Does anyone else deal with depression from being a primary caregiver?

I don't know about "faith in action" - but she does live in a retirement community, so she really doesn't need me around all the time. She just WANTS me around all the time. I just can't wait to get in the car and go... unfortuately, i am still just a phone call away, but at least, there will be distance so that I can just hang up when necessary.

Does your area have a "Faith in Action" people who volunteer their time to help out.

dede,

I'm very proud of you. It's sounds like you are well on your way to becoming a boundary setting "Jedie" who will help others as a F.O.G buster as well.

Have a good trip and try to leave your mom's feelings with your mom for your mom to work out. While we can be aware of how other's feel, it is not healthy to then also absorb it to the point it keeps us from feeling, thinking and doing as an idividual who is old enough to be on their own. I've had to learn this like many other lessons I post here the hard way.

Crowemagnum and Sandy, I am so glad that we have all been able to share all day. My husband has recently been transferred to Colorado and has already started his job there. We are still in AZ, but the kids and I are going out for spring break to househunt, etc. My mother actually had the audicity to tell me that we had better not buy a two story house cuz then when she comes to visit she won't be able to walk up the stairs to see the kids bedrooms! I told her that I would not be buying the house for her, but for us, so it didn't really matter whether or not it has stairs cuz she won't be living there! I was very proud of myself for setting my "boundaries" and I don't think I could have been so outspoken if I hadn't had all the wise words and encouragement from you all today.
Thank you so much. She was also upset that we are driving rather than flying and that I would be sharing the driving with my 17 yr. old. She doesn't think he is responsible enough. I told her that it was a good thing she wasn't going then since she wouldn't have to worry about who was driving. I also reminded her that at 16, I was already driving to ski resorts in the mtns. of Colorado without anyone to hold my hand (or to care for that matter). Anyway, I feel like I batted a thousand tonight.
Thank you!!

I get my break when my dad takes his nap in the afternoon. I catch up on my reading, watch a good movie or chat on the computer. It still gets to me sometime though.

Sandy48,

I could see why having a stern father would want to make your dad want to get out the house soon. I gather he and his dad didn't have a typical father son relationship. Contrary to the sterotypes of being spoiled some of us only children like myself are expected to grow up like little adults before we even have had a chance to be a child.

Dede,

Your dad and my FIL were both shy men. He did have a dad but their relationship was not good. He was so shy that he was known for going to hide when friends would come over to play. Talk about intelligent, he graduated from high school at the top of his class and I was around him enough to gather that he would have made a great architeck. However, he was not encouraged to go to college like his older brothers and sisters who did. So, he stayed home and helped with the farm.

It's clear to me that your dad lacked any real childhood. It is posible that his mother mgiht have spousified him emotionally to be her emotional support and to be her partner is helping with the other children.

The one thing that I have noticed in my SIL who as my wife's identical twin was raised more by their very nurturing dad is that she married someone needy who needed rescuing and somewhat effiminant which she later learned he has some orientation confusion.

Thanks for your compliments about me, but some of this has been better deserved since I stopped walking on eggshells myself back in 2002. My SIl, friends and therapists have said that in years previous and even some now I've had to be both dad and mom to my boys and sometimes to my wife. Her therapist pointed out to her that she was looking to me to be the dad and mom she never had. Given my own famiy of origin issues with a single parent mom who absorbed me emotionaly into heself and that did not change when she got married again, I had my own issues with boundaries and was use to intrusive people in my life. My mother was successful in keeping my dad from me for she wanted to raise me on a pink pillow and not as an all american boy like my dad did. Her pick of a second husband is a sorry excuse of an alchoholic man.

Unlike my mother, it took my dad over a decade before he got married again and he chose a vey dominating which of a person and stays with her out of fear that he might have another failed marriage.

She has so much control over him that I no longer have POA for him nor am I the executor of his estate, nor is he leaving me anything directly my with my mother, but his will says it goes to my mean step-mom and upon her death everything is to be divided between her two children and me. Sorry, but I've heard of wife's taking such wills after their husband dies and writting the other children out. I'm certain about the only reason she married him was for the money.

I've carried a lot of anger toward myself for not standing up like I started doing in 2002 with boundaries. My wife has benefited much from therapy and we are not albel to talk about things we couldin't like she had her mom in her head so much it was like being married to more than one person. There are times together as a couple that you just don't start talking about your mother because she suddenly popped in your brain. I've told her how abandoned I felt for years as if I was a single parent.

Well there are bits and pieces of my story all over this site and maybe you will see those posts in various places and some might even be on my wall.

Crowemagnum, My dad was an only child. My mom was the 16th child. What a combination, right? My mom's family was so big that my mom was born the same year her brother's first child was born. My dad grew up with a loving mother and a stern father. He joined the Marine Corp when he was only 17, lying about his age to get in. He wanted to get away from home. It was difficult to get my grandfather to smile. Of course, I never knew my maternal grandfather. Due to this large family, I now have 43 first cousins but believe it or not, we never see any of them except at a funeral.

Sandy48,

Your mom's childhood circumstances sound like she probably did not get much emotionally from your grandmother and definitely missed having a dad with it sounds like no one who could have filled in like a dad type or a mom type.

In my own childhood, I re-created my own family with parents and siblings that I picked out given the dynamics of my broken home and their pitful excuses of re-marrying.

I am so glad that you had a rock of a dad. With him being 23 and her 16, it does sound like on some level she was looking for the dad she never had and he was willing to play that role to some degree or maybe he had younger sisters and enjoyed the role of being the big brother person.

My mom most likely didn't have much of an affectionate relationship at home. She was the 16th child of 16 children. My grandmother lost 4 as infants beginning in 1906. My mom was the last child (16th) being born in 1931. Her dad died when she was 9, leaving my grandma to raise the youngest 5 children alone. So my Mom had no father after age 9, and she married my dad in 1947 at age 16 (he was 23) and I was born when she was 17. Would be interesting to know how all this adds up to her being how she is today but am sure it probably does contribute. My dad was always a rock in the family to me (the oldest) and my two sisters.

My father was one of eight children and went to work at age 12 to try and help put food on the table, being as he was born in 1930, it was ahard time. He grew up taking on the burdens of everyone else and was very quite and humble. I beleive that he had a good relationship with his mom, she was an awesome lady, but I don't know much about his dad as he died when I was very young. Yes, he was more of a wife than a husband and frankly, I believe that if he had been born in a different era, he may have been more inclined toward a different type of relationship (if you get my drift). But, he was a warm, compassionate and caring father to me. I could do no wrong and he and I were able to cry on each others shoulders about my mother over the years. I used to jokingly tell him that he'd better not die first.....but, obviously that did not work. I firmly believe that his death was hastened by her nastiness, although he did have COPD, I believe that he just gave up and welcomed the relief that death would bring to him.
Thank you for all of your advice about my kids and my husband. You must be a very caring husband and wonderful father!

Sounds like both of your mothers made your dad into more of a wife than a husband. Just curious, but how was their relationships with their own moms, and dads?

All too often, it is the younger child who suffers more obviously than the older. Some of this guilt I believe needs to be discussed with your daughter and possibly son as well as husband plus probably a threapist. They will find it most helpful, I think, to know that you are no longer blinded by the fog and would appreciate their support for staying out of the fog. I think support is enough to ask from your children, but I think assistance would be too much. I think you and your husband need to agree that when he sees you getting lost, he has your permission to say something, and maybe as something as simple as a little phrase particularly if he is with you when visiting your mom which I would right now limit. For yourself, it might be good to come up with some one liner ecape sentences. One of my favorite is 'oh my, I have a very important meeting that I must leave right now to go' I wasn't lying for I'd drive a few blocks down the road, stop, pray a bit and I had my important meeting with God in prayer. Diversion like this is sometime a good tactic. Possibly, for the sake of civility the children could write your mother a thank you note, but I'd not get her on the phone or in the room with her. For right now, I think your husband should screen any letters from your mother for I know too well what that kind of personality is capable of writing. Anything like this would be better, if they are hateful and manipulative to be shared with their therapist or with your therapist for they will know how to handle them best. I'm just trying to help you cover all the bases.

dede, my dad did too. How he lived with her all these years I don't know. He would tell me sometimes, "She's been like this all day'. My sister and I both would at times tell her to quit fussing at him. If dad did stand up for himself, then it made her worse. He just let sleeping dogs lie. I miss him. You could talk to him and have an intelligent, reasonable conversation. Never could with Mom. He would compliment us. She never did. She grew up with no father ( he died when she was 9) and my grandma raised 12 children. Mom was the baby of the family. I assume grandma had to spread herself so thin that affection was scarce. We kids never got any from her growing up either but did from dad. Thank God for him. He left us in 2001.

Haha - Crowemagnum - you are so right! She would sit on her butt watching TV while telling him to go and get her a drink, ice cream, whatever. And he always complied. To his dying day, he was standing in the kitchen, with his walker and his oxygen cord, cooking dinner for her! He had to dye to get away from her!

It is becoming more and more obvious how it has affected my daughter. My son, I think, is fine. He has always marched to a different drummer, but my 14 yr. old daughter, having to deal wtih my mother, me and all the other trauma of being a teenage girl, is definitely having a hard time. I feel such guilt. I wanted so much for my children, and I have allowed my mother to ruin that for all of us. I'm so sorry and I hope that I will be able to be strong enough to allow everyone to heal.

Dede,

I bet your mama never let your daddy stand up like a man. She was letting him know even in his dying moments that she was in control. I bet if she misses him that she only misses what he could be doing for her right now.

Dede,

No need to appologize for writing so soon again. It's like the dam has broken and it is very therapeutic to write and vent.

"I know, I know....time to cut the cord" Frankly, it was time to cut the emotional cord when you got married. I was going to suggest buying a book that I found is free on line Boundaries in Marriage

I'm glad your husband did that and hope you supported his decision, but not like my wife use to do by hiding behind my pants as her therapist once told her.

Sorry to say, but your teenagers have suffered some collateral damage from her both directly and indirectly through seeing you suffer. Your mother is attempting to triangulate them against you so you will obey her FOG. This is a rather family destroying tactic. She knows where your buttons are because she put them there.

dedestock - my mom was the same with my dad. He died in 2001 and kept his right mind til the day he died, and was a very humble, kind man. My mom has been the way she is now all of her life too but when she got older the worst came out and stayed. They mention on here the F.O.G. (fear, obligation and grief) and mom uses this too. She will say that she is a burden but if you don't have you kids, who do you have. I told her that I will never do my kids like she has done us. I told my son that if I start this kind of behavior for him to place me somewhere, where the workers can go home after 8 hours, and I'll sign the papers too before I get this bad. I don't want to ruin the lives of my two kids. I am 61, soon to be 62. I am tired and all the dealing with my mom had brought me to a breaking point. Something had to be done. I want to have some peace of mind and joy for the remainder of my life and I don't feel it is selfish either to want this.

dedestock,

I'm glad this opened your eyes. I really should have had myself and my boys in therapy sooner than 2002, but that is water over the dam. I'm trained to do some therapy myself and made the mistake of tryiing to be my boys' therapist for 4 years which made us much closer, but a parent cannot also do therapy. I also got them to a NAMI family to family class where they could learn more about what their grandma and mom's problems were. As a teacher, I knew that I was breaking NAMI's age level rules, but the boys needed it. NAMI is the National Alliance on Mental Illness. They have, among other things, a free class called family to family for family members who have a loved one with a mental illness like borderline personality disorder, taught by other family membes who have been trained to teach it.

It's taken from 1998-2005 for her to get enough freedom and strength to set her own boundaries with her "mommy dearest mother whom the boys refer to as the wicked witch in the west and change the name of the town she lives in from eden to evil. From 2005 on, my wife has continued in therapy and has been told that she will need to as long as the b_ch lives on earth. Frankly, I'll be glad to say ashes to ashes, dust to dust when she dies.

It seems to have become my major role here since coming of being the resident FOG buster and I'm glad that I'm not the only FOG buster here for I don't have that much time or energy, but when I do my anti FOG Lights can get a bit bright and penetrating I'm afraid.

Take care, thanks for the compliment, hope printing our what I wrote earlier helps, you might want to share it with your husband and be ready for a conversation, and please do get into therapy with someone really quallified like a LCSW lisenced clinical social worker.

Sandy - my mom is 83, but has been similar to this my whole life. She still likes to point out to me some incident that occurred when I was 7 yrs. old (I'm 52) that made her feel bad. She has hit me and told me she wanted to kill me and told me she wishes I had never been born, etc. She has gotten way worse since my dad died and even when he was dying, she told him to stand up and act like a man, rather than be a loving wife and help him ....

Crowemagnum - sorry I'm writing you again, but just wanted to tell you that my husband did the same thing about a year ago..He told my mother to get out of our house if she could not control herself. She wound up apologizing and then sitting at the dinner table crying the whole time. For the past year, she mentions on a regular basis that SHE will never forgive him for what he did, how dare he do that, etc....Never does she acknowledge that her behavior is what is responsible for all this heartache... it's ALWAYS someone elses fault! My 17 yr. old son told me that he has never had a happy Christmas, because she is always here to cry or complain about something. No matter what gifts she gets or how happy we all try to be, she will cry....and ruin everyone's time. We also never respond approprately to the gifts she gives us and that makes her mad. She expects us to jump up and down for joy when she gives us some stupid little gift she ordered from a catalog. We always thank her, knowing that she does try, but jumping up and down for joy is simply not an option over every little trinket and she makes us all very uncomfortable because of it (and everything else she find fault with). My daughter has acne and, of course, my mother feels the need to point that out regularly although we go to dermatologists and everything we can think of to try and diminish it.
I know, I know....time to cut the cord.. She has no other family, no other children, no other grandchildren... no husband,,,, what am I to do?

I just made the appointment with the psychiatrist and told her it was another 'doctor' appointment. The doc will figure out what is wrong. He was the doc that finally was able to help me place my mom in a nursing home. You didn't say how old your mom is, but mine was 77 when I had to do this. She got mean to all of us and threatened us too and finally hit me. I have 3 brothers, no sisters and no one would help. So she need to be in a place where she can be looked after 24/7 and you can distance yourself from this situation. It finally takes its toll on you and we didn't ask for any of this.

Wow - Crowemagnum - you definitely hit the nail on the head - it sounds as though you and your children have had to go through the same stuff with you MIL that my husband and children are going through with my mother.. I am definitely in that FOG category that you are talking about. I do pretty good about keeping her away from my family for about a month, but then I give into the pressure... I am not present at home, cuz I'm always worried about when the phone is going to ring, or how I will deal with HER next dilema..I am depressed and angry and tired... she saps everything from me and I am lucky that my family is still here.
I have not done counseling, although, I know that I should, simply because I don't have the time or the energy..I have printed out what you have written, so that I can refer to it whenever I feel my strength evaporating...I totally understand why my family does not want her around, it is totally me not being able to deal with her anger that causes me to allow her back. My daughters birthday (14) was in Feb. and that is the day my daughter wound up walking out of the rest. cuz she couldn't take her grandmothers behavior anymore. Great Birthday, huh? Since then my mother has sent both her and my son several cards with money, etc... and then gets angry when they don't call and thank her. My daughter expressed that it is ridiculous that she feels that she can "buy them off" - I agree, but then I'm sucked back in again...
Thank you for eye opening words, I hope that I will be able to keep them in mind as we go forward.
BTW since this is your wife's mother. How has she been able to handle, not having mom over for holidays and special occassions without letting the guilt drive her crazy?

Dedee,

Your mother sounds very much like my MIL. I'm also an only child. I've seen my MIL pull my wife's and her sister's chain for years. The woman insisted on going with us on every vacation and our presence for every birthday (our children's as well) along with every holiday. 8 years ago, I got burned out on being a too nice of a Christian Southern gentleman and laid down some boundaries with the help of a therapist. 1. Her mother was no longer going on any future vacations given the tormenting drama she always creates. 2. Her mother would no longer be welcomed in our house. 3. The children and I were no longer going to visit her mom and the children were not to be used as pawns for buffers if my wife chose to visit the person who created all of her problems. The second boundary was broken and again with my therapist's help told my wife that the consequence was going to be the boys and I would leave which we did for several days and nights. This took place one more time, and I had a different conseqence after which her mother said she' never step foot in our house again. I took that as a compliment not an insult.

My wife and my SIL have been in therapy to help them not be so enmeshed with their mother and so sussepical to her hooovering them into her drama through psychogical F.O.G. Her use of Fear, Obligation and Guilt on my wife made me feel that I was married to more than one person and that I was a single parent.

I'm reading F.O.G. all over your post. You didn't cause your mother to be the way she is. You can't controll her nor can you fix her. All you can do is to chose a healthier path for yourself which you've partly done by putting her is assisted living. Do they have a doctor who comes to the assisted living? If so, maybe they could prescribe an anti-depressent pill to her. At her age and with her personality, it is highly unlikely she will go and see a psychiatrist.

The other part of a healthier path for you and your whole family is to get yourself into therapy to gain the strength and the tools you will need. You might even need to see some one to get some medications that will help calm your emotions while you work through this other stuff with yiou and your mom.

I don't blame your husband and children for not going to see your mother. What I do wonder is how they are feeling. Is he feeling like you are not really present as a wife and as a mother even when you are physically present in the house? The help my wife got led her to set some boundaries and consequences with her mother. This resulted in my wife being more fully present at home.

When you say that your mother might as well live at home you are right in that life would not be any different if she was at home and she is so pulling your chains that you feel trapped, but at least she is in assited living which is a good thing and gives you some physical space and leverage to work from.

You have done the humane thing to do in placing your mother in the assisted living, but although she might think she is, your mother is not God and while she might expect you to sacrifice your marriage and children for her that is not what you promissed in your wedding vows nor is that what God expects of you or the Bible teaches.

The depression becomes worse everyday. Every phone call when she tells me how mean I am...I am an only child and have been taking care of her since my dad died 11 years ago. She doesn't live with me, but may as well, since she "demands" so much of my time. Several phone calls a day, etc...I have told her how much it depresses me and then she says "Why are you doing this to me?" "Why are you so mean to me?" or she tells me "I am full of sh** and she is going to call the police... to take my kids away, etc." It goes on and on... My family refuses to see her anymore, but I still need to ... now she is livid because my kids don't want to see her and I am evil because I am keeping her grandchildren away from her... so, she sends them money or gifts so that they will "love" her...We are all miserable and I don't seem to be able to just say "NO".. I dread every phone call, every dr. appt. I need totake her to .. she is constantly "needing" to go to a doctor for this or that ailment, but rarely will do what the dr. says to do... She needs to see a psychiatrist, but flatly refuses, cuz "nothing is wrong with her".. it's the rest of the world...HELP

Music helps me. Ear buds and an I pod. Also gardening if you are so inclined. In fact I am missing this hugely because I have torn something in my shoulder (I believe from lifting my Mother) and am in a sling. And of course this wonderful community. Hang in there.

Feelings of depression make sense and go with the territory of caregiving to a loved one who is chronically ill. I can't imagine not ever feeling down or sad. Neither can I imagine myself remaining stuck with feelings of sadness, though. I don't view my choosing to be happy as being "Cleopatra, Queen of Denial." When I am sad, I accept that it happens. When I strive to be happy, my take is that I am seeking balance and harmony in my life. Life is a mixed bag, with its happy and not-so-happy moments. Denial is a whole other ballgame. Even then, however, maybe denial is the caregiver's best attempt at self-preservation and survival, for however long it may last before reality sinks in. Anything that is not dysfunctional can be temporarily healing. Life has its shades of in-between moments, but that's just my two cents.

nins, I think it's time to invest in an IPOD. Load up your favorite music, put in the ear buds and tune everything out. Music is a wonderful pick-me-up most of the time. Find your 'happy place' in your head and take a mini vacation there at least once a day. And go ahead and sing to the music, it'll be off key & too loud, but who cares?

Z - THE best thing about this group as a help group is that we are here at your fingertips and as close as your living room table..welcome join the club...it's a tough road. Do you find yourself cooking 2 different ways one for mom and one for the rest of the family...,I find that can be even more frustrating cooking twice so to speak.