Just needing to rant

loosingmyself

Since my stepmother passed away a year ago, husband and I have been caring for my father with early onset Alzheimer’s. We are his only caregivers because my sister lives out of town. I have really been struggling lately dealing with the way my dad talks to me. As my husband says, “he stays on your a**.” Any time I try to help him out he gets ugly with me. For example, it stormed today, and as he was walking out on the porch, I told him all of the cushions were soaked, so he shouldn’t sit in the chairs. He responded to me in such an ugly way that I just walked away and cried. It reminds me so much how he spoke to me as a child, and I feel so much of my childhood trauma resurfacing. How do I get past this? How do I become okay with being spoken to in this way? I have given up my entire life, left my home, put my life on hold to take care of him and his home, and I cant figure out a way to change this dynamic.

SusanB-dil

Hi loosingmyself - welcome to 'here', but sorry for the reason.

I feel for you. My MIL and I used to get along great. My mom and I never did see eye-to-eye. Now, MIL has been downright nasty to me. DH has DPOA, and did let her doc know that she is so agitated. She is on some meds that have dialed it back some, but it is definitely not great. I actually try to stay out of the way except for meals together. When I am with her by myself, I try to stay under the radar - like I used to do with my mother. I reminded her one evening to take her meds. She SCREAMED at me that "YOU can't tell me that! You cannot! You're not her… you're not his!" oh, wait, 'her'… We figured it out. She knows I am not DH late wife, who passed in early 2000. We met late 2000 and married in '04, and her memory no longer goes that far. I am just 'someone who gets the groceries' and is there 'just to aggravate her'.

We also disrupted our lives… for this??

Now, my mother thinks I am her sister. She's nicer to me now. Go figure

But I would definitely tell his doc that dad is so agitated. Hopefully something can calm down that aggression and agitation. Because that much belligerent abuse is NOT acceptable!

Quilting brings calm

my step-dad was unbelievably stubborn and became paranoid in the last few years about their money. He’d never managed money or accounts in his life/ mom always did it. They added me to the checking account when mom could no longer handle it due to dementia. He actually went and moved money two weeks later making it almost impossible for me to get their bills paid without begging him to sign a check on the new account. He still didn’t know how to write a check and couldn’t figure out how to use an ATM for his new debit card. I tried explaining things to him. I tried getting him to give me a POA. It was a big hassle until the joint account finally got enough direct deposits into it to pay things. They still went to the joint account because he didn’t know how to change the direct deposit. He even balked on me buying their groceries instead of him except when he couldn’t go. Of course he charged it to their joint credit card rather than ‘his’ checking account.

I finally gave up on trying to help him other than getting the bills paid and taking him to the doctor. He was on his own for things - they were in assisted living so the staff did what he allowed them to do.

We were barely speaking when he died. And like you it had been a difficult childhood. I refused to allow him to treat me that way the last few years. I’d get up and leave.