I wanted to address my reaction while reading ‘Elder Abuse - How to Define It, Recognize It, and Report It' post.
Specifically, ‘Emotional Abuse - Inflicting mental pain, anguish, or distress on an elder person through verbal or nonverbal acts'.
I think this is really a challenge when you are dealing with taking over all aspects of another person's life like shopping, cooking, cleaning, driving, entertainment, your personal space, self reliance and even independence in short life as you formerly knew it.
I am caretaking for someone with dementia and not Alzheimer's so this is one of the most complex situation I have ever been in. Others may or may not relate to my point here. Demensia, I am told is the toughest to handle for the simple lack of ability to
Do any tasks for oneself. I need to protect her from herself more and more.
She mails multiple checks, can leave the stove on if given the opportunity and needs increasing protection from her own actions. This is very overwhelming and this is so hard to have NO emotional reaction to which is what I feel required to do, hourly and sometimes minute by minute on a hard day.
How can one get through this without emotional tension? I think they must no be expected to be a perfect super hero and should not guilt themselves compounding the stress and aggravating the situation, more.
I cannot find her a support group specifically because none are offered. No one wants to run a support group for dementia sufferers themselves, only their caretakers, because I bet attempts in the past have been somewhat chaotic and thus day care and art projects involving optional participation is all I can find for her.
In getting help for sufferers financially when they have assets it seems downright unlikely and largely unsympathetic. My income is not measured. HER savings prevent ME from qualifying for financial help that I really need to feel like I am standing on my own two feet. In essence I now work for her 24/7.
In cases like mine, the caretaker may not be able to get full time employment because they are cooking and cleaning and busy with the challenge of keeping their life running smoothly while being responsible for everything about the dementia sufferers' life. Not to mention the baffling economic state.
Resentments arise and certainly the emotional abuse can go both ways. I often feel ordered around and disregarded and I have had to completely reprogram my brain. I am now successfully not reacting to any arising feelings of resentment. As a result I have little personal time. I feel everything that will get done is up to me and indeed it is not because she cannot help me, we suspect
but rather she is tired of tasks that make up life so she orders me to do ALL of them and how can I not have feelings about this. The financial aspects just cause more guilt, a feeling of being controlled and an inability time wise to be a driven,
hardworking taxpayer because I now have two lives to run in my spare time.
I agreed with you. The emotional abuse is very difficult to define. Where is the line? Sometimes it is 2-way street. e.g., we have a really hard time to deal with my arrogant self-denial father-in-law, and often he is the one that is abusive emotionally. Even physically this year if things go wrong. The other thing is he likes to grope women or female caregivers or hit on them. To be honest, at this point, at least 2 caregivers are talking to him like a door is open and he thought he can marry them someday.
We have come up with a comprise. Lead him on but make sure he understands his son (my husband) is the vital person who hires the home care and he is the person that decides where his Dad will go (nursing home and etc.)
Who is wrong here? It is a 2-way street. I understand there are true emotional abuse like the one that is like robbery of identity or money. In general, the emotion is 2-way street. We need to be real cautious before we impose on anyone so called emotional abuse. The question is, who is abusing whom? I know the rules is that the demential or Alzheimers patients have no fault and we have to be nice. But think about how hard it is to cope with these people's fantasies and stubborness. It is harder than you think.
Nina