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Re: At our wits end....
It's clear that you're angry because she's not listening to you and because you can't figure out how to help her.
I can understand being upset at all this. I really can. And I can understand being angry at the thought that she doesn't care enough about her son or her grandchildren to make an effort. It's hard to wrap your head around the fact that someone can't buck up and make a change in order to make their loved ones happy.
But you need to realize that this is not your battle to fight. It's hers. You can't make her change her mind. She needs to come to this conclusion herself. Continually reminding her of the doctors' opinions hasn't helped, suggesting that she check into a weight loss clinic hasn't helped, offering to work out with her hasn't helped. It's not a personal slight against you and your family ... she simply does not have the willpower to change. It doesn't matter who you are - she doesn't want to listen.
Sometimes there's a reason why people give up on a loved one. There's only so much stubbornness that they can take, and there's only so long where they can watch someone they love destroy themselves. It doesn't mean that they hate them or that they are giving up on them - it means that at some point, they just can't keep giving and giving to someone who won't give anything back. It's emotionally draining, and at some point you will want to devote that remaining energy to your husband and kids because they actually do things to deserve that energy.
If you want to keep helping her, by all means do it ... but you need to realize that, as long as she's got someone there to prevent her from hitting rock bottom, she won't be afraid to hit rock bottom. Because she knows she never will. She can just do whatever she wants because she knows that someone will always be there to pick up the pieces. And if you're leaving in six months, this means that you can either start weaning her off of your care now, or you care care for her up until moving day and then suddenly she has to go cold turkey and figure it out on her own. Or she'll call your H crying for help and he'll more than likely go back to her ... and where does that leave you and your kids? What kind of message does that send to them - you don't need to be responsible for yourself because someone will always bail you out?
DH has already really given up and is ready to pack her up and move her into an assisted living facility. He's ready to move away now, but we have our own loose ends to tie up here now and those loose ends don't have anything to do with her. He has accepted that she may die of a heart attack at anytime.
I don't know how to tell her that she's on her own and that she has to help herself or she's on her own. I don't know. I'm just tired. Even one of his older brothers told us to leave and not look back....
Sorry, I guess I don't want to see myself as an enabler, but as someone who is trying to help and make a miracle happen. Thanks for your advice and sorry to call you a vulture.
I understand that you love her and want her to stick around for a while, but she simply doesn't. Not if it means giving up the things she loves.
Just try to make your children's memories of her as pleasant as possible even if it means they only remember seeing herfor short periods of time in a bed or on the couch. You know deep down a weight loss center is a lost cause. She knows this is the way she is going to die and has accepted it.
I'm sorry that you are dealing with this. Perhaps during your intervention you could say to her, "We love you but it is just too painful to watch you kill yourself."
The other posters are right though, she has to decide that she wants to change. It sounds like she is addicted to unhealthy food and that she is unwilling to change, even if it means her early death.
Moving her into an assisted living facility is not giving up, it's smart. I understand why you would prefer that she make better lifestyle choices, but there is nothing you can do to MAKE her do that. At least if she's in a facility specifically designed to care for people who have trouble caring for themselves, you're not sacrificing your sanity and your family's well-being just to keep her alive. Even though the outcome isn't ideal, if her choices are no longer requiring you to rearrange your life and keeping you away from your kids, you really can't complain.
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i think that the best thing that you and DH can do now is either see a therapist ((just you two)) or go to alanon. really.
if your MIL drank too much, in spite of losing a job or destroying her liver or running into multiple DUIs, i think it'd be clearer.. there's nothing that you could do to help her, and any actions undertaken to help her manage resultant problems (like cleaning up after her) would really just be forms of enabling. your situation is honestly no different.
whether you're willing to admit it or not, your actions ARE enabling her.
so i think you should go to alanon. learn how to stop enabling and how to get over your anger and frustration and sadness about watching a loved one send herself to an early grave.
~8 years ago, my FIL injured his knee and was forced to retire early because he couldn't work. The main reason he injured his knee was his weight, but the doctors would not operate on his knee because he weighted too much. ~7 years ago, he was admitted to the hospital with major heart issues and they decided they had to do an emergency gastric bypass surgery to save him.
In the first year, he lost ~150 lbs. He had the knee surgery. He swam almost every day. He went back to work on a part time basis. Then he started to decide that one salted, baked ham sandwich wasn't going to hurt him.
Fast forward to now. He is still about 50 lbs below his max weight. He visits the ER 10-15 times a year on average because he's eaten too much or something he shouldn't eat at all. He can't work and has had to take a mortgage out on a house he had paid off in order to pay his monthly bills. He now has to have both knees replaced because they can't take carrying his weight. He can't walk from the front door to his car without having breathing issues. He has a rolling bar stool his sits on and rolls around the house on. He sits on it in the kitchen while baking his weekly batchs of cookie and his super-salty baked ham. His wife has told him she will not take care of him while he recovers from the knee surgeries because he only needs them because he refuses to take care of himself.
He didn't want the surgery, he didn't have any desire to changes his ways, and ultimately, he hasn't. He is fully aware of the risks he is taking and the consequences. He is fully aware of how much better his life could be, he chooses the baked ham sandwich instead.
No matter what you, your husband, or her friends do, if she isn't the one wanting to make the change--it will not happen. I know your heart is in the right place and you want to help her, but if she isn't willing and wanting to help herself, all you are doing is taking on stress that you have no control over. There is no miracle that YOU can perform to help her.
There just isn't an easy answer to any of this. I see a lot of my MIL in what you posted and how she just won't help herself. We even get frustrated at FIL for enabling her - which he has even out and out admitted. But then I also see how she treats him and how HE feels stuck. This is his wife of over 40 years. He isn't going to walk away from her. But yet, to stand up to her means he gets verbally abused by her.
I feel for you. It's a hard situation to be in when someone you care for doesn't seem to care for themselves.
~Benjamin Franklin
DS dx with celiac disease 5/28/10
You've done what you could - she doesn't want to change, and you aren't going to be able to force her to.
I get being upset though - since it means essentially she's killing herself, which will leave your DH without his mom, and your kids without their grandmother. It's hard to sit and watch that happen. So I understand your venting, but I do think that you need to stop bending over backwards for her. If you don't want her wallowing in sh!t - then hire a home health aid or something like that to do the things she can't.
You can't force her to change - she has to want to.
i'm sorry you're going through this. it must be incredibly difficult.
one more thing to add to your list though-neither you or dh is qualified to be taking care of her like this/moving her etc.. what if one of you gets hurt?
taking her to an assisited living facility will help ALL of you.
Here's the thing: you're not letting her die--she's letting herself die. You've really done all you can and now it's up to her.
Assuming she's not touched in the head, she knows full well what she is doing and the risks she's taken on by maintaining herself in such a fashion. If she dies due to one of these easily managed illnesses because she failed to make changes in her own life, that is totally on her--not you or your husband.
This is your H's Mom, so I know it is hard but you guys need to set some boundaries for your own sanity.
she is slowly killing herself and it's clear that she is making her own choice here and you, her docs, her own children, cannot change the course for her. she has to choose to do it. she's been given the information, lectures, suggestions and has chosen to disregard. she is an adult, and as much as it sucks, she has a right to self-determination and you need to give yourself a break here. let go and re-establish some boundaries for yourself and your family.
it sounds like moving her into assisted living would be a wise choice. otherwise she'll be calling 911 when she gets stuck in the chair or has a fall. she needs to be somewhere that staff can check in regularly on her and she can pay to have additional services as needed i.e. cleaning, nursing, cooking, transportation.
Gretchen Evie, born 7/8/2012 at 35w5d
And how does that have to do with her obesity? I didn't know diarrhea is caused by sheer nature of being fat
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I don't mean to sound harsh, but a medical weight loss place isn't going to help her have lasting results. She could get a revision to her WLS, but if she doesn't want to lose weight, even that may not help (a duodenal switch would allow her to eat whatever she wanted and still lose weight, but I doubt a surgeon would perform it on someone with CHF, as it's a lengthy surgery and that would be risky).
She doesn't want to lose weight. She wants to drink chocolate milkshakes, eat ice cream, and have someone take care of her. An assisted living could do that, and even moderate her food intake, which might help her stop gaining weight.
She's going to be a weight around your neck as long as you let her. A miracle isn't going to happen for her because she doesn't want one. She wants to enjoy her food and let it kill her, and that's her right. Don't let it bring down you and your family. Your children need you more than she does.
She doesn't get it because she obviously has a problem with being addicted to food. I don't think she realizes she is facing death, maybe she thinks it's just another medical issue to add to her long list.
I would be frustrated too, but sometimes a person just will not care when they are that deep into addiction. Maybe you guys could stop going that extra mile to help her, and it will show her what her life is really like. She might not realize how bad she truly has it because she may not really have it that bad since you and your DH are doing the good thing by helping her. Just something to think about. Good luck!
If you can't convince her to try assisted living, maybe you should get some sort of adult protective services involved? If she's living in filth and can't move, it sounds like outside help is needed.
Good luck.
Never in a million years would I become that frustrated. I will walk away and let her do herself in before I hurt her. Don't have it in me to commit abuse on anyone.
APS can't do anything for an individual that is fully competent to make their own decisions but is just making bad ones. That's called self-neglect and it's very common and frustrating for families but APS can't do anything unless they are mentally incompetent or being abused/neglected by a caregiver/facility.
Gretchen Evie, born 7/8/2012 at 35w5d
Climb down from that cross sweetie - someone needs the wood.
She neither wants or needs your advice. Therapy might do her good but at this point I rather doubt it. Suicide by food isn't as rare as you might imagine.
Nowhere did I say that she was living in filth. And I'm not Jesus nor did I ever say that I was Jesus. It amazes me how someone can vent and let out frustration and a whole bunch of people on the internet bring it down to abuse, filth, acting like Jesus, etc... And, I do watch the news, read newspapers, etc. I'm not ignorant and do know that people kill themselves with food.
It's all puppies and rainbows from here...maybe, a little glitter, too!
You know the people who are so fat they are confined to a bed and walls need to be ripped out to remove their bodies after they die?
Those people have friends/family bringing them food until the day they die.
The point is, enabling her is hurting her more than helping her. Your DH needs to have a talk with her and tell her that he won't help her unless she starts to help herself. It's unfair that she expects your lives to revolve around hers so she can have the pleasure of slowly destroying herself.
Depression? Denial?
She sounds like she needs in-home care. Are there programs in your area (Red Cross does stuff like this locally).
My guess is there's a whole lot of emotional distress going down with that ice cream. What she needs is a shrink and meds, and no more enabling.
If she needs home assistance then home health aids would be good. Hire a meal delivery service and get rid of everything else in the house. take her credit cards, have her declared temporarily incompetent.
She needs help, just not the kind she's currently getting.
OP-
I get you are pissed and the ladies on here get that you are pissed they are trying to help you but i can see where you are feeling they are attacking you. They arent. Just want you to see what they are trying to say.
I've been where you are. You have good intentions and you offer so many things and you turn blue in the face. You feel like its your job to do things because if you dont know one else will. Also i felt like it was the right thing to do. Well at some point you cannot keep doing what you are doing. You have a good heart and you have every right to be angry. Especially if you have tried so many things with her.
You have to let her live her life the way she is. She is depending on you, and she will guilt trip you when you all leave. She is a grown a** woman and needs to act that way. You doing these things as you deem as right and helpful are just her way of keeping you around and having you do everything she should be doing on her own.
Like the bathroom experience you mentioned. If you werent there to clean it up, do you think she would do it? My guess is no. Sometimes loving someone is doing what is right for them even if it hurts you. Tough Love. Hope things work out for you.
I get why you are frustrated and upset. My grandma had hip replacement 15 years ago and never followed through with physical therapy or anything the doctors told her. She has been in a wheelchair ever since. She got 24/7 in home nursing care about 7 years ago but still calls my mother for help and my mother goes running there. My siblings and I stopped going for every little thing long ago.
I haven't talked to my grandma in almost 3 years. I just can't deal with the guilt trips, the pity party, the expectation that we are there to serve her, along with a million other issues I won't go into. Sure, I feel bad I haven't seen her because she is my grandma but now I see how draining that relationship was. It feels so good to be free from it.
At the same time, I feel really bad that my mother is carrying the burden herself and I know my siblings feel the same way. My mother is so focused on my grandma that she doesn't take care of herself at all. She leaves family events early when my grandma calls. She spends days at my grandma's house without seeing my dad. I know my mother is heading in the same direction as my grandma because she doesn't take care of herself and this is probably the hardest thing for us. We've tried to talk to my mother but she will not listen and gets mad at us whenever we bring the issue up. The other hard part is that she is basically not in our lives anymore. I can't remember the last time I had a normal conversation with her because even when she's there, she's somewhere else mentally. We really struggle to accept that this is her choice and we can't force her to do something else.
I guess what I'm trying to say, in a very long winded way, is that you and your husband need to think about your children. It is fine to help family, I would do anything for mine, but there comes a point where you can't help. Your MIL has made her choice and she needs to learn how to live with it. You and your husband have to somehow accept that. You need to take care of yourself and your children.
Tired after a long morning of hiking and swimming.