For God's sake, just DIE already!

People live really long these days. And yeah, they need a lot of care at end of life. I dunno, I think there's a better way to age and to shuffle off this mortal coil than they way most of us do it. It's possible to live too long.

She refuses to go to a nursing home? Just take her. What is she going to do?

All things will pass.

[quote] I dunno, I think there's a better way to age and to shuffle off this mortal coil than they way most of us do it.

Well someone has to pay for it, R2. You'd don't just drop people off at nursing homes like people drop off OD's at the ER.

Your mom needs an intervention, stat. Someone her age taking care of someone else long term is just dangerous. Is she someone that just can't say no?

This attitude among caregivers is a lot more common than people think. My uncle is in his eighties and mentally disabled (since birth) and I've had the same thought so many times.

Not being able to afford it is a different situation than someone refusing to go. So be fucking clearer R5.

Maybe caring for the 95 yo gives your 85 yo mother purpose and meaning.

OP you've been very busy today making up stupid threads.

[quote]Maybe caring for the 95 yo gives your 85 yo mother purpose and meaning.

It makes her feel YOUNG!

I hope and pray I don’t live long enough to be a medical or financial burden to anyone.

My grandmother lived alone in her own home until age 99. Granted, she had someone who checked on her regularly. I know two women over 90 who are fine on their own households.

Will you die quietly, OP, as soon as you start to become a nuissance to your relatives or friends? You will, if you're lucky, be in her position someday. Even with chronic pain, life can STILL BE WORTH LIVING. There are compensations, y'know? Why doesn't everyone with chronic pain and/or serious disabilities just kill themselves? Life can still be worth living! Who are we to judge? Did she ask you to kill her? Be grateful that she hasn't. Be glad that her spirit is so very strong. This kind of talk/rant seems so disloyal and unkind to me. That's my opinion. Take it or leave it. Scroll on by.

I agree with R6. This could be regarded as a form of elder abuse/neglect. The 80 y-o mom may need help herself, not letting the last of her life and energy getting depleted by performing long-term care for others. That's a full-time job, and I'll bet she's not even getting a minimum wage salary for this hard work.

There are other reasons for the nursing home. I kept my mom in her home as long as I could, but she had serious abdominal surgery we couldn’t arrange home care because of Covid. Loneliness, being by oneself for long periods of time can be mentally devastating. My mom is happy and better adjusted in a nursing home and there’s an outlet of attention she didn’t get at home.

Also I get to rest, spending a decade worrying and arranging my life, schedule and taking time away from my husband was EXHAUSTING.

OP = LardAss Leon.

[quote] This kind of talk/rant seems so disloyal and unkind to me.

I owe this woman absolutely no loyalty. Why would I?

I also owe your tender delicate feelings absolutely no self-censure. Why would I?

[quote] That's my opinion. Take it or leave it. Scroll on by.

I offered my own opinion: you did not just take it or leave it, nor did you scroll on by.

Did someone push a button?

Youth in Asia

[quote] OP you've been very busy today making up stupid threads.

I've started exactly two threads today.

"schedule and taking time away from my husband was EXHAUSTING. "

How HORRID for you, R16

Op is just guilty of being a distant son and is projecting that on this situation

You have no idea of anything about my family situation, r23.

Fuck off and die.

She won't go into the nursing home because your mother is taking care of her. If your mom made it clear that she will stop caring for her, she would almost certainly agree to going to a facility, where she would almost certainly receive better and more medically attention than your mother could possibly give her. Perhaps tell your mom that in this case, it would be kinder and more helpful to stop tending to her friend, so the friend would be compelled to seek professional care.

Is there any visible marks left after the old-fashioned pillow snuffing?

Our mother is 104 and bedridden in an expensive private 'assisted living' facility.

So many young people want to burn their own home to the ground because it isn't to their taste, they should give Dignitas a good long look.

Your mom may need more than respite, and it's natural to want suffering to end, but that doesn't mean the friend should definitely go into a nursing home. Most homes are terrible places and your friend is right to be scared of dying, especially in a home. Sometimes, Medicaid pays for respite care, so that the primary care giver can get a break. Your mom's friend must hold a special place in her heart. Bless them both.

Your mother's death need not end with her life. Your imagination is stronger than anything. If those cunts don't agree with your delusion, you need to take a firm hand.

R22. I assume you have spent a decade caring for an elderly person?

R22, I would travel once a month from NYC to Boston to reset my mom’s apartment. At the time I had just gotten married, and though my husband knew I took care of her, it wasn’t an optimal situation and cut into other plans, She also had onset dementia, so her leaving her apartment became a daunting issue, one I tried to avoid at all costs. My brother lived nearby but was only available for emergencies, as he and mom have a strained relationship…

There were a handful of times my husband would come with me and we’d make a vacation out of it, but my mother’s assigned caretakers were “light duty”, meaning the expectation was that they really didn’t clean much more than the bathroom, do laundry and light sweeping the two hours booked each visit. You were not allowed their direct phone numbers or give them gifts or assign them duties either, you needed to call the service center. I would call my mom’s number when she was there and get a list of whatever she needed.

I was able to do most of the logistics of caring for my mom online and with help from others, Once a month I’d arrive from NYC and go through the entire apartment cleaning, filling the cabinets with food, and making sure she had cleaner, diapers, detergent and quarters for laundry. Quarters were probably the biggest hassle because I always went Sundays and all the banks were closed.

One time I had mailed a $40 box of quarters that went missing when we were in Paris and spent an entire afternoon of our vacation trying to make sure my mom had enough for her nurse to do two big bags of soiled laundry the next day. I was PISSED because I had paid extra for hand delivery and it meant a postal worker had stolen the money.

I learned that no matter how well you plan for the elderly, you’re not going to button up every button, and if you’re doing things remotely you need to always call and confirm it happened- and have a Plan B when the outcome isn’t what you expected. Thank God she wound up in a great nursing home, and the peace of mind is worth every penny.

These threads attract two extremes: 1) young and middle-aged people who are confident they will have no qualms about ending their lives once they are old and 2) people whose elder care experience is limited to visiting their grandmother one Sunday a month but feel confident commenting on the caring decisions others make.

Because people post on DL looking for experts in the field or people with years of relatable experience.

R12 yeah, that resonates with me too.

Only in my 30s atm, but seeing the dependence and decline my grandmother (in her late 80s),and the horrible way she treats my Mom (who besides me & my sister gets no help from any other family) who herself has aged rapidly due to stress, I find myself wondering if I should check out in my 60s or something, before shit has a chance to get bad and I lose any faculties. Might be nice to just take a pill and sleep my last, while still of sound mind and body, still liked by those who matter and with everyone sad to see me go.

Lately, I look around the towns at all the increasing numbers of the shuffling infirm, the babbling senile, the decrepit ugly lost souls staggering toward a century in age and not understanding the world around them, and just can’t imagine myself coping; like, I had a difficult enough time coping with adolescence...

I think we will be having more conversations about assisted dying in the next few years. Much overdue, but internet forums such as this one are making it more possible by the day.

We currently live in a golden era of choice and opportunity, with lots of personal freedoms that youth and the general public take for granted- until we break a hip, lose our cognition, are suddenly fired from a job with generous benefits, or are suddenly scammed out of resources.

There's also a retaliation among recent generations and a selfish attitude that Boomers ruined us and young people don't need to pay into health insurance if they're healthy- or thoughtlessness about getting older of future generations- because the world is going to Hell in a handbasket anyways.

There are two types of people, those that live for the moment and spend, and those that save and PLAN.

I planned as well as I could to keep my mom in her home as long as possible, but knew I couldn't do so forever. As glad as I am she's getting good care now, I don't envy her situation. She's sinking further into dementia and on some serious antidepressants that make her easier to deal with but in a constant fog. We had a three day visit a few months ago and though I knew "she has her good days and her bad", she was out of it every single day and couldn't even hold a conversation.

I view the worst part as having outlived all of your friends, and most of your family.

Lady needs a good man to fuck her senseless. Then she’ll be fine again

My neighbor is 88 and annoying as fuck. You hear her all day long. I can hear her TV, her telephone and her conversations. She always mumbles and speaks to herself. This is particularly annoying in the summer when she spends several hours a day on her terrace. She has loud shouting matches with her son several times a week. Even when they're not fighting you can hear their conversations because they're so loud. Her son regularly goes outside to smoke and often loudly farts. These people are a fucking nightmare. Two months ago she had some kind of emergency and was calling for help in the middle of the night. The fire department had to break down her door and she was gone for several weeks. I was so relieved and hoped the old cunt was at a nursing home. Last week she returned and she's even louder and more annoying. I wish she would just die or go to a nursing home already.

Very old people going senile/deaf/whatever are annoying to healthy sane young-to-middle aged adults, in the same way that bratty entitled tantruming dumb little kids are. The former are just less cute and charming than the latter, and sadly we have less primal desire or need to protect them.

My grandfather is in this phase, and my mom says it constantly. I believe she will be more relieved than anything else when he dies.

I really hope I do not make it to this age. Pretty much anything past 80 seems like greatly diminished returns.

Reckon late sixties/early seventies is the ideal time to punch out. You’ve lived a long life of forty or so prime years by then, had time to do quite a bit and get to know many people, technically made it into seniority or old age, but—provided one is healthy and well for one’s years—only with your feet on the threshold of natural senescent decline.

David Bowie did it the perfect way. Lived an exciting life with no regrets, gave it a good try to stay healthy and make it through a respectable and productive but not stressful middle-age, but didn’t linger once he got very ill and started to roll downhill. He even left a final concluding album that was as definite and sure as a full-stop. Then again, he had wealth and privilege enough to make the best choices.

Your Mom is a grown up who is making her own choice. And yes, great age is more and more common and pretty grim toward its close. Scares me as I move into old age. I don’t want to sound like a brat but I have this sense that affluence which provides resources keeps it going- a paradox.

[quote]You'd don't just drop people off at nursing homes

I had a cousin who left her elderly mother (my aunt) in a wheelchair at the entrance to the emergency room. Just dropped her off and left.

My father passed away recently. It was very hard. Each year it was always SOMETHING, Alzheimers, dementia, immobility--the works. Initially he was in a rest home but he once begged my mother to come back home. How could she refuse? My mother took care of him but me and my sibling moved back home to take care of them both. Wasn't easy. My mother had her own way of doing things. Was it worth the stress and aggravation? We hung in there but boy, it really puts a negative outlook on life in general. My mother is in relatively good health but to experience that cycle again fills me with dread.

I have an elderly lady friend who is being cared for by another of my lady friends who is a few years younger than me. The old lady, we'll call her Dot, has Alzheimer's, is completely incontinent now, can't move by herself due to a series of strokes leaving her almost immobile. She had a walker but now can't even use that without falling down. Her caregiver, "Sonya", works full-time 7 days a week with only a few hours to herself and is cracking. Dot's gotten mean and verbally berates everyone in her vicinity. She's brought nurses to tears when she's had to go to the hospital. Several private rehab places have barred her from staying there because she's so mean. Sonya said she screams down hallways, accuses people of stealing her things, calls large Black nurses "you fat assed Black bitch". She was in the hospital recently but was transferred to a new rehab place til she's able to go home.

At this point as bad as it sounds it would be a blessing for her to die. She's so damn mean though she'll probably linger for years. Sonya hasn't had a break and is stressed and I'm worried about her health. Being called a worthless cunt every day while fetching and carrying for the old bitch is wearing her down and even when she's in the hospital or rehab Dot's son wants my friend there onsite.

Both my parents had the decency to die in their mid 70's, I hope to do the same but it isn't that far away soooooooo.

R47, I have a solution for that, it is called My Pillow or any pillow.

I know you're joking R49 but everyone would be happier if the son would at least sign off on sedatives for her. One nurse told my friend that if not for that, the staff would drugging her up to keep her ass quiet.

Do you know Dot's DL username, R47?

😁 R51. She can barely use a phone and lately has been trying to use the TV remote to talk into. Her phone will ring and Dot will hold up the remote "hello, hello" then get pissed and start screaming. We do laugh our asses off at her sometimes.

R52, she's sounding ever more like a Datalounger. . .

My mother is 87 and has been a bottomless pit of need for 20+ years. She has been adamant since I was a kid that she won’t go to a “nursing home” - and fails to consider the enormous burden on her kids - or the difference between nursing home and independent roving for seniors. She holds the immigrant, old world mentality that kids are supposed to take care of the elderly. I’ve learned to hate her - she sucks the life out of all her kids especially my sister. I’m sure I’ll go through trauma when she dies - but I’ve wished for nothing else for 5+ years.

Oh my r54. I’m sorry you live with that sort of disdain. It’s not good to let those feelings go without trying to come to a more less toxic outcome for yourself. Try to talk with a therapist about it.

Maybe the 85 yr old is getting some 95 yr old hole?

Sounds like OP probably already implore his mother (85) to stop caregiving for the 95-y-o lady. Can't really force her to stop. Hopefully, they both come to their senses.

Although I miss my parents, in some ways, I'm glad they died relatively young. I, myself, was young enough to help them through the final parts. It's sad to see really old people trying to do physically and mentally taxing things for an even older person.

Incontinence and not being ambulatory are the deal breakers in my partnership.

It'll be adjoining nursing rooms at that point.

This is going to gross you out but Dot lies in bed with a diaper and she digs. Because she's not very ambulatory she doesn't get her ass cleaned too well so I guess it gets itchy. Sonya has to give her manicures to get the shit out from under nails.

The woman is a Saint because I'd walk out.

It's a sinister, hugely lucrative industry this "keep granny alive til 103". Doctors, insurance companies, retirement homes are making billions keeping these people alive like livestock on miracle drugs. They have to thin their blood down to red Koolaid* consistency or it won't go through their ancient veins.

[quote] This is going to gross you out, but

That's when we hit the "Ignore" button.

Obviously you're getting off on telling us gross stories--you're a creepy coprophile.

R61, my sister used to work in a care home and she told me similar stories about senile people with continence issues.

Tell me about it, OP

Calm the fuck down R61. These things actually happen, snowflake.

[quote][R61], my sister used to work in a care home and she told me similar stories about senile people with continence issues.

If that's so, then don't tell us about it in detail. No one wants to hear it.

Gotta love posters like R61. "I don't like what you are saying so I'm going to have a fit".

Now it makes sense. R61 is a poster I called out before for having a childish tantrum on an "I hate Meghan Markle" thread for her irrational hate for a stranger. Accused me of being a paid intern. Now it's calling me a copraphile.🙄

R66, I wasn't the poster at R59; I was just responding to the post at R61 and saying that these things happen and R59 isn't necessarily a coprophile.

Don't bother R68. R66 is a reactionary frau who throws out insane and ridiculous accusations.

R55 is also a real peach, hectoring R54 about how he should feel and react. How about let others decide how and whether they want to process, and have a right to define their own experience without some know-it-all with their pudgy hands on their hips waddling over to tsk and say “you’re toxic, seek therapy?” (incidentally, another huge industry invested in pathologising, exploiting and unnaturally prolonging normal reactions and changes of life..)

OP, bring your mother, from the other side of the continent, to your home. Why aren't YOU taking care of your 85 year old mother? Since you worry about her health, do something.

Wow, R70 is insane! R55's post was a totally unobjectionable response to the horrendous situation described by R54. Maybe the people in R70's life have been telling her she's toxic and needs therapy? A nerve certainly seems to have been struck.

I love the imagery in your post R70.

Hey r70 go hide your face in your 87 yr old mom’s ass

[quote] OP, bring your mother, from the other side of the continent, to your home.

Who said I worry about her health? Who is to say she does not have a husband on her side of the continent, or that she doesn't have my siblings living in her home city?

You're just trying to troll me, and in an extremely cruel way. You should be ashamed of yourself for being so nasty. You are truly a genuinely horrible person.

You can just take them to ER and leave them at the front door. Don’t talk to anyone or give your name. Just drop them off and go. The hospital will deal with it. It’s especially easy when the relative doesn’t remember your address or phone number.

Maybe if younger selfish pieces of shit like OP didn't move to the other side of the country and leave the care of the older generation to strangers or, literally, no one these old people wouldn't be desperately trying to take care of each other. I hope OP dies.

[quote]She holds the immigrant, old world mentality that kids are supposed to take care of the elderly.

What's the non-immigrant, new world mentality? Be a selfish fuck? Probably.

I hope that OP's mom and the other old lady are having a secret love affair and are currently ear deep between each other's legs. If nothing else, I'm glad I put that image in OP's head. Loser.

As we speak I’m at my 97 year old mother’s house, who pretends to not realize her three children in our 60s/70s are spending our golden years of retirement caring for her and her house 24/7 because she refuses paid help and won’t hear of assisted living. She can barely walk but rules over us with an iron fist. She’s saved millions of dollars bc she’s never spent one thin dime - we drank powdered milk growing up and had to start working at age 11 to be able to buy ourselves clothes and basics like deodorant. I remember getting spanked at age seven when I gave a plum off our plum tree to a boy I had a crush on. These days, at dinner, she’ll use her finger to clean out her soup bowl (then lick it) in case she misses a drop. If I take out the trash, she insists I bring back the paper bag so it can be reused. If I ever forget, I’d never hear the end of it. The house still has acrylic shag carpet from the 70s and 40 year old yellow polyester curtains. We sit in the dark because electricity is so expensive. Try reasoning with her, you say? Don’t make me laugh.

I have spent much more time and money caring for her than she ever did caring for me - and I did not ask to be born. Do I sound bitter? Well, I would never judge a person for dropping a parent at an er, that’s for sure.

Barbara Walters is still hanging on at a youthful 92.

I couldn't do any of that r79. You are a saint. My abusive " mother " is in a nursing home and I haven't spoken to her in years.

[quote]I hope that OP's mom and the other old lady are having a secret love affair and are currently ear deep between each other's legs. If nothing else, I'm glad I put that image in OP's head. Loser.

Oh, [italic]hon.[/italic]

Talk about impotent gestures!

Hugs, #79. At some point you just stop caring anymore and want things to come to a natural end.

Religion is like the glue that keeps these people together. It's a nasty, awful glue with a nasty side effect of hate, disrespect and burden. The medical industry banks off of this too. Dying middle-aged is going to be the trendiest thing.

My beloved grandmother died at age 90. Rest her beautiful, incredible soul and spirit, but my family secretly realizes that she was a burden. Familial love is a rip off and a scam. True familial love, the unconditional stuff died with my grandmother. Since then, it has been a charade and a joke. We have to remember our grandmother just to seem like we have common threads as people. She's nearly a decade dead, COVID turned my parents into anxious, shut in losers.

I think in this modern time, more than ever, the real meanings and reasons of family need to be reconsidered. Parameters are busted.

Yeah, you can just leave them somewhere if they get to be too much. I worked with a woman in the '80s whose mother was going senile. The old bag had always been mean, but the dementia made it worse. My co-worker took her on vacation to California (we lived in the Midwest). On the last day, she drove the battle axe to the mall and dropped her off. Told her to do some shopping and she'd be back later to pick her up. Co-worker drove to the airport and flew home and that was the end of it.