This note is about manipulation and frustration.

My step-father has some form of dementia. We don’t know what degree of loss he has experienced, although his short-term memory is certainly affected. My mother has not ever sent him to the proper doctor to be evaluated.

She is crippled up to an extreme degree. Early onset rheumatoid arthritis, thyroid issues, lack of healthcare and a refusal to do what they recommended for at least 30 years, combined with the last decade of doing little more than sitting in an oversized recliner, and she has little strength left at all. Could barely walk across the room even before she fell and set off a series of spinal fractures. Oh, and renal failure. I’ve no idea how long she’s had that.

Step-dad (SD) has been mom’s (M) physical caregiver during this time. But once the pain got so bad that she couldn’t even sit up in bed, she went into the hospital for a week. He has missed her very much, and we now have caregivers going to him every evening to help him cope with sundowners.

M has been in a rehabilitation center for a week. She refuses to cooperate with PT and OT, claiming pain that prevents her from participating. She won’t work through the pain, she won’t try to help herself. I knew this, I understand how she is, and I can’t bring myself to flatter her and pamper her to try to get her to participate in her own recovery. Does she have pain? Probably. To what degree? I don’t care.

I’m trying to convince myself that repeating that over and over will make it more real and give me some mental tools to deal with it. So here I am.

Talking to you.

Better than talking to AI.

I have arranged my work schedule so that I get four-day weekends, twice a month. This is the fifth weekend I’ve spent in her town, dealing with her issues, helping SD acclimate to the new senior living community they live in now. I rushed 3 hours after getting a panicked call at 7am one morning, I’ve spent my own money to do things and buy things.

I don’t even like her.

But I’m close enough now after a life of living 9 hours away, and I have a feeling of obligation to help the rest of the family. To take over this work at what might be the end of her life and fulfill some of the duties of the oldest child. Family certainly are helping as needed, and my sister-in-law has been awesome. She’s right there doing what needs to be done, too.

Tomorrow they are bringing her home to for hospice care. According to the nursing home, she can’t even sit on the side of the bed without a 2-person assist, and she wants to have her big-ass recliner in her room. Which will not fit. I’m telling you now, there is no way there will be room for taking care of her needs if that is in there.

From experience, I know that she will sit in that for about 10-15 minutes and have to get back into bed. That’s what it was like when we were packing up their former home for the move to the senior community. Then run for a cookie, run for pain meds, run back down there to be told something a second or third time.

I don’t know why I can’t just do what I need to do to fulfill whatever obligation is put on me, then pivot away from it and pick back up my own life. Why my brain keeps rolling around.

So I’ve blocked her on this app, and am going to write out my frustrations as notes because I don’t want this shoved into people’s email boxes. Some people who are friends with her may see this and tell her, and I can’t and am not trying to control that.

I’m writing out my frustrations, giving word to how I’m feeling. I can control that, right enough.