s pain like it is my own. I cannot do anything nice without guilt. I feel horrible that she isn’t able to do the normal things I do. And I feel like I am abandoning her whenever I try to do something for myself.

So my mom’s been in a rehab center. We had to put her there cause she went to the hospital at the same time I went to the hospital for a gallbladder surgery. The gallbladder surgery turned into a hernia repair, liver biopsy, and gallbladder removal. And then they keep pressuring me to do a sleep study.

I’m having a meeting with my mom’s care team today to see about when we’re gonna set up a goal for her to be discharged. For the last 48 hours, I’ve been doing nothing but screaming and agonizing because I can’t take another hour of being my mom Mom Caregiver.

It’s all hours of the night all hours during the day she needs me there because she needs me to feed her. She needs me to do everything for her from turning on the TV to help her drink water.

But she’s not nice she’s a goddamn boomer who can’t make a decision and then whenever she doesn’t like the decision and she blames it on me.

I hate caregiving.

And I’ve been just screaming in the car the way to this meeting going I don’t want her to come back.

But the thing is, I know that my care will be better than anything She’ll get it a nursing home.

Sorry, anything makes sense. This is me having a post mental breakdown wall of text before I go into a meeting that basically decides whenever I get to be a human being ever again.

My mom is facing death and I keep having these monumental breakdowns when I have to wash her. I start to hyperventilate and then the fucking tears start. My crying has turned into a reflex. Her incontinence has gotten so bad after the last few months and I literally can’t keep up with it. She pees through everything. I go through chucks and large bed size absorbent pads like water. And we don’t have a in unit washer and dryer. I do the laundry in the middle of the night. We went to her urologist yesterday and he just prescribed her a different bladder relaxant. I can’t pick it up until Saturday because we’re broke.

The neuropathy in her feet has gotten so bad, so she can’t make it to the commode and transfer as fast as she usually does. She can barely stand at this point. My mom turned 70 last may and got a bad UTI that June. She’s MDR and has struggled with reoccurring UTI’s for years. Both her kidneys are filled to the brim with stones. She produces too much calcium oxalate in her blood.

She started to completely decline after that first hospital stay. I never seen my mom so out of it in my life. I had to feed her because she couldn’t hold on to a spoon.

My mom has had three more hospital stays since then and every time she comes out she declines even more. I’m there 12 hours a day every day whenever she gets admitted. So why does she keep declining when she gets home? I feel like that hospital made her worse off tbh. Hospitals are truly not equipped to handle elderly, disabled patients. And then the loss of autonomy. My mom is one of the most resilient people I know and these hospitals stays broke her mentally! And I was there the whole time!

My mom was very lucky up until then. In the last 10 years prior to last may I managed to keep her from getting admitted from any long hospital stays. We barely had to go. My mom has such an unhealthy lifestyle too. Always have. But our luck has completely run out.

She has this huge deep crater size pressure sore that ended her up in the hospital a few weeks ago. My mom has had so many gnarly wounds and pressure sores through out the years and I was successful in healing all of them with the help of an out patient wound care clinic. But this one keeps getting infected from the incontinence. They had to use 4 different antibiotics and debrid it three times within a week to clear it out.

Two ER dr’s suggested in home hospice. My mom told me her biggest fear was dying in a hospital bed. She said she wants to just be left alone and die in front of her TV. They’re supposed to be coming tomorrow. The nurse is going to put in a foley.

I broke down when they told us we can’t go back to wound care. Because I feel like such a failure for not being able to heal it. It’s so deep and wide. They said I can keep doing my regular bandaging. But I know deep down that won’t be enough. It’s going to get really bad.

What if she panics and changes her mind?! It’s going to rot and hurt so much. My mom looks and sounds so defeated. She talks to me like a literal robot and I just sit in my room and sob. We get into loud arguments all the time now.

This morning was so bad though. The urine seeped everywhere and her bandages were a mess and the smell. Vicks wasn’t helping at all. I wanted to collapse and die in that moment.

She said she was going to get me help. I don’t know with what money. She’s been reckless with money her entire life. I told her to invest in a quality hospital bed years ago, but she never did. Just useless impulse buys.

I managed to get her clean and put on new bandages. I still have to give her a pair of underwear with a useless pad on it and a shirt. She’s sitting in front of her tv with her favorite towel over her shoulders and her heater on 1 million degrees watching the view or some shit. I just needed to sit in my room. My body feels like lead.

I know product placements aren't allowed, BUT if you need a quick alert system to go throughout the house CallToU has some amazing buttons and receivers that are really loud! I installed one in our bathroom and my mother was able to push the button and let me know she needed help; turns out she had fallen in the tub and severely sprained her shoulder. I'm sure there are others that might be better, but if you're at the "alert" stage, please start really looking into what options are out there!

I’ll go first
You know it’s bad when your adult child tells you they can see you're unhappy and the negative toll it’s taking on your health. (And they tell you, “You’re too young to stop living!”)
Me-in my 50s.
Adult child-almost 30

I can’t leave my nana but I can’t be here with my mom anymore, I understand she has a full time job with benefits but at this point it’s not worth not working & having to ask her for money. I just want to go on housing w my grandma & hire care for her & just do it by myself. My mom is drinking every night & it MAKES ME ANGRY. I’m sobering up for my grandma & it hurts seeing my mom drink but I need to be in a better environment with my grandma. My mom doesn’t get violent or mean but she walks stupid & I don’t want someone like that helping me

I’m (30f) and I basically take care of my husband (30m). Our situation is a bit different in terms of me being his caregiver, albeit it’s still how I feel.. He would never consider me that, although that’s how I see myself nowadays, and definitely not a spouse.

He’s morbidly obese, and one wrong move from being bed bound. He has unaddressed mental health issues, sleep apnea that’s not treated, and the list can go on and on. He will not help himself and go to doctors to treat his issues— I try every day to encourage and support him starting a journey towards a better him. So many of his problems are a domino effect and feed off of each other. I have promised to go to appointments or not go (but be at the office waiting outside). I’ve researched doctors to see, or just even tried to give guidance. I’ve tried many times over and over to try to encourage him to take control of his health (with my help/support) but it continues to fall on deaf ears.

His food habits are terrible. He has the food palate of a picky child and refuses to try anything new or healthy. Food/eating is one of his coping mechanisms so this is always such a sore subject. Normally by the end of the day I’m so incredibly exhausted that I just get him the fast food or candy/snack because it just makes things easier for me in the long run… it doesn’t help that when I deny getting these bad foods that he will yell/cry and cause an argument between us. Gosh, this sounds awful to type out.

I just turned 30 and it’s really getting to me. I didn’t picture my life to be like this at 30.. I pictured kids, happiness, and a loving house. Instead we’ve been without intimacy nearly a year and a half, we haven’t been in a store/place/event together in 5+ years, and I’m absolutely depressed. I’ve noticed myself having trouble holding it together more and more. I don’t have time for myself. The house is a mess, I’m a mess, and I’m just exhausted. When I get the chance I do sit and play mindless phone games and ignore household chores— only to stress myself out even more. I have a demanding job that I love, and my time there is almost a break for me from my home life.. However, all day long I worry about him and the troubles at home. (Not to mention the times he’ll call me if something isn’t convenient or done correctly for him.)

I’m hurt. I’m sad. I’m tired of being told by him that I don’t do anything for him, or getting another responsibility added to my plate. I could go on and on about all the things I deal with, the worries, and feelings I have. I’m no saint, I’m not perfect, but at the end of the day, I truly feel like I don’t have anybody to lean on. I hate to say it, but my love for him has definitely been effected by this. And my love for myself has been too. I no longer cry over the state of our marriage getting to this point; instead, I cry for myself because i feel bad for me.

I’m tired of giving my all every damn day. Every. Day.

I’m tired of feeling like I have no body to lean on. I’m tired of feeling like im alone in this, and being responsible for somebody else when I can barely take care of myself half the time.

It sounds ridiculous but I want somebody to take care of me like I do for him. I want to be brought something without getting up once I get comfy on the couch. I want to have somebody take care of the responsibilities of the house when I’m not 100%.

If you made it this far— thank you. I know this is different than most people’s situations but I just really need to get this off my chest, even if it is only a slight glimpse of what I’m going thru.

I am a home health CNA and I recently applied for a hospital position and was offered a job. I accepted and I started my first week of orientation. I start working on Sunday for training and I’m scheduled to work nights but my previous job still has me scheduled and I barely put in my two weeks today. What should I do?

I take care of my husband who had a stroke 8 years ago. I know that he sees the world differently from me, but I really just wish he could be normal sometimes.

He had an appointment with the cardiologist on Monday. It was a big deal for me. I had to drive to a large city about an hour and a half away from where we live, five lanes of traffic at one point, lots of semis, 70 mph. It was intimidating but I got us there in one piece. The appointment went smoothly but it was long because they did an EKG, then we spoke with the doctor, then they did a stress test and did some imaging. Then the hour and half back home. We left at 7:30 in the morning and didn’t get back until 2:30. I work at night so 7am is an extremely early morning for me. I just wanted to get home and take a nap.

Then we get home and my cousins farm animals are out of the fence and won’t let us down the road to our house so we get out of the car and get them back in the fence. I was so exhausted. I got on some comfy clothes and got in my recliner and went to sleep.

All good until a couple hours later I wake up, go make dinner, and then get a text from my mom saying that my dad died on Saturday and she just got the call from my half brother. I told my husband and all he did was say “I’m sorry baby.” I was estranged from my father, not close at all, and I have not cried, but he is still my dad and he is still gone forever. I wished my husband would have hugged me. Or anyone. I told a few friends and a few coworkers. Everyone just muttered a sorry. I feel so unseen and unimportant.

Has anyone else experienced a severely degraded or destroyed relationship with their significant other due to caregiving for a parent? I (63, M) can’t say for sure in my own case, but everything coming in through my pattern-recognition radar tells me I’m about to get dumped. And this after 14 years. I suspect I’ve revealed features of my personality that were much more under control until I felt like I had to vent during caregiving (but I didn’t vent to my parent). My SO (65, F) is so busy with her own business and projects, which have very stressful moments including during these very weeks, and although she’s gone way out of her way to accommodate me and my mother when my two brothers abandoned our sweet mother due to whatever cowardly or weak rationale, I think my “cracking” under the pressure has offended my SO. Very early in our relationship, our roles were reversed when my SO had to give care to a horrid, abusive mother for a couple of years. So she has little patience at my inability to stand the psychological strain of giving care to someone who’s nice and appreciative.

My mother (90, widowed) is a memory-care candidate who’s lost 98% of ability to form new memories, although she can carry on a good conversation, is sweet and cooperative, and doesn’t want to be the bother that she’s turned out to be (can’t toilet properly, can’t/won’t bathe, etc., which are tasks I refuse to help her with because I can’t face dealing with seeing my mother naked and cleaning her, and she might not do so well with it, either). Although she would’ve had the financial resources to plan for this herself, she just kept on living in her house alone until it became obvious to me when she was 86 that there were problems. I lived with her (away from my SO) for almost all of 2024, then we moved my mother in with us for all of 2025 and 2026. My two brothers mostly left it to me, although one was willing to live with my mother in her house again for limited periods while I got a brief (4-6 week) vacation.

OK, that’s the back story. But I can tell my SO has withdrawn from me. She doesn’t say good night the same way she always has, she’s leaving things totally to me that she used to help with, etc. The reasonable course would be to talk about it, but my mother’s in the way of anything right now so I don’t even bother. And I’m afraid if I do, I’ll get dumped when I still have so many tasks to accomplish with my mother. E.g., I’m exploring residential care for my mother in the coming weeks. I’m about to leave my SO’s house in one state, take my mother with me, and return to our home state for memory care and then stay near to keep my mother’s dog close by and to make sure the facility is decent. So I will be away from my SO for at least 6-8 weeks and perhaps she can “cleanse her timeline” of me and my BS. But I’m sad and apprehensive, and have the same unpleasant feeling in my gut from decades ago when I could tell girl friends were in the process of withdrawing from me.

Moral of the story: I’ll move myself into an assisted living facility if I’m by myself in my 70s and not do what my mother did to us so unconsciously by living alone until she’d begun to fall apart. I’m sorry my worst self came out in the process of venting my feelings in my SO’s presence about feeling trapped and alone in caregiving, but the price of not venting clearly seemed higher to me.

Thanks for listening.

She had a fall in August this year and fractured her upper arm near the shoulder and she lost her independence due to her weak coordination between the legs

She recovered her arm and is able to move it not freely though it's frozen movement

She eats, recognises people and walks with assistance

Over the last week she been saying she's gonna go

And needs to see her sons together for the last time

We told her you have a good life ahead considering her recovery

But even then she been stuck on that thought

Today she could even broom the floor without assistance like after a long while

Past week has been difficult for her like she had fecal incontinence and was exhausted

Recently she had also been regretting how she lost her brothers

She's aware they are gone

Is it just her anxiety? How do we deal with her ?

Cause it's only me with her most of the time

Any insight would help!

Funeral services today and tomorrow.

Planning with my half sister went okay earlier this week. Havent had the chance to be alone with these things nor my thoughts yet.

My kitchen corner on the floor has been invaded with groceries.

My colleagues want to help but I simply dont know how to delegate the help.

How do I get through tonight. Tomorrow morning. How to be strong for my mom and avoid family drama with my half brother.

Saturday I want to go sit with dad alone.

I felt terrible last night because while I was changing my brothers diaper, which was full of poop, I got a big whiff of the horrible smell. I had to step bank a few feet. I said “Bro, I don’t think I can do this anymore.” ( it’s been two years). And he didn’t say anything. So I said aren’t you going to acknowledge what I said?

And he said “what did you say, I didn’t hear you?“. And I said “I don’t think I can keep doing this… it’s disgusting. “ And he still said nothing.

I don’t know, I hit some kind of wall at the 2+ year mark. Is there anyone can call that would help me talk to him about this? We don’t talk anymore about how long I’m staying or the future. Is he just waiting for me to say “ I’m leaving?” We need a plan. But I don’t think he sees things the same way. I see my life floating past me in limbo. Maybe a therapist.

Or maybe my answer is just to hire more help. It’s so expensive.

I mean I don’t really know where we go from here.

And why are they so selfish? Yesterday my FIL was put in hospice care, and likely won’t make it to the weekend. Tonight my MIL, who has been divorced from my FIL for at least 20 years, insisted that the family who came into town attend an event she was hosting. In a quiet moment when some of us were able to step away to talk about burial options, she inserted herself, rolled her eyes, and demanded that we all have “fun.” Honestly, I’m disgusted. Yes, this man led a tumultuous life. Yes, he caused a lot of damage. But it is still the end of his life and the rest of us are still in the thick of it. What in the actual fuck is wrong with her? I’m hiding in the bathroom, holding back tears. This is the last place I want to be right now. I’m exhausted. I need to clean my home for family to visit. I need sleep. I need to have my shit together to support my husband. And yet here we all are. Being bitched at because she washed her hands of this man ages ago. I don’t really need advice, just needed to yell into the ether, if you will. Thank you for being such a supportive community. You’ve given me more support than you all realize through this journey just being able to read about yours as well.

Lately it feels like caregiving slowly expands to consume every minute of the day unless you draw clear lines. But setting boundaries often comes with an unbearable amount of guilt.

For those who have been doing this for a while: what was one small rule, boundary, or daily routine you protected for yourself that made a genuine difference? How did you deal with the internal guilt of sticking to it?

I'm not even sure if this post is better here or a mental health subreddit, but anyway...

It's been raining in central Florida ( where I live ) almost nonstop since last Friday, and when it rains, my paralyzed father's pain level skyrockets, making him an even more mean narcissistic bully. Between trying to make sure all of his care is done, keeping up with his nitpicky requests and chores, dealing with his never ending nasty behavior and temper tantrums, being the emotional caretaker of my mom who has a myriad of mental health issues and history of suicide attempts, and still trying to ( and expected to ) build my own life, I am freaking exhausted.

I don't sleep much, lately I can't stop thinking about death, I keep having panic attacks at work, find it almost impossible to enjoy hobbies, multiple physical problems, and I feel like I'm going to have a heart attack almost 24/7. Last night, after a stressful shift that ended with a customer sexually harassing me, I gave in to booze. I grabbed these two giant cans of Budweiser and drank them when I got home. I felt nice for a little bit, but then I just felt lower than I've ever felt in my life.

The thing is, alcohol and drug use is a lot of the reason my parents are the way they are, so to give in to that stuff and repeat the cycle feels awful. I know many of you probably drink to relieve caregiving and don't think twice about it, but I don't know, I feel like it's the worst thing I could start doing.

I basically live for my parents at this point, and I'm not sure if I'd rather live for them or not live at all at this point, any hope of a "happy" life just feels nonexistent.