I think it is bad enough having to give up a lot of your time and never really having time for yourself when caring for one demanding household of elderly parents but what if you are also caring for a second household plus having to help your own children with childcare (when they live 130 miles away). How are you also supposed to cope with that? I am getting to the point of complete despondency, didn't get a wink of sleep last night, I am completely on edge waiting for the next phone call wanting something or other from me. My.mum is 91 has dementia. Her supposed carer is my stepfather aged 80 but he won't do anything and has severe health anxiety. He is convinced he has cancer and dials 999 or 111 at least once a week. The ambulances used to take him to hospital which gave us real problems looking after mum but now they are wise to him so most of the time they just check him over and realise that there is nothing wrong with him. My dad is also 91. He lives a 40 mile found trip away and luckily lives in an assisted living flat. But me or one of my sisters do his shopping, I take him on holiday a couple of times a year and I run all his finances (I also run the household finances for my mum and stepfather so along with my own household that is 3 households I am running and the money is tight for both my parents so there is a lot of work to do constantly checking bills etc). He is quite Internet savvy but if he has problems with either his PC or printer he expects me to drop everything and go across and fix them. My eldest granddaughter started school this year. My son and daughter both work (to pay their eyewatering mortgage living in London). My daughter in law's parents are dead so if there is an emergency or in school holidays my husband and I rush down to London to help. I love spending time with my granddaughters so don't mind a bit. I have 3 sisters. The youngest spent a lot of time caring for my stepmother (dad's wife) who had dementia but when she died my dad shared the insurance money out between all his family (each daughter, grandchild and great grandchild had £100 each) but she took offence at that as she thought she should have had it so since then she has nothing to do with the rest of us or my dad since then. My other two sisters are great, we are very close and they share the burden as much as they can but one sister is also caring for her mother in law who recently lost her husband (also to dementia) and the other sister lives in a four generation household and looks after her grandchildren on a full time basis as well as doing all the cooking and cleaning for the whole household. We had quite a difficult childhood as my parents constantly argued and being the eldest i spent a lot of time shielding my sisters from the emotional pain we went through. My mum told us every Saturday afternoon when the football results went about to be read out that if she won she would send us all to oarding school. I had to have counselling to get over my childhood and yet now i am expected to look after my parents. It is so unfair. I dont want to do it. I just want to walk away. Sorry this is such a long introduction. I am hoping I will get some useful practical tips from joining. Thanks for reading this
Helen you are doing far too much.
Firstly, your grandchildren are their parents responsibility. My aunt and uncle ended being full time childminders and had to tell them that and tell them no, because one or two emergencies ended up being full time childminders for their grandchildren by all their kids.
Have you had social services needs assessments done for all parents their needs and for your needs?
That's the starting point. They will go through finances, savings, the financial threshold for Gvt care and for paying for private care and/or qualifying for homes etc but you probably know all that.
Others will be offering advice and information.
Have a chill out and draw breath, you are in danger of a malfunction.