Been caring for my parent for 4 years now and I'm done crying out for help with family members. My parent will not go along with any caregivers that I have brought in to help I am on #5.
My stress has affected my health and my marriage, or what is left of it. My husband is the only one that I can depend on but this is taking a toll on our relationship since we have no life anymore and my mental health depends on what the day brings as a full time caregiver. All of this combined with the fact that my parent is not appreciative of all we have done and never has been. I've begun the search for assisted living but my husband is afraid that I will regret it and be in a worse mental state if I do this. I guess I'm looking for others that are in the same situation to see how they deal with care givers remorse, maybe that's what it is called? :(
You are not alone. Hugs to you, you will make it through.
Guilt belongs to felons who do malice aforethought and get their kicks from the suffering of others.
Your word is GRIEF. You are sorry you cannot do it anymore. Please accept your grief, mourn, cry, and move her out and move on. Will you grieve? Yes. Will you cry? Yes.
You are not a Saint. You are a human being. If you were a Saint we would fill you with arrows and send you to heaven so that you could fix everything for us for eternity.
When dad fell and broke his hip back in 2014, I placed both of them in Assisted Living b/c rehab would not release him back to Independent Living with my mother. He passed in 2015 and my mother is still alive at 94, still living in AL, but now in the Memory Care building of the same place. I have zero regrets about it, too, why should I? She has way more issues than I could ever handle alone as I am not qualified to deal with dementia, incontinence and all the rest of the problems she has. She gets socialization and all sorts of other benefits along with 24/7 care from great people where she lives now.
If you're already putting the idea into your head that you may have 'regrets' about placing your mother, then you probably will. You're telling yourself that your mother (or whoever it is you're caring for) is more important than you. More important than YOUR life, YOUR marriage, YOUR existence. That her needs take precedence over yours. Perhaps you were taught that she is #1 over every other person in your life, including yourself. That you and the rest of your family are at the bottom of the heap of importance, which is the polar opposite of what's true. Your husband and family come FIRST. That's how it should be. You've put the person you're caring for first in your life, and now you and everyone else are suffering as a result.
Get your loved one placed and sign up for some therapy so you can be made to accept the fact that YOUR life is important. That YOU matter, and so does your husband and family. You've done enough, and you're not on earth to be a martyr. It's time to live what's left of your life in peace & harmony so you need to allow that to happen. Don't place your loved one until and unless you ALLOW yourself to enjoy life afterwards.
Good luck
But now and then when it rears it's ugly little head I say'"I see you over there, I did the best I could for as long as I could then I found the best situation for her. So go away."
Over time, and it has been a little over a year now, it has gotten easier. Yes you may feel an acute amount of guilt, which I realized for me, was actually grief initally, but it is bearable. I spent so much time building up the fear of guilt and not being able to live with it, that it nearly paralyzed me. I had no reason to feel guilty and you sure as heck do not either! My mom at least was appreciative so my heart goes out to you for not getting that from your parents. But I still felt all these shoulda, woulda, coulda feelings.
It was hard to stop second guessing myself and to let myself just feel whatever I was feeling and let it pass.
You will survive, thrive and be happy and at peace again.