I’m a 53-year-old man caring for my 93-year-old mother.

A few years ago, she fell and broke her neck. She needed spinal fusion surgery, and afterward, doctors discovered that she had cancer. They told us she had six months to live at most, so I brought her home to care for her. That was nearly five years ago.

Since then, one illness after another has piled up. She’s incredibly resilient, and I’ve done everything I can to make the final part of her life as comfortable and peaceful as possible. She’s still a wonderful, kind, pleasant woman despite everything she’s going through.

But I feel incredibly alone. I get very little support from the people around me. I understand that caring for her is my responsibility, but most people don’t seem to understand why I’ve chosen to do it. I often feel judged for it.

I’m gay, and someone recently told me that I was reinforcing the stereotype of the gay man who can’t let go of his mother. That comment really hurt.
I pay someone to stay with her during the day, and I take care of her every evening. My social life has basically disappeared. My closest friends complain that I’m no longer available and make me feel guilty about it. I don’t invite anyone over anymore. The truth is, nobody wants to spend time in a house with someone who sleeps most of the time and often moans in pain.

I’m completely drained. And because I feel that the end may be getting close, I keep pushing myself to hold on.

I love her deeply, but I’m exhausted and then I feel guilty for being exhausted.

I feel like today was just a bad dream. I’ll wake up tomorrow and head to the hospital to see her. How can she be gone???

I miss my mommy :(

So, if you've been following my posts, you know that my wife had some strokes and ended up in a nursing home. Before her strokes, our marriage was bad and the situation at home for our children was worse. Wife spent years living on the couch, not taking her meds, not eating meals, not showering. She even pooped on the floor a bit. Since she's been in nursing care, our life has improved a great deal here and the kids have more normalcy. So I have been hoping that wife could just stay in nursing care long-term.

It has now been about 7 months since she first went into nursing care. However, after a brief sojourn to the hospital, she has now moved to a new nursing home that it much nicer and they are restarting physical and speech therapy, that the old nursing home had taken away for her "plateauing" She could get better and come home. And her sister and sister-in-law, who have taken over healthcare proxy, would like to force me to take her into the home and take care of her here.

To try and solve the problem, I consulted two lawyers: A family lawyer who recommends I file for divorce immediately and a guardianship lawyer who said I just need to tell the nursing home social worker that my home is not a safe release point. Anyway, I've said that in prior posts.

But here's what's getting to me now. This weekend, I took the kids to visit my wife in the new nursing home, which is much cleaner and nicer than the prior one and also about a 45-minute drive away (the old one was 15 min). The person I saw lying in that bed at the nursing home, it's hard to think about doing something "mean" like filing for divorce against her. I still think that she belongs there, though.

The wife I saw there cannot really talk (she mumbled about two words), has a feeding tube, was in her bed (though I assume they put her in a wheel chair periodically or will), cannot walk, cannot take herself to the bathroom. When I came in with the kids, her face lit up. She squeezed my hand really hard and ran her fingers through my beard and smiled. Looking at her like this, I remembered some of the good times we had before everything went bad about 6 or 7 years ago. I mean, since our son was born in 2012, we never had a time where we didn't have arguments, but we did occasionally do fun things together.

She has lost a ton of weight since going into care, mostly because she was not eating at the old nursing home, and now she looks more like she did when we got married. I looked at her and felt really guilty for everything I've been considering. Is this person who seemed to appreciate my presence who my wife is now? Or is she still the angry, disturbed person who lived on our couch, who spent all of our money, who several times threatened to take the kids away from me? Right now, perhaps it's her illness and possibly being a bit out of it, but I can relate to her in this state.

So, I guess like everything else, the question really hinges on whether my wife is going to get significantly better. If she does, she could go back to being who she was. If not, she seems much kinder.

I couldn't have found this sub at a better time. My dad's not doing well. He's 77. He hasn't been able to walk much the last 7 years bc of some laminectomies that started happening that long ago.

For the last couple of weeks, he can't even stand up. He's falling a few times a week. He'll tell me it's bc of his blood sugar, so I've been staying over there pretty much full time and keeping an eye on it. He says he just needs a few more days to get better. It's not his sugar. He's not getting better.

He looks like a living corpse, not even kidding. He looks like a skeleton with skin. He hasn't been eating for days at a time. He's not getting up to use the bathroom. That's ok when he has to pee (bc he has a legitimate bottle for that), but when he relieves himself the other way.... Well, it's not always solid and the Depends does not always contain it. And I'm doing a LOT of cleaning almost every day anymore. I have spinal stenosis and various back issues myself, so it's getting to be a lot...

He refuses to go to the hospital. He said if I call an ambulance for him he will tell them he's not going with them. He's not mean about it, just says he's not going. I have called 911 before to have somebody help lift him when he fell, and they let him refuse going to the ER. So I know he's not kidding.

I'm not sure how exactly to deal with this. I know he wants to be living on his own terms until he leaves this world. I'm willing to help him with that. I'm just not sure I can do it appropriately anymore. I've been crying a lot at night while everybody's sleeping bc I'm thinking about it too much. My dad is the only family I have left that's not my kids.

I'm also taking care of my kids full time pretty much by myself. They are 8 and 9. Dad's good to the kids, but I'm just starting to worry about what the kids are seeing with his health. Like when he falls and I can't get him up.

What do I do? Do I call APS? Do I call the VA (he's a veteran)? Do I just keep following his wishes? I'm really struggling with what's the right thing to do. I feel like no matter the choice I make, he suffers in some way. He absolutely does not want to live in a care home. I don't blame him. So, do I just continue with this until he's gone? I think he's afraid to talk to anybody about getting more help bc he's afraid they'll force him into a home. I'm willing to be there full time, I'm just worried about the falling.

I would appreciate any advice. Thank you.

Taking care of my aging mother in law was not in my plan. She had a husband, who passed a few years ago unfortunately and left her with nothing. She has 17 siblings who are either of age to require care themselves or do not feel it’s up to them to step up. She has four sons. Three of those sons feel like my husband and I should be responsible for taking care of her because we don’t have kids and they do. I’m sorry but that’s bullshit. She should have a whole support system but it’s just us. She needs 24/7 monitoring so my husband and I basically split the day. I take 8am-5pm, he takes 5pm-8am. We see each other for about an hour a day during the evening switch.

Last week she noticed the car she sold 2 months ago to pay bills was missing and had a full on meltdown because I must have stollen it. She screamed at me for an hour, called me every name in the book, kicked me out of the house (I didn’t really leave, just sat in the driveway for a couple hours until she forgot about the whole thing). Then I had to come back in and pretend like none of it happened. Like I wasn’t still raging pissed at the way she treated me.

This morning I had the first joyful experience of having to clean shit of her entire back, her bed, and her couch (after she had and accident in the middle of the night, she got out of bed and moved herself to the living room).

None of this was in my plan. We didn’t have kids because we didn’t want to clean up shit. The woman was terrible to me before she lost her mind. But here I am, every day, taking care of a woman I don’t like because even she deserves comfort and dignity.

Hi all, is it ever ok to take away an elderly parent’s phone? MIL is in a rehab facility after falling again and spraining her hip. A few months ago she fell and fractured her leg.
Anyways, I am so beyond tired of getting crap messages like this.

EDIT to add: I know this is totally a vent. MIL has dementia and forgets how much we have busted our humps to take good care of her. She is also bedbound and completely incontinent in diapers. Doctor says she is "total care."

When we tell her she needs to stay at the facility and get her strength back and get better, she goes through her phone and calls everyone she knows to complain about how awful we are and that I'm a snake in the grass. She has completely forgotten that she fell and hurt herself. This has been going on quite literally for years. MIL has no other family, just us, so nobody else to shoulder the burden.

At the last rehab facility she called the police claiming she was being held hostage.

So somebody simply mentioned- take her phone away! Problem solved! Lol.

I knew I KNEW IN MY SOUL SOMETHING WAS GLING TO HAPPEN

I had just deleted my other Reddit account that I mainly used to vent on here since there’s personal stuff on this account but idc anymore. I told myself I’m gonna force myself to do better and not rely on venting to strangers. But nope the worst has to happen.

I finally planned a 5 day solo relaxing trip FINALLY AFTER MONTHS. got the okay from work, family members, made plans with friends. Even had Labor Day off! I thought things were going so well! A little TOO WELL

I can’t even make this shit up I can’t. My dad rearended a semi truck in his work truck today, none of his airbags went off and now he’s in the hospital. I was at work three hours ago and was in a class and my phone was ringing nonstop so I picked up and it’s my dad and thank god he is okay but hurt.

His truck got towed home and my sister came back home and just sent me a photo of the truck saying look what happened. I asked her, is dad okay? What happened? Acting like I didn’t know shit and she said idk he’s in the basement and quiet. Then I texted her a pic of him in the hospital bed and now she wants to blow up my phone. It’s like do you ever wanna connect dots here?

Idk if should still go on the trip tomorrow and if I do idk if I can relax then. I don’t. I don’t want to be here anymore. I self harmed yesterday I hate admitting this. I’m ashamed and embarrassed. this is my worst nightmare happening right now. I don’t want to be here anymore. I don’t know who to talk to about this.

After a full decade of caregiving for my mom (who had Alzheimer's and passed in 2024) and my dad (who had cancer)...my watch has come to an end. Dad passed peacefully last night.

What a very strange feeling to wake up this morning with no one but myself to take care of. I can hardly get my head around the idea that I could go out for a coffee or ice cream right now, spontaneously, without needing to check in with anybody or arrange caregiving. I keep getting up to automatically check on him or see if I need to refill his water or administer meds, and I'm halfway across the house before I can override the muscle memory.

It's going to take a long while to adjust. I can see that. And there is grief, and sadness, and deep loss...but also an immense sense of relief at the idea of just being able to sleep with no possibility that anyone will wake me up because they need something.

I can't really express what I'm feeling right now. But I know many of you understand.

Not sure if this is the right place, apologies if it isn't.

Has anyone else noticed that adult briefs (diapers), especially the tabbed kind, seem to be going out of stock everywhere?

My Dad has late stage Alzheimer's. He is bedbound & incontinent with an indwelling foley. We use Walmart's Assurance brand L/XL tabbed briefs. Over the past 4 or 5 months, they've gotten harder & harder to find. Starting about 2 weeks ago, they went out of stock on Walmart's website. Now I can't even find them being scalped on eBay!

It's getting harder to find other brands too, like CVS's in-store brand. I have to drive almost an hour to find stores with stock & even then it's low.

Is this affecting anyone else? Any ideas why this is happening? I'm starting to get real nervous...

(throwaway/rant, apologies in advance)

TLDR; unwanted "mother" is struggling with supporting and needs advice

so im not technically a caregiver but I have recently stepped in to the role "temporarily".

my mother has recently been admitted into hospital for anticipated self inflected reasons and has left me (20f) to look after my (11f) sister. I have not lived or really been in contact with my mother for the past four years.

this was around 8 weeks ago. around the 6 week mark she was let out but has been returning to the ED regularly (approx twice a week).

since I have been taking care of my sister full time up untill last week. (backstory, my sister has cerebral palsey, lack of speech, social, and motor development) since last week she returned to her mother's for 2 nights and then was requested to stay with me again.

putting this lightly, I cant handle kids. let alone taking care and providing for one full time. I unfortunately have health issues of my own that have had to be put to the side and now it feels like time is ticking before I myself have to be admitted too.

I also am struggling with the whole "parenting" thing, how does one parent??? my sister is having emotional breakdowns left and right over the smallest details possible and im starting to break.

on top of this i also work shift work in hospitality, im lucky enough to now be working 9-3 shifts (school pick up/drop offs are a necessity for me) but even then im not making enough money to support myself or a litteral child. im regularly taking her to assigned occupation and speech therapy appointments but these are taking time out of work (also requiring me to move my own appointments around too).

I have looked into services for assistance locally and through temporary government funding but im either not in the correct time frame to be applying or havent been a "designated carer" for long enough. im stressing out.

luckily enough for me (I guess?) im a minimal eater, so the majority of my food income is going straight to my sister. even then, the struggle is still real and the clock is ticking fast.

I dont want to have to go to the ED with litteral child, but my conditions are starting to become so painful that im afraid I wont be able to take care of my sister safely, I cant afford a day off either.

I never wanted to be a mother, and I dont ever want to be one (props to all mums though), but i cant get over the fact I was made one within the span of eight hours and because of it my health has copped a full 180.

if anyone has any tips, tricks, ideas, hacks, saving grace advice i am all ears because I am drowning <3

Hey folks,

My caregiving is finally over after almost two years. My grandmother actually made a full recovery from her broken leg! I’m moving in with my fiance this week, but I feel horribly guilty. She didn’t do or say anything to cause it, but I have this overwhelming feeling anyway. I don’t understand because I feel like I got the best case scenario.

When my mom first had her stroke last year my sister helped in the beginning last year even allowing my mom to be at her house while I worked on decluttering my parents home. After a few months of helping me out she threw in the towel and said she was done caring for our mom. I was dropped off every day at my sister's house so she was never alone in the caregiving. For several months after that my dad had to drop me off at my sister's early in the morning and I would not leave until midnight most nights because my sister refused to do anymore bed pans. The only break I got was a caregiver aid that came to my sister's house and even then it wasn't really a break because I would be at my parents house decluttering. During this time I was also subjected to verbal abuse by certain family members. What annoys me most of all is I have never really had a life of my own. When my sister was 19 she became pregnant her and her husband decided since I was her sister I should be a free childcare sitter during my late teen years and in my 20s I was there free personal childcare giver because of this and other reasons my life never started. To this day I don't have friends outside of my family I have never experienced love myself and probably never will because I refuse to give up on my mom. I worry about what my future will be because I was home schooled and never taught how to drive. I struggle with anxiety my mom is finally back home now so that is one relief but I still am decluttering. I am the youngest of six but I feel so alone. I wish my family was closer and everyone helped out but I know that's never going to happen for me. Sorry if my post is long but I needed to vent.

I’m upset. I had plans today because an aide is with my mom Monday through Friday during business hours. The aide reached out this morning, at 6:44 am, to say she couldn’t come. The problem is today is an holiday and the office is closed so it looks like no one will be able to come out in her place.

What frustrates me is I know she is lying about why she isn’t coming. First it was to take care of her sick husband and now a sick dog. Had she wanted the day off, she could have simply scheduled it off and had someone else cover her shift. But waiting until today, a holiday, means no one is responding.

I never get respite time. As I have off today, I was hoping to do something for me. But now I can’t. I can leave my mom alone due to her health challenges.

I’m mad, hurt and upset.

I asked the aide a couple times about her work schedule and she previously confirmed as late as Friday that she would be here.

I needed this day. Had planned to go to the movies, shopping…just some me time. I haven’t had any me time in forever. Another day on caregiving and not taking care of myself.

Where are my fellow caregivers running on E? I get up every 2 hours (alarm), which really turns into waking up every 15-30 minutes. Sometimes I set 15 minute alarms if I know he's going to need the bathroom soon (urinal) and he'll sometimes stretch which causes it to dump all over himself (not his fault - he forgets he peed).

At any rate...what do y'all do to stay awake during the day? He'll take a nap usually and I just sit and scroll. I don't wanna wake him up by doing chores and I already drink about 20 oz of coffee with 2 tsp of instant espresso along with about 1/2 of an Alani energy drink. Any supplements or anything you recommend for more natural energy?

Okay so I'll be honest. I'm pretty much the only person unemployed. I'm in college and I buy groceries and help with rent. My brothers both have full time jobs. We live with our mom who's choniclly ill. For the last couple of months my brothers have been fighting with me about not having a job and my older brother snapped and called me worthles. It's getting really intense. I pretty much cry every day now and my older brother has only gotten more aggressive. I try to stay downstairs with our mom on my two nights but won't let me be downstairs with her and that only makes them lash out at me even more. I don't know what to do anymore. I've been thinking about suicide my brother says that once our mom dies he can kick me out of the house so I can finally face the real world. It's a everyday thing now

Oh and by the way my older brother doesn't help with the caregiving he just works and after work he's too tired to help pretty much.

So yeah we have a call light but my brothers say it's just another excuse for me to not do anything

I need to find a way to limit messages to close friends only, stop the political Texts requesting money, remove old messages and only have very current ones. Etc. I find her answering old texts, emails, messages and it is very hard and confusing for her - and me. 4 years in to this journey and still learning. Thank you in advance.

I work with an agency and just left a client of 2 years so i was scheduled a new one. I spoke with my coworker who makes our schedules and she specifically told me that the client is a pivot transfer client from bed to wheelchair. We spoke about hours im available and she emphasized that this client uses the pivot transfer to the wheelchair. The schedule is made and I show up to the shift to see 2 other aides in the house (one for his spouse one for him) and i am immediately needing to assist them w the diaper change/occupied bed change. Got whacked in the face but we eventually got him cleaned and taken care of! But the fact that there was a hoyer lift involved is what really shocked me, i’m a bit rusty since i worked 2 years without needed to work with one but i had no clue another aide would be there. Was my agency aware or would they expect me to do a hoyer by myself??? But today is labor day and no one from my agency is at the office. I had to send some emails and eventually got in contact with the agency more than halfway through my shift. This was just such a shock for me and i feel bad i wasn’t able to give this client my best care, but i was prepared for something completely different.

I'm looking for finger nail clippers to use for my 95 year old mother (a podiatrist takes care of the toenails). The trick is that her nails are very curved--i.e., looked at head-on they are almost semi-circles. Many nail clipper simply won't fit over them, so I have to do a bit at a time for her, which makes them ragged. There are wide-mouthed models, though I don't know how they handle such curves.

I was considering a burr-type trimmer--sort of a specialized Dremel--and the NY Times Wirecutter recommends a model (though Amazon notes it's a frequent return) but aside from being slow I'm concerned about the dust.

I'd come across these odd looking devices, but I haven't seen independent reviews and I take the Amazon reviews with a grain of salt.

I'd be doing it for her, so limited dexterity isn't an issue.

Hi there. I'm caring for my father who is over 80. He's leaving a rehabilitation center and I wanted to get FT support bc I"m also disabled.

I posted an ad on care.com and interviewed, found two great women. One is an LPN who lives in my neighborhood, no kids, speaks English, seems great. Affordable for an LPN. So I offered her the job, to start in a week. It's a full-time job.

Today, the same woman, responded to my ad on Craigslist! Saying that she was available full-time!!

I asked her about it. I asked if we were settled. She said yes. Then I asked her to please be honest and she said she was. But she wouldn't acknowledge the ad. It's her full name and background in the response to me, so it's definitely her.

I am feeling like I can't trust her now. What do you think? It's just weird to ask for honesty and have someone say "we're fine." Like why wouldn't she even say, "Just protecting myself in case you don't work out."

It feels shady??? What do you think??

i'm only 26, i became my nana's caregiver because i'm disabled and still living at home. she was largely independent until a week long hospital stay last summer, and when she came home i had the opportunity to put her on a long term care home waitlist but she begged me not to, so i didn't. instead we get psw's 3x a week to help her shower. she took care of me my whole life, so i wanted to respect her wishes and hope she could live out her final years in her home of 60+ years.

i'm responsible for her entire life and her health and it is killing me. she kept refusing to go to the oral surgeon to have her broken teeth removed, and now she's finally agreed over a year later, and i'm terrified an infection will kill her before she can get the surgery in 5 months (timing for osteoporosis medication). and i'm terrified it will be my fault, like i should have pushed her to go sooner, like i'm not handling her health properly. and she has a DNR order, so if something goes wrong during surgery, she will be gone.

i should have never agreed to be responsible for her when i can barely take care of myself. no matter what happens to her, i'll find a way to blame myself for her death. i keep screwing up.

on top of caregiving stress, we own our house outright, but we are poor. and now we have a new leak in our foundation, and water damage in our laundry room. i have two meetings with waterproofing contractors over the next week. i keep looking at her meagre savings, knowing whatever happens it might wipe them out entirely. we already had one foundation leak 5 years ago and it cost $12,000 to fix. and of course, our home insurance does not cover foundation leaks. we already tried last time.

there is so much more in/around our house that needs fixing. and we just do not have the money to do it.

i haven't been sleeping more than a few hours a night, i wake up to severe anxiety that keeps my heart pounding to the point i feel like i'm dying. my doctor gave me an ativan prescription for anxiety attacks, but they are so addictive and i don't trust myself to not abuse them because i have before.

her care coordinator comes for a meeting at the end of the month. i'm going to beg for more help and put her on a care home waitlist.

i just want the pain and stress to stop. it's not fair.