I am sort of her caretaker, since I am home most of the time with her. I don’t mean I have to give her baths or anything like that…I just mean I have to make sure that she has what she needs and wants most of the time.  My husband is gone working, or on the computer in the other room, or napping, or exercising.  I think he still feels like if she needs something, she’ll ask him, but she usually doesn’t.

She is very patriarchal. She views him as the man of the house in every antiquated sense of that word.  She will doubt everything I say but take his word for it.

She does many things that drive me crazy.  She is a very nice person, and anyone who knows her will tell you that because she is unfailingly polite and nice.  They don’t have to live with her, though. Oh, yes, she is nice, means well and has good intentions. But she’s also way *too* polite, worries too much, has many quirks and is very stubborn and proud.

Most of the time she is fine and we get along, but sometimes we have some really bad arguments and there is tension, or most of the time she just aggravates me with little annoyances, but she has little idea.

It was my idea for her to move in, but I really didn’t know how it would be.  When she visited for a test run for a month, we talked about all of these things, these projects she could do, but she never seems to want to do any of them.

She has no friends here, either, so she is stuck at home most of the time, since she can’t drive.  When she was in San Diego, she didn’t have a lot of friends there, either, for a long time, until finally she got out and found some at the senior center. She did the driving for her friends, too, in her previous town, which she can’t do here.

We only have one senior center here and it is very bad, more for the poor than anything. I think that most of the middle-class seniors here just do church activities.  None of us go to church.  We should probably push her more to do go out and meet people, but she is a bit resistant. Sometimes she needs to be pushed past her worries and fears, though.  The other problem is that I don’t drive, so we are dependent a bit on my husband’s having time to drive us (public transportation here is bad).  That is my own fault, and I do admit that.  Why I don’t drive is a long story for another time.

The senior center has a free bus, but only if you live within 5 miles, and we just barely miss that. Even if we paid, they wouldn’t pick her up or drive her home. So if my husband takes her, it means she is stuck there all day. Still, we should make her do it so she can get out and make friends.  All of us are bad at putting these things off.

When we do suggest taking her, she makes excuses, yet I know she hates just sitting around in the house all the time.

Anyway…she does all these things that drive me nuts, but she can’t help them, so there is nothing or very little I can do about it.

First, we have the personality quirks, things that I couldn’t really ask her to change after 80 years (and I wouldn’t expect her to ask me to change mine, either).  Like for instance, she jumps, gets startled easily. And it’s made worse by the fact that she has bad hearing and eyesight. 
Secondly, she sighs really heavily, like someone might if they are upset or very tired, but she claims that she has always done this and it does not mean she is upset or tired.

Third, she hums (tunelessly) to herself, and when we ask her to stop, she claims she didn’t know she was doing it. How can you hum to yourself and not even know it? Humming takes some effort. That one is very weird to me.  All of these really take some getting used to.

Then there is the fact that she “hates to waste” but really she just means food, so if she is in a restaurant and they give her too much of something, and she either can’t or doesn’t want to take it home, she complains to us about it. Every single time. Even though we always say, “who cares” etc. she does it anyway.  Never mind that there are plenty of other things she wastes. 

She has a horrible sense of humor but still expects us to laugh at her jokes. I’m not kidding. She will laugh at just about anything, but the jokes she tries to make are never funny. I don’t mean like just old people humor, but I mean like, she thinks if you take something and say the opposite, it is funny. Then we think she is just wrong, so we say no, it’s such and such, then she gets annoyed that we are getting the joke. It’s hard to know when she is joking or just saying something that makes no sense, since she does both a lot. I keep telling her she can’t expect us to laugh if the jokes are not funny. I mean, maybe she spent too many years teaching Kindergarteners and they always at her jokes? I don’t know…I mean, I am really bad at telling jokes, but I am Eddie Murphy compared to her.

She has some very weird outdated ideas about a lot of stuff, which I’m sure is common for people her age.  Like she won’t use any of our dishes that are chipped or not perfect. I’m like, who cares? So the bowl has a little chip on the edge.  If she had her way, I would buy all new dishes and pans. I would love to do that, but it’s very expensive, and to me that is a much bigger waste. I do keep old pots and pans that are past their prime, but I use them as long as possible. If I have a baking pan that is rusty, I just put foil over it to use it. Who cares what it looks like?

She is very picky about foods she eats and how she looks. She always explains why she doesn’t like something even though we already know. She is the only person I know who doesn’t like melted cheese.  I don’t care if she’s picky, that’s her business, except it makes it difficult if we are out eating and she complains.  Also, I don’t care if she doesn’t like it, but I don’t want to hear about it for the umpteenth time.

You would think that one of the perks of being old is that you don’t have to care so much about what you look like, but not to her.  She always worries about wearing stuff “in style”. Who cares? And yet she won’t ever wear blue jeans because to her that is something only young people do. She goes to the park to exercise but will dress in normal clothes even though wearing sweat pants or shorts would be way more comfortable this time of year. And in the winter, she will not wear a hat or scarf because of how it looks, even though she’s freezing. To me that is just crazy. It’s stupid enough if young people do that, but if you are old anyway, who the hell cares? Being vain is really stupid to my mind.  I mean, people don’t really look at old people anyway, since they don’t value them and ignore them (I’m not saying that’s a good thing, it’s just true), and they would think she is old and ugly, so who cares?  I’m not saying she should wear a lime green track suit or wear awful clothes, but geez otherwise, who cares?

Shopping with her for clothes is a pain because she is so damn picky.  She is short but fat, so it’s hard to find clothes for her anyway. She goes to the petite section but often the clothes are too small or the pants too short, and she will not hem pants up. I always have to hem pants, I didn’t know anyone didn’t.  I’d never have pants otherwise, and I’m not short. It’s just the way it is with women’s clothes.  She won’t buy any shirt with stripes or big flowers or certain colors. She will only buy pants that you don’t have to zip or buckle, only the stretchy kind.  I just want to strangle her sometimes when we are shopping.  Forget about shoes, she won’t wear anything with a heel, or no back strap, or that shows her toes, or that goes between her toes. That doesn’t leave much.

She claims to love the outdoors, but she hardly ever goes out.  We have a nice backyard, and lawn furniture which I periodically clean off or put clean blankets on…especially in nice weather.  But she won’t go out because she’s worried that something might blow onto her clothes and she’d have to change again. Okay, come on, that’s just so stupid. So who cares if your clothes get a little dirty? She is very picky about her clothes and whether they have any tiny spot.  Yet she says she used to love gardening and going out doors. It makes no sense.

She will not admit she’s getting old…she would not admit it at all until she was 80. She would actually say she was not that old, even at 78.  Even though she knows she has bad eyesight, hearing, and memory, she will still deny it on occasion.  She always complains our house is very dark when it’s not.  We keep all the window blinds and shades open, just for her…we used to keep them all closed for privacy and run around in our underwear in the summer.  The walls are wood and brick, but not terribly dark, and there are lots of lights. I used to open the front door for her, which let in more light, but I sleep late and she would never open it on her own. And when I asked her why, she would say she just forgot. So if light is so important to her, why not open the door and let the sun in? There is a storm door so it lets in light but no bugs or wind or heat.  And since she complains about the cold so much in the winter, and she never opened it for light anyway, I went ahead and put sealing tape around that door, so now we never open it.  She says that althought she is mostly blind in one eye, her other one is fine and so that doesn’t affect the light. Ha! She has 50% less light than a regular person, at least, so of course it does affect it.

She doesn’t notice things and she is lazy (of course we all are lazy).  I can walk right by her, then when I am walking back, she is startled since she didn’t notice me walking that way.  David has been using the small computer in the living room all week because his other one needs repair, and she didn’t even notice that he was using it (even though he is right next to her).  Time passes and she has no clue.  It is amazing, the things she doesn’t notice, you just wonder what little world she is in.  This is one of the reasons we don’t let her go anywhere on her own, even the mall.  She gets lost easily and doesn’t always notice stuff around her. Part of this may be due to her dementia, though.

One of the things that really drives me crazy is that she asks me stupid questions. And by stupid questions, I mean ones she already knows the answer to, if she stopped and thought for a moment, or I have already told her before, or she could easily find out if she just got up herself and looked.  I know her memory is bad, but she will not do anything to help it, either. I gave her a schedule of what we do every week because she was always asking me the same questions every day and every week, even though we are creatures of habit and pretty much do the same things all the time, at the same time. So now she still asks but doesn’t bother to look at the schedule.  My memory is not the greatest, so I get in the habit of writing things down. She doesn’t, and it really aggravates me that she can’t be bothered.  Plus she gets annoyed if she asks me something and I answered “just like last week” or “just like alwasy”, but come on, if someone asks you the same damn question every single week, especially after you’ve typed it up and printed it out for them, what else can you say??

Or she will ask, “Where is David” when she could easily go look, or “is it raining?” or “is that the dishwasher I hear?” all of which she could easily find out herself if she just got up and looked. That’s what I mean by lazy. We all are lazy to a certain extent, but why bother someone else to find out for you what the weather is outside when you can just go look out a window?

She has no common sense. How can you live to be her age and not have common sense? I don’t know, perhaps part of this is from the dementia, I don’t really know.  I can’t think of any examples right now, but believe me, there are plenty. Once she left the mayonnaise out for hours by accident and then used some!  Yet she won’t use any meat that’s more than five days old, even if it’s lunchmeat that’s full of preservatives and it’s not even close to it’s sell by date! Yet she will drink milk that’s two days past the date. It’s nonsensical.

She worries endlessly about things.  She’s lived here four years but still sometimes acts like she is intruding, even though we’ve assured her many times that this is her house, too, and she should just do what she wants. She always goes to bed at 9 pm and acts like she is somehow taking up our time if she stays up later. We’re like, we don’t care, do what you want. 

She usually sits in her easy chair in the living room, often watching the TV, which is a big screen.  She often asks us, when we walk into the room, if we want the remote control or TV.  Now, this is the thing that drives me the most crazy, so I have told her MANY times not to ask me that because it’s just tedious and also upsetting that she would somehow act like she is intruding and not worthy to watch our TV.  We have discussed it at length.  I used to watch more TV with her but frankly it is too annoying so now I mostly watch after she goes to bed, or I will watch online with the headphones one because she either pesters me with questions or doesn’t like what is on, makes comments, etc.  So I just usually let her have it.  She finally has mostly stopped asking me that question, although sometimes she still forgets and does it, and just say “no” in an exasperated voice.

She knows I am working at the computer there, but I have told her many times that she can watch what she wants and it doesn’t bother me. I have told her the only things I prefer she not watch in front of me are Glenn Beck, Lou Dobbs, and FOX news. Otherwise I can tune it out.  But she’s even worse with David, there’s that whole patriarchal thing so she offers the remote up to him every time he walks in like it’s some kind of sacrifice to the gods. Just drives me nuts. He usually says no but still she does it. I just want to scream. Besides, hell, it’s my TV!! LOL.  We have both told her, though, that if she want the TV remote, we’ll ask her for it, yet she still does that.

And he is the type to make snarky comments about what is on TV as he’s passing by, but he can’t any more because she takes it to mean that he doesn’t like it, so she shouldn’t watch it.  I keep telling her that he doesn’t like most shows on TV.

Even though we have lived here and in two other places with frequent storms and tornado warnings, anything weather-related freaks her out and makes her worry.  There are constant storm news things here, especially in the corner of the local stations.  Also, lots of thunder and lightening, and rain. I don’t know how many years she has to live here to get used to all that. Honestly she has gotten a little better about it every year.

She is not a very direct person and that really bothers me. I can ask her the same question three times and get three different answers, and I don’t always know if it’s because she doesn’t want to tell me the truth, or because she forgot the other reason, or there really is more than one reason.  She thinks I’m very rude because I don’t couch things all polite. To me, you shouldn’t have to talk that way to family.  You shouldn’t be insulting, but you don’t have to beat around the bush, especially with regards to problems living together. I have to pry things out of her and then I’m lucky if I get the real answer. Not that she lies, but she won’t necessarily give me the truth, either, if she thinks it’s impolite or that I will argue with her.

She used to be able to have a good discussion or argument, but now she gets very defensive and upset, and I don’t know why she changed. I am a very direct person, so if I think you are saying something that is wrong, I will tell you. She says a lot of wrong things.  But then if I don’t say anything, we end up not talking to each other, which is also not good.  She doesn’t act the same way with David, so it’s either because he’s her son, or a man, or has a phd, or all three…he corrects her more than I do, and she doesn’t take it badly.

When she first moved in, she said to let her know if she did anything that bothered her. Now, even then, I did not tell her everything, just the things that really bothered me, but then she would get all upset and defensive, so now I just don’t say anything to her unless it’s really important, like if I think she might be poisoning the dog.  So that’s why I’m typing this up, to express my aggravation, since I can’t do it to her. Even as little as I have said to her about all this, she already thinks she shouldn’t talk to us both because we are too busy or whatever. I don’t care if she talks to me most of the time, as long as she is not asking me something stupid, like I listed above (that she can easily find out).

Another thing that’s really hard is that on the one hand she is really old and has painful arthritis etc. and I feel she shouldn’t have to do housework, but also she is supposed to exercise and wants to feel useful.  So it’s a hard balance. Frankly I don’t want her to do housework because I would just have to redo it all since her eyesight is so bad.  The only thing I let her do is load and unload the dishwasher. She is really bad at that, too.

She hates and fears doctors so she won’t tell us if she feels bad…that is a real problem since we need to know. It’s a big stressful thing for her to go to any doctor, even if it’s for something minor. 

She is very judgmental of people, too, and it often seems kind of paranoid to me, like she thinks someone is purposely doing something to her when they are just doing their own thing and not really thinking about her.  Like once we were sitting outside the mall, waiting for David to pick us up, and this little kid was having fun pushing the big button that makes the door open by itself.  It was bothering her. She said to me that he was doing it purposely to annoy her, even though it was perfectly obvious that he was just having fun, being a thoughtless kid and not even noticing us.  I think this may be a symptom of her dementia, though, I’m not sure.

She does like her regular doctor because she thinks he doesn’t really care or run enough tests, yet she won’t ask him about it.  She won’t go back to the eye doctor because she thinks he is too rude (he is a little brusque). Who cares as long as he is a good doctor? Plus we go to him because he’s in the mall so it’s convenient. So she ended up going to another doctor that made her wait much longer and cost a lot more.

She is very weird about trash. We have trash cans all over the house, including her bathroom, her bedroom, near her chair, in the laundry room, etc. yet she always carries her trash over to the kitchen. She won’t use the other trash cans even though I’ve assured her that she is not sparing me any work. The weirdest one is the laundry room…why carry the lint trap all over the way over to the kitchen instead of just dumping the lint right in the trash can? I don’t know if it’s just part of the whole “I’m not going to be a burden thing” or something else weird, but it just drives me crazy, and I can’t get a straight answer out of her about it. 

She is very inefficient even though it hurts her sometimes. Like when she empties the dishwasher, she has to reach up to put away the glasses, which is hard on her because of the long reach and the fact that she’s short, plus her arthritis. I’ve suggested that she first put the glasses on the counter and close the dishwasher so she can reach the shelf better, yet she never does.

She spends most of her time sitting in her chair, doing crosswords and TV.  Yet she won’t start any of the projects she said she wanted to do.  If it’s just being lazy, fine, but I don’t know…

She gets upset kind of easily and that is not fun to live with.  She can snap at me or get easily frustrated or stressed out. Thankfully it doesn’t happen too often. I have gotten into a huge yelling fight with her before where she has been so bad that I called her bitch. So it is very stressful for both of us. I try to keep my cool, but it can be hard

It doesn’t help that we both have issues sometimes with low blood sugar, she with dementia, and both of us being tired, or her being on prescription medication, all of which can mess with your personality and your mood.

She likes it very warm in the winter, and a little warmer than I do in the summer.  Her whole family is that way, actually.  In the winter, I don’t let her put it above 70 because dust mites multiply if you put it above that, and I am allergic to dust. We did get her a space heater because she is always cold in the winter, even though she wears sweaters, socks etc.  It took her a long time to use it because she was afraid of it. Finally I turned it on for her and made her use it, and it is much better.  She insists on blasting the heat when she is in the shower. I had gotten her used to the “not above 70″ thin,g but every winter and even sometimes two or three times per winter, I have to remind her because she gets other numbers stuck in her mind besides 70.

She doesn’t like heat in the summer, especially outdoors, but she doesn’t like it as cool as I do.  She won’t usually put the A/C on unless it is really hot, if I am not up yet.

I will point out that in the winter she eats ice cream and drinks soda with ice all day, so I don’t feel too sorry for her being cold. Also, she rarely moves from her chair. You will get cold if you just sit in one place all day.  We did get her a space heater, but she wouldn’t use it because she was afraid of it. I finally tested it out myself and insisted she use it.

Because she was raised to be super-polite and with these elaborate, old-fashioned manners, she still expects other people to have them and is kind of judgemental about others being “rude” when usually it is not rude to them, just to her. Personally, I don’t think that you being unintentionally rude is such a big deal.

She has a lot of curiousity, which is fine expect when it impacts me.  Like she always has to know what’s going on, even if it is not about her or affecting her in anyway. That took a long while to convince her of. I guess her family did things differently.  She is not a guest, and she is family, but that doesn’t mean she has to know everything we are doing or where we’re going.  We tell her when we’re leaving and for how long, and generally where, but otherwise she doesn’t need to know who is calling me, or who was at the door, or what happened at the doctor’s office. That drives me crazy, and to me it is very rude for her to even ask.

She knows it’s rude on some level but won’t admit it. For a long time, whenever the phone rang, she wouldn’t come out and say, “who was that” because she knew it was rude (she has her own phone so it was not for her).  So she would say something like, “Was that so and so?” or “that wasn’t another hang-up, was it?” etc. so finally I just had enough and told her that it was none of her business, and if I wanted her to know, I would tell her. We had it all out, and I basically told her there is a fine line between being nosy and needing to know something important. I mean, I haven’t had a mom since I was 10, so this is very difficult for me. It never occured to me that she would want to intrude about stuff like that. She knows not to get involved with our marriage or anything like that, but sometimes she will ask personal stuff so I have to tell her to back off.  She is used to her daughter sharing personal stuff, but I am not her daughter.

She still is always asking us what’s going on or if we are going somewhere, even though I have made it very clear that if it affects her, or if there is a change, we will let her know. She still hears things (like David on the phone in the room or talking to me) and thinks I am talking to her, even though I always make sure to stand right in front of her and talk very clearly so she knows I am talking to her. She either doesn’t notice or doesn’t remember.

She often acts like she has to be all fun and upbeat, and make conversation, when neither of us in the mood for that. That can be very taxing, especially if I have just awakened.  I guess partly it’s because we used to only see her on vacation. Of course you act differently when you are on vacation than in “normal” life. She thought we were more fun or cheery, I guess, I don’t know.

I have tried to make a conscious effort to share more with her that is not too personal, and to talk to her, especially about things I know she likes.  At Christmas we usually have a pretty good time because we both love Christmas lights, presents, decorations, songs, etc.

But Christmas can be stressful, especially when she treats me like I’m going to break all of her decorations She sometimes acts like I’m still 20 or something, I don’t know. She accused me last Christmas of having once dropped and broken one of her decorations at Susan’s, but I don’t think that was me. She gets confused sometimes on facts in the past, so I think that was someone else. I can be careless, but not usually about things like that. In fact, most of the time I more careful than she is. I usually pack all my Xmas decorations up in bubble wrap and pack them in the boxes as if we might move, because we never know if we might move and I want to be prepared.  She was going to send this Xmas ornament to a friend’s kid in the midwest, and I was the one who made sure it was packed so that it wouldn’t break…she just put it in this little box and it would have arrived in broken, no question.  When she moved out here, David and I were the ones who carefully packed most of her things for her, including her Xmas ornaments. But she doesn’t remember any of that! She only  remembers that someone, not me, broke an ornament, so she blames me.

On the one hand, I think she should eat what she wants, because who knows how much longer she will live? But on the other hand, I know she wants to lose weight, and she could probably stop taking some of her pills if she changed her diet and exercised more.  She eats a lot of sugar and saturated fat.  She doesn’t eat a lot of food, but it’s full of fat and calories.  You might say it’s not my business, except she pays a lot for her pills, and we have to help her out when her insurance runs out, which it does partway through the year.

It took her a long time to realize she was getting old, but I think fainting at the airport a few years ago helped a lot. It was horrible, but they didn’t find anything wrong with her. She spent 2 or 3 days in the hospital and they ran all these days. She just had a long, tiring day, and did too much, so she fainted. So now we always insist that she use a wheelchair when traveling. It really helps a lot, too – we don’t have to wait for her to catch up, and she gets in front of the security line and gets to board early…it works out very well.

She knows she is overweight but won’t diet and claims it doesn’t work for her. However, recently she has had to change her diet because of fainting (she’s done it three times now) and having to go to the hospital so much. They weren’t sure why she fainted, although they think it has to do with her blood pressure medicine, so they have adjusted that.  She now forces herself to eat more fruits and vegetables, and cereal, although honestly she still eats lots of fatty and sugary foods. I keep telling her that if she lost weight, it would be easier for her to find clothes that fit…

She knows she doesn’t have a lot of money, but she she insists on offering to pay for us going out sometimes. We keep telling her to save her money for things like Christmas, or going on trips, or new clothes, etc.  I don’t get why that is so important for her when she knows she used to pay for us all the time when we were younger and had no money.

she loves babies and kids, and she is obsessed with them…when she sees them, she focuses on them and that’s all she cares about. One might say it’s like her passion.  But she doesn’t understand that not all of us feel that way. Worse, she doesn’t understand what it’s like to have passion about other things, such as artistic endeavors.

She was brought up to believe in hard work and getting up early, blah blah blah. Well, there is nothing inherently wrong with not wanting to work or wanting to sleep in. She knows this, in part, yet that childhood conditioning makes it hard for her. It aggravates me when she makes comments that I know are directed at me about sleeping different hours. Like if I am up in the morning, she is so surprised. Even though I have told her many times that my hours change all the time. Or if I get up earlier than 2 pm she will ask if David is coming to pick me up (like that’s the only reason I’d be awake). Just a lot of little things like that which annoy me.

She will sometimes say things that I know she doesn’t mean the way they come out, like she is criticizing me or both of us.  Or saying something really annoying, like, why didn’t you do it this way? Or I would have done it this way, when it’s clearly too late for that to be helpful.

Anyway, those are all the personality quirks which aggravate me.

Now on to the things that bug me because of her disabilities!

Her memory is probably the worst thing, although her hearing can be pretty aggravating, too.  It’s not just the bad memory that bothers me but the fact that she won’t do anything to help it like write important things down. I’ve suggested she carry around a pad of paper and pen, but she doesn’t. Even if I type up something and print it out, she misplaces it or won’t refer to it.

We can be having a discussion and five minutes into it she completely changes what we’re talking about because she has forgotten the original point.  She watches three hours of MASH every day and they are mostly new to her, even though she has been watching them for a few years now and has seen them six months ago.  That is fine, but she insists she hasn’t seen it when I know she has because I sat here and watched it with her.  She doesn’t remember discussions we had a few days ago or last week.  Once she does get something in her head, even if it’s wrong, it’s hard for her to get it out. 

She has some aphasia, which means she forgets words or their meanings. I don’t know how she does the crosswords, frankly.  It makes it really hard to communicate, which is worse than all this stuff combined.  It gets to the point where she will ask me a question, but the question is so vague, I’m not sure what she’s asking or why, so I can’t answer it.  So instead I ask her some questions to narrow down what she really means, then she gets upset that I am not answering.  This is especially true when it comes to things like the TV or computer because she is asking a question that is essentially meaningless because she doesn’t understand the technology enough to formulate the question in a way that will make any sense.  I understand her frustration, but I just wish she wouldn’t get upset about it because it always makes things worse.  I’ve told her this many times.

She will ask me something sometimes, and I don’t want to answer because I know she will not remember and I’ll just have to say it again.  Usually if it’s something complex, I will write it down or type it up.

She wants to get online and I know she would enjoy looking things up and shopping online, but she is hugely resistant to it. I have done everything I can to accomodate her, even gotten her a little netbook and a book for seniors on how to do things…but she has to actually do it every day, and she is bad at that. It’s my fault that I don’t remind her, either.

Even though she’s lived here 4 years now, she is surprised every year in the summer about how hot it gets and is surprised every year in the winter about how cold it gets.
I don’t let her cook because her memory worries me. The way she lets time pass without noticing it, I would be afraid she might start a fire.  It doesn’t matter because she does not like to cook and can’t reach the pots and pans.  We did get her a little step stool but she won’t use it.

Here’s the thing that bothers me most about her memory besides the TV remote thing. She insisted-BEGGED even- to do some chor around the house, so I let her load and empty the dishwasher. At first I was going to let her run it, too, but she can’t.  Her memory is so bad that she can’t do any of this right.  I did type it up for her but she ignores it.  We have a finicky dishwasher. You have to load things a certain way. You have to run the water in the sink first to get it steaming hot.  Even after four years she still loads it wrong, so I have to always go through and re-arrange things before I run it.  She can’t run it because she doesn’t load it right and she forgets things like running the water and making sure it has Jet Dry.  And she forgets to flip the little thing to let us know they are clean or dirty.

Then there’s the putting away of the dishes.  Again because of her memory, she doesn’t put them all back in the right place.  And because of her eyesight, she puts some away that have gunk on them.  We don’t have a great dishwasher, so I always tell her to put anything with gunk on it in the sink so I can hand wash it later.  Now, when she first got there, I told her that she didn’t have to do some things, just to make it easier on her, and I think she somehow got the idea that she CAN’T do them.  One of those things is rinsing off dishes before you put them in the dishwasher. I have had plenty of brand new dishwashers that worked fine if you didn’t rinse the dishes off, and I feel that if it is working right, you shouldn’t have to do that.  But I certainly never told her she CAN’T do that. So she gets aggravated at that…and then also she can’t see when there is food stuck to it sometimes, so I really hate finding stuff put away in the wrong place or with food stuck on it. But what can I do, take away the one thing where she feels like she is contributing?
I did try telling her early on but then she would get upset and say she isn’t doing anything right, so now I just put up with it.  But she won’t help herself, either. There are more lights she could turn on in the kitchen to help her eyesight, but she never remembers to turn them on.

Anyway, you get the idea about her memory.

Her hearing is bad.  She wears two hearing aids.  If there is any other noise besides your talking, she has trouble, #1.  You would think this would give her the idea to mute the TV, but it doesn’t.  I have an air purifier which is kind of loud, so I’ve had to turn it down so she can hear, even though you’re supposed to put it on maximum.  I can be standing right next to her and talking, and she won’t hear, although sometimes that is the noticing thing and not the hearing thing.

We get pretty tired of repeating things.  You have to talk very slowly, slightly louder, and articulate very well. It’s hard, especially if you just woke up.  We all hae a tendency to mumble at times. 

It’s not her hearing that bothers me, it’s the way she handles it that bothers me.

For instance, she always says “I’m sorry” rather than “I can’t hear you”, and strangers don’t know what that means. And I try not to let her talk to any strangers because it’s just not fair to them to have to deal with repeating things to her (especially around here with the heavy accents).  She does kind of act like the whole world should accomodate her, but I don’t think that’s right. We don’t let her open the door when she’s by herself or if I’m asleep because a) it’s not safe and b) the dog might attack the person and she can’t hold the dog back, and c) it’s not right to make other people try to communicate with her.  If the doorbell rings, we ask her to wait, look outside the window to see if the truck or car is gone, and if not, she is not to go out. Otherwise by the time she gets out there, they are usually gone, especially if it’s just Fedex or UPS. But David closes the doors so that she can go out without the dog following her because she is not good at controlling him.

Like I said, she doesn’t like to admit her age and frailties, so she thinks we are being ridiculous about all this.  She suggested before that she walk the dog, but she couldn’t even do that because her hands are not strong enough to hold on to the leash, and she is not strong enough to hold him back from strangers. He could bite people or even just take off.  But she always takes it personally like we are insulting her. I don’t think it’s an insult to say someone is old or has some physical problems, it’s just the facts.  It’s not like we’re saying it’s her fault or anything.  I know it’s very hard for her to give up her independence and have others take care of her. Me, I would have no problems with it. OKay, some, but mostly no because I like to have people do things for me   No more cooking, cleaning? Sounds great to me!

Sometimes her hearing gets really bad, and she won’t tell us, and she gets upset, thinking that her hearing is going for good, and then it turns out she just has earwax clogging things up. Okay, the first time, I understand. But the second time??? And the third??? Argh.

She won’t call her doctor’s office to ask questions or anything, and she won’t take ANY over-the-counter medicine. So she wouldn’t try ear drops to see if they would help, even though they are not internal and are OTC, and even though I have had that earwax problem MANY times. She also pushes her hearing aids in a lot so I think that is causing the problem, in part, as well as maybe the humidity here. 

One time I noticed she was having a particular trouble with putting the dishes away and then she was in her chair, sort of moaning, and so I asked her, and after a while she finally confessed that she was in a lot of pain and had been for weeks!  She has arthritis, but this was clearly worse than usual. So we made an appointment for her, but in the meantime, I called the pharmacy (it was a weekend so her doctor couldn’t be reached) and got some Motrin and some Ben Gay. The motrin helped and it was fine after that.  What kind of idiot lives to be 80 and won’t even take an aspirin (or call their doctor) when they’re in excruciating pain???

And by the way, my husband is no help most of the time because he is half the time in denial about her problems and the other half the time worrying too much.  He refuses to learn how to speak more distinctly, so he mumbles at her, and she looks to me to translate. I am getting mighty sick of being their translator, let me tell ya (and yes I have nagged him plenty).  They are both pretty impatient people, whereas I am really learning patience!

Thing is, she expects us to repeat everything.  We often just talk to each other about our own things, or one of us is making an oiff-handed joke or comment while watching the TV, so repeating it would be meaningless, but she expects us to because she likes to know what’s going on. I can understand that, but she has problems understanding that we are just not going to repeat every little thing.  She’s pretty much gotten the idea now, but sometimes she slides back into old habits. David will just ignore her, but frankly I think that’s mean.  He deals with her in a very different way than I do. If she asks annoying questions, he just gives her the shortest possible answers. He has been doing this a long time, so he’s used to it. But then she just thinks he’s always mad at her, when he’s not, he just doesn’t want to get into a long discussion or answer a lot of stupid questions. Whereas with me, I will get into a stupid argument with her like I have described above. I can’t just give a short answer. I would rather tell her not to ask me the stupid questions in the first place. Well, anyway, this gives you an idea…it can be very difficult.

Her eyesight is very bad, as I’ve said. She can’t tell if pants are black, brown, or dark blue.

She watches a lot of TV, and she has the closed-caption on. Well, she mostly mutes the TV. I don’t really care, but I think it’s very strange since she CAN hear somewhat and the CC is not always that good. I think she often does it because she thinks it bothers us, so that annoys me. I try not to let most of these things bother me, but sometimes it builds up.

As I said, she is not so bad off that she would want to have nursing care or go into a home. She can still mostly take of herself…she just needs help and can’t really live by herself. It was scary that she was still driving a few years ago. I was the one always saying she shouldn’t be, for a long time. Her eyesight, concentration, and reflexes were just not good enough.  Fortunately she didn’t have any bad accidents. She did run into a few things but no one was hurt.  And yet she still thinks she should be driving, even now.

David worries about her being alone, and I don’t blame him, but it’s made it rough for us. We can’t travel as much as we used to. We bring her along when we can, but she can’t afford to travel all the time. I have looked into local care but the best they can do is come by and spend X number of hours with her. What we need is someone to check in on her regularly and especially at night time.

We didn’t really have any choice, though, but to have her move in because she couldn’t stay at her daughter’s too much longer what with all the stairs and the fact that they both work so much.

So anyway, I can’t do anything about all of this because most of it she can’t help.

I sit in the living room with my computer, so when I am awake, we spend a lot of time together.  I can’t really go into the other rooms because they are either badly insulated or don’t have a TV or room for a desk.  I am kind of stuck here. I am hoping we can move at some point so we can arrange things better, so I will have more privacy.

One thing that I think is unfair is that I spend lots and lots of time helping her out, anticipating her needs and wants, making sure she is comfortable.  Yet I don’t get any credit for that from anyone. I am the one who always makes sure she tells us what she needs at the grocery store, so we get it. I am the one who puts away her groceries and makes sure she can find them. I am the one who goes with her every Saturday to the mall and helps her with her shopping. I am the one who reminds her of everything and suggests things that might help her. I am the one who invites her along to places and makes her feel welcome and makes sure we stop to get her a soda on the way home. I always let her sit in front, open the door for her, help her over the curb, etc.  I am the caregiver, like it or not. I am not even a blood relative!

Thanks for reading! This was very cathartic!

So that was bad enough. Then my m-i-l has been such a nag and a bitch all day. We had her prescriptions to pick up, and I told her the first time she asked that we would get them later on tonight. We are waiting for the pharmacist to call us because we have to get a refund from an earlier prescription, and he can’t do it until there is enough money in the register to do it (some stupid computer thing, even if you are getting a credit card refund they won’t let you).  So he is calling later tonight. I already explained this to her on Friday about the refund.  She kept asking me two or three times about the prescription, plus every time the phone rings, she asks if that is them calling. So she asks again, thanks to my lovely husband bringing up the subject of the pharmacy in front of her as he’s walking out the door…

She is very deaf so unless you are specifically addressing her, she doesn’t hear what is being said.  So I told her, don’t worry, we’re not going to forget. She kept bugging me about it until finally I just lost it and told her we’re not going to forget her fucking prescriptions and to quit nagging me!

I already feel bad enough from the allergies, and I’m not sure if I’m getting a cold or not because I have a sore throat, but not a bad one, and it might be from yelling at my husband earlier.  But it sure doesn’t help when someone is nagging you constantly.

We got into it big time and I finally just went into the bathroom and cried. So upset about the way she acts, like I’m the one who is going to forget!  It just really irks me. I bend over backwards for this woman to make sure she has everything she needs, and all I get in return is nagging and bitching.

I told my husband that I am done dealing with her prescriptions, and I’ve just had it with her. He can do it from now on. I just can’t have my blood pressure going up this way all the time.

She has some aphasia or whatever you call it because of the dementia.  of course she would never admit it. Anyway, she will ask me something, and I can’t answer because her question is either vague or makes no sense to me.  Also, she is overly polite, so half the time she won’t just come out and say exactly what she means, so I have to figure out what she’s really trying to ask.

So she tells me she has some presecriptions to phone in before our trip. Fine. So then she asks, ask them what I should do if I run out while we’re on our trip. I said, why should you run out if you’re calling them in now? That made no sense to me. So then she says, well, if I should spill them all or something. I said, well, you probably would have to call your doctor to get a new prescription to replace them, but you’d have to tell him which pharmacy in California to call it in to.  She was thinking about when she went out to visit my s-i-l in Reno because she went out there very quickly for an emergency and forgot to call in her pills, and she tried to go to a different pharmacy than Rite Aid. So in the meantime she starts getting annoyed at me and giving me attitude. I’m saying, look, if you need a full refill, you probably need to get the doctor’s approval, not just the pharmacist’s, but otherwise just find a rite aid for the pharmacy here to phone it in to. She gets all worked up and makes it sound like I’m trying to confuse her. I’m telling her, look, you asked me a somewhat vague question, so I have to ask you questions to figure out what you’re really asking.  She said, I didn’t ask you, I asked you to ask them. I said, yes, and then if I asked them your vague question, they wouldn’t know what you were asking, either, and they would ask me the same questions!

She acts like it’s my fault for not understanding her. I know she gets frustrated, but I’m pretty sick of her taking it out on me.  She can’t admit to herself that her brain no longer works the same as it used to, so it’s just easier to blame me. I don’t mind it if she is frustrated but to get mad at me and curse at me is just not acceptable.

GRRRRRR

Sometimes it’s hard not to be depressed. It’s kind of stupid, really, because my life is pretty good. It’s just the stress sometimes gets me down.

I have been preparing for the holidays, but I am not really in the holiday mood yet.  It’s cold and rainy and windy.  I don’t have the energy to put up the decorations yet. I am too lazy.

Sometimes I get more depressed after a vacation because I’m back at home and no longer out having fun…not to mention having to unpack, do laundry, etc. We were gone Wed.-Fri. Wish I was still there!

My m-i-l is just the usual.  She tries hard to please but in doing so annoys me even more. Her just trying so hard all the time annoys me.  I want her to just relax and leave me alone, but it’s not in her nature. She is very nosy (or some might say politely “curious”) and sociable.  Which is weird to me because she didn’t have many friends for a long time.

She used to live with my s-i-l and her husband. He, like me, didn’t know what he was getting in for when he suggested she move in with them. She lived there for 11 years. They have a bigger house in some ways than we do, it’s two stories and they sort of have a floor all to themselves.  That way they still have privacy. Plus they have a very large bedroom which is really two rooms.  We don’t have any privacy now. I didn’t think I’d care that much, but I do. It’s sort of like having a guest 24/7.  I don’t mean in the sense that we have to wait on her or treat her like a guest because she does live here and acts like it in most ways. I just mean in two ways: a) she is always here, and b) she still doesn’t really act like it’s her home (to be fair, it’s not), even though I keep telling her to do what she wants and stop asking me if I mind if she does the laundry or whatever.  She gets a little better at it every day, though.  It’s just that because of her memory, it takes her a really long time to get anything to stick.  If ever.

Anyway, we always thought my s-i-l’s husband was, how shall I say, not very sociable, kinda rude. But now that I am living with her, I understand him more. Don’t get me wrong, I still think he is that way, but I can understand it more. I’m sure she must have driven him up the wall even more than she does me.  And plus he is probably more of a “avoid confrontation” person than I am, so once he figured out that they were having arguments all the time, he just started avoiding her.  And here she thinks that it is him.  I think that by living here she may have figured out by now that it wasn’t just him.  Who knows.

I mean, it’s not like I want her to know how annoying she is. She’s a nice person and tries really hard. I don’t want her to get her feelings hurt. I just want her to stop being annoying!  But it’s kind of hard at her age.

For one thing, a lot of her personality quirks are ones she’s had 80 years…it’s kind of hard to change after all that time (even without dementia). For another thing, the other problems have to do with her disabilities, so she can’t help that. So you can’t really blame her. But it is very frustrating and annoying to live with. I just don’t like it when she gets upset.  To be fair, that is mostly at night when she is tired.

In some ways, my s-i-l’s husband is like me in that we are both “geeks” who were brought up by very dysfunctional people and not taught manners and social skills much.  Which is the opposite of my m-i-l, who is Miss Manners in many ways.  To me, the meaning of rudeness has a certain sense of intention. You are rude if you are trying to do or say something impolite. If you do it because you’re not really thinking about it, then it is more thoughtless, not rude. To her, anything said or done without consideration of the other people is rude.  And of course she is saying that in a very judgemental way.  That’s the annoying thing, though, because we can’t fault her for her personality problems, yet she can fault us, even though we were not raised with the same standards.  That pisses me off.

First and foremost I wish she would stop asking me annoying and obvious questions.  That’s the worst. I mostly got her out of the habit of asking me if I wanted to use the TV, but she still does sometimes. That’s when I feel like smacking her with the remote but of course I resist. I know that sounds silly, but think about it, you are sitting in your living room on your computer, and every time you enter the room, or just periodically for no reason, someone asks you over and over again if you want to watch TV.  Even though you’ve told them many times (more than I can count) for three years not to ask you that and that if you want to watch TV, you will.  ARGH!!!!  And not just told but explained many times that she is not taking the TV from us and that we don’t care whether she watches it or not. And don’t even get me started on the volume and her worrying that she might wake us up…

To me, it’s more rude to keep bothering someone when they’ve asked you not to, than it is to bother them out of some mixed up sense of politeness.  But again it all comes back to memory, and she just can’t remember stuff. Or at least she claims

I am thinking of making a list of “things not to ask me”, but I might wait now until January.  Maybe I will just post it here.

I guess partly I want it both ways. I want her to feel at home (in the sense of relaxing and not feeling like she has to ask me everything beforehand), but I don’t want her to worry about home owner things. She does anyway, though. I wouldn’t care except she bugs me about it. Like if the plumbing is having problems, or a window needs fixing, etc. What the hell does she care if it’s not hers or not affecting her? Damn.  Just drives me nuts. I would think one of the benefits of living in someone else’s house is that you don’t have to worry about that crap.  And then, it’s annoying for her to ask me, does she think we don’t have the brains to figure these things out?

Oh well, enough venting for the day…

I am cranky in the morning (I guess most people are), especially if my blood sugar is low, which it often is.  I get up very late in the day, since I work at home and I’m a night owl.  My m-i-l (henceforth known as RL) and my husband (DL) are both morning people.  So when I get up, he is at work but she is awake and in a chatty mood. Drives me crazy. I have told her many times that it’s probably not a good idea to engage me in much conversation when I just woke up.  Also, since she is so deaf, I have to really talk loudly and enunciate, both of which are hard to do when you just woke up.  She, on the other hand, is more cranky at night, so I try to avoid having any discussions with her an hour or so before her bedtime.  But still we argue. I guess it can’t be helped.

Well, it is late for me, have to sleep…

I used to vent on a forum, but they were not as sympathetic as I’d like, so here I am.

I think this is cheaper than therapy…

I am 47,  a “nerd girl”, went to college, came from a very dysfunctional family, married for 26 years, no kids, one dog, have diabetes and gluten allergies, live in a state I really hate, and my 80-year-old m-i-l lives with us. I love my m-i-l, but she has a very different background and personality than me, plus she has a number of disabilities, most of which hinder our communication sometimes, including slight dementia, bad eyesight, bad hearing, and arthritis.  I work at home, so I spend a lot of time with her. She drives me nuts sometimes, so I have to vent. There you go. If you don’t like it, too bad! I may vent about other people or things, too.

Feel free to visit my other blog at http://tvmeg.blogspot.com  I do less venting there.