Just don't know what's the best to do?

All about caring Young adult carers
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Hi I’m a carer for my dad but also a carer for my mum as well. I am at a lost of did I do the right think or not. :question: :question: :question:
over the last few weeks thinks between my self and my mum got heated this was due to her mental health problems, she seemed to know which buttons to press to get at me. He care manager had told her on Friday to grow up and act her age but this last spate of trouble was seeing how far she could push me before I snap this time. I did snap and the one occasion i shook her to stop having a go at me. I tried the normal things like count to 10 and that but it did not help. The police did come twice, and this was on the advice of the local crisis team that if things got out of hand to call them as they would not come out to have a look at the situation. To try and give me and my mum some space, I went to a friends house for a few hours hoping things would go back to normal. Well yesterday the same thing happen, I had my mum, shout at me etc. so I decide to go to my local police station and speak to someone as I was at a lost at what to do as the crisis team was not intrested in help and are as much use as a chocolate teapot. They did send some officers out to the house but instead of offering support or advice or have a look at the sistuation. This one officer made us all feel small and that we were in the wrong for contacting them for help. he made quite clear that they would only come out if someone had been hurt than for argument over the health and well being of not just my self but the rest of the family. I don’t know if the police officer thought it was tit for tat because I went for help over my mum.

These last few days things have got on top of me. It’s ok for them to say go out for a walk to get out of the place to help calm things down but they don’t know what it’s like to be made feel that you are worthless by action from a family member because of her mental health and no short term memories . I have been there when she has tried to take her own live,saved her when she had TIA’s but despite all that I am made to be the bad one for trying to do the right thing. She is quick to forget what has just happen but is quick enough to throw it back at you if you done something wrong to her. She had a rough life in her early years and has been doing the same to me in return. If I could get out of the house and have my own place I would but due to the state of thing, I can’t afford to move out,even trying for a job once they see that you are a carer they don’t want to know if you could do the job.

With things that have gone on I feel like I don’t want to be here anymore as it seem anything I try and do to help, I come off the worst of it. Even my dad was not happy with the way things have gone either.
I have put in a complaint about the officer as it seems that they only wanted a quite shift and not to waste their time over something like this. I had respect for the police at one time but after the way it has been handle and made out that we are wasting police time, I have lost that respect for them. This is thanks to a stupid guidelines that the local health board who I have complained to about support that there is suposed to be does not want to know unless some one is killed, a drug taker or a drunk. ‘That is what they call care in the community’- What a f***ing joke.

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Michael,

Welcome to the forum.
I noticed you were posting very early, this morning. Are you getting enough sleep? Caring is difficult and even more so if sleep deprived.

Your mum sounds a very difficult person to live with and it’s frustrating that no one seems to want to help. You could try secretly videoing her and show this to her GP or another professional involved in her care and ask for advice. They won’t be able to discuss her with you, but it will ensure they know what is happening and hopefully will give some advice/ tailor her treatment.

If you haven’t looked on the Mind website recently, I recommend you do, it’s a good place for advice. https://www.mind.org.uk

To tailor our suggestions:

What sort of care do you give your Dad?

Do you live with your parents?

Melly1

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Thanks melly1, I do know about mind and it 50/50 that something there will help. I am getting some sleep but not enough as at the moment I am sleeping in a chair, this is due to the mess in the house which includes my bedroom where I have put things as being told the place is in a mess but I am not being given a chance to sort most of it out. even with a plan to say which room I would be doing first but not being allowed to finish off each room due to some of the things my mum does. :cry:
The last few days I am being made out to be the bad guy for not pulling my weight to get the house sorted but I am maybe not as fast as they want but when the crap hits the fan I have to drop everything to sort it out but everyone is quick to point the finger towards me for not doing everthing. I have had to give up most of my social life and my volunteering jobs because no one is willing to put in extra support in until I have got the place sorted out which in 2/3 years I am sturggleing as most of the items are hers like different makes of china ornment and she keeps changing her mind weather or not to keep them but it’s ok for me to get rid of most of my things . some are things I don’t have the space or time to do any more but it does seem to be unfair. Everyone including my mum care manger is only seeing black and white and for getting the grey area that there is. I am big in size due to my height and weight and even that I am made to be the bully and not the one who is being bullied by my mum because she is smaller in size and because of her mental health probelms and to play the system.
She is knowing which buttons to press, with her words like, you have driven me back to smoking,you are thick, you are fat and usless,I wish you were never born. I can only take so much of it like I did Friday and the weekend before snaping. I was not having a go back as normal, I was telling her to stop it but also not to take out on me what happen in the past to her which she has told me that she is doing. I have tried telling the right people about it but they are thinking it me at fault.
The only reason she went back to smoking is due to prove a point to her care manager that it is her house, if she want’s to smoke she can as he does. She gave up smoking for 4 years. I was standing up to her by telling her to stop bullying me as I have been bullyied in my school years and was not standing for it again.
I am being told by her care manager that it is the behavior side of the mental health which is coming out but he and the mental health team are not willing to tackle this part but to make us ride it out.
It does not help when you are being told by the mental health team that if she gets out of hand, the drugs are not helping then get the police in to help resolved it but the police are saying they can only do something if it’s in a public place under section 316 of the mental health act but not in the private home. So it like a game of tennis which no one is letting the other one win, we are stuck in the middle.
I have seen my own GP and have been given tablets for depression but I don’t feel happy taking them but scared to take them, this is due to me reading the paperwork about them and not feeling safe on them.
It’s not helping that she is playing mind games with everyone in the house like listerning on phone calls, wanting to know what I am doing on the pc.
I have asked her care manager who came out to see us yesterday to take her some where for some restbite care or a break from the house and us to get on but he refused as he does not think it would help the situation.
It’s easy for people to say go out around the block the or some where to calm down or have some time away from the house but they don’t have to come back to the probelms in the house or if something happens you get the blame for being out of the house.
I do live with my parents but if I could afford to move away I would.
I became a carer for my dad after I was my mum carer this was due to change of rules in the local area of males looking after females, some things were not fair on me to do for my mum when it would be better for my day to be her carer and became his.
This only came about due to waitting for a hip,and knee op with a op needed to be done on his back with his disk’s and has carple tunnel in his hands.

so I don’t know where to go next or who to turn to for the right advice with out it seeming I just want a easy life and that I don’t care for my family or what happens in our lives.

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Michael, my mum was a hoarder, and another member of the family saw the answer to a problem being for me to chuck my stuff out to make more room for his, so I know what you are battling with.

Hoarding is an incredibly difficult issue to deal with, a real psychological issue which clearly the care manager has absolutely no idea about.

Is the care funded by Social Services?

I struggled even to get mum to throw away things which were broken and useless. It took a whole year for me and my two strapping sons to empty the house after mum went into residential care. About 10 dining tables, 10 long sideboards, over 60 dining chairs, and that’s just the start!!

Incidentally, my eldest son is what I fondly call my Man Mountain with a 54" chest. Big guys need more space to move around in!

Does your bedroom have a lock? I think that you need to be very firm that what is in your own bedroom is going to be yours, and only yours.
From now on it cannot be an “overflow area” for anyone else’s stuff.

Does mum have a garage or a loft?

I managed to get my mum to agree to us putting some of the stuff she didn’t need “at the moment” in large Really Useful Boxes, and then they could go either in the loft or the garage.
The garage was a monumental tip when I started, for example several dustbins full of paint!

We bought some racking for the Really Useful boxes. As mum was disabled and couldn’t get into the garage, once stuff was in there, we could get rid of it without her knowing!!

Does your mum have a physical disability, as well as mental health issues?