I feel completely trapped - need help

[Clarence]

I'm in a very difficult place right now. I live with my mother and my 93 years old grandmother. We are all struggling and suffering for our own reasons and living together is made very difficult.

My grandmother needs constant care and attention, which means my mother and I don't have any freedom and we have to serve her for everything. This has been going on for three years.

We're both out of energy and even out of patience with her, but there's not much we can do to help her to understand that. Her mind is not working well enough anymore. She forgets everything we tell her or she doesn't understand what we try to explain… as a result, she keeps getting on our nerves.

My life has been on hold because of that, but I would feel terribly guilty to leave them. It would be terrible for my mother because I am a support for her (we're in this together), but for my grandmother also because any change is strongly affecting her mind for the worse.

I'd like to leave the house, but I have a low income as I am not free to work because of the presence my grandmother needs and as my mental health is really bad. I think I would still be able to rent an appartment, but all of my money would go on food, rent and bills. And, I would still have to spend half of the week in my mother's house to look after my grandmother (so, full rent for half living).

I'm really wondering if I'm right or wrong about feeling bad about abandonning them, and wondering how I could think about the situation differently. My psychiatrist just tell me to leave the house, but I don't feel it's so simple - at least it's not for me. And she doesn't really offer me new perspectives on my issues.

I really struggle to find a way out. A better life for me would be to live alone, work on my health and my mental health, and then get to know my values, my life purpose, and to deepen my spiritual understanding - put simply, to have time and space to develop myself. But I'm completely stuck in this family life situation.

I've been waiting for my grandmother to pass… but who knows how much longer she'll be with us. It also induces guilty feelings to think in this way. And likely when she'll die, I'll still feel like I need to stay for my mother as a support, as she'll be devastated and won't receive much support from other people. That makes me foresee that I could be waiting indifinitely if I'm not careful, and I know this is not what I want despite being out of touch with my life and my self right now.

But still, the attachment is strong and I feel like leaving, even for half the week, is a terrible option for them and for me. It feels like all options are bad and my thinking is currently very blurry and confused.

@Leo Gura I'd be interested to know your opinion on a situation like this.

Edited May 16, 2024 by Clarence

[Chadders]

@Clarence That’s tough sorry to hear that man

I completely understand the burden that our elderly relatives can create for us. The neo liberal capitalist system does not provide much of a collective responsibility to the elderly so we can only do what we can whilst having to survive ourselves

Do not feel bad that you want to leave that situation. It is massively holding your life back and of course you will want to get out. The truth is either your grandmother is really not in her normal headspace or is being very selfish - but don’t blame her for that.

my grandfather has been a real burden for my dad. He is in a care home now but the amount of support he felt he had to provide him along with my grandmother. Both basically fucked and went down hill in the worst way. Parkinson’s, sepsis not good. You gotta help them but they wouldn’t even help my dad by making the support situation more tenable by moving closer so less travel time - this was not right. My grandfather has this expectation that he should be there for everything. This is wrong actually. You can support them but there is a limit to that 

Tbh it is just selfish. You are at the end of your life and your children are still living theirs. You should never feel like you have to help out of obligation but because you genuinely want to because the burden is very real.

Honestly if I had kids I’d never want to put them or my grandkids through that. They have a life to lead and my body is on its way out. Personally if I had dementia, before losing it completely I’d rather have voluntary suicide. It would be the best way to go not just for you personally but for your relatives. Of course I’d like to think my kids would support me when I get old obviously but I would never expect them to be there for every beck and call to the point that it massively disrupts their lives. That’s just not fair

I think this is a major issue. What I have just said there is extremely controversial though it shouldn’t be. We can only do what we can but don’t let this hold your life back. You cannot be responsible when you are young and have a life to lead

Think about what the Buddha did. He did something very selfish by leaving his wife and kids needing to find an answer to suffering. He knew he could not do this in the situation he was in. Sometimes we have to be selfish to better served others in the future rather than becoming diminished.

I would suggest finding a middle ground if you can but first and foremost don’t feel guilty for how you feel. That situation is a bitch and you are young

 

 

Edited May 15, 2024 by Chadders

[Clarence]

6 hours ago, Chadders said:

The truth is either your grandmother is really not in her normal headspace or is being very selfish - but don’t blame her for that.

Yes, she is being selfish, but that is due to her age. She absolutely isn't in her normal headspace anymore (for exemple, she won't remember if she had dinner an hour ago, and she'll sometimes be doubtful when we tell her she did).

It's a challenge not to blame her. We understand her brain is at fault, but as we sacrifice our entire life for her wellbeing, it is hard when she won't believe we gave her food.

6 hours ago, Chadders said:

Tbh it is just selfish. You are at the end of your life and your children are still living theirs.

The reason she lives with us is because my mother has worked in nursing homes and so she closely knows the mistreatment that happens there. She didn't want that for her mother because of the bond they have. Despite the difficulty and the fact that she's not herself anymore, she dread losing her.

My grandmother is from other generations. She was born in 1931 and grew up with her grandparents. At this point, she thinks it is the normal going of things that we care for her and she is not able to understand that it is a sacrifice of our life. As a result, she'll keep asking for more, but to reason with her only works for an hour maybe. Then she forgets and do it again.

6 hours ago, Chadders said:

We can only do what we can but don’t let this hold your life back. You cannot be responsible when you are young and have a life to lead

Yes… it make's it harder to apply Leo's teachings and to do self-help in general. And I don't see many people being in the same situation, so I don't have references or ideas on how to cope or mix the two.

6 hours ago, Chadders said:

Think about what the Buddha did. He did something very selfish by leaving his wife and kids needing to find an answer to suffering. He knew he could not do this in the situation he was in. Sometimes we have to be selfish to better served others in the future rather than becoming diminished.

Maybe that's what I should do… but that is so hard to even think about. I already feel guilty for leaving the house for one day - they induce that in me with the words they use and emotions they have when I say I leave and when I come back.

It's hard to conceive a more selfish move, like leaving the house for half the week. I know I'm being selfish anyway, but that feels so bad I'm still unsure whether it's right.

Though… I think it could be, as whenever a small contradiction happens with my mother, all I want is to leave. But I don't know whether I have the strength in me to do it, as I'm completely out of energy.

Thank you for sharing some of your story and perspective.

[Snader]

I feel you. I've been (and in a way still am) in same kind of situation, where building my life demands detachment from my family, while my sense of morality and responsibility makes me feel bad about it. Even though I can see the situation as it is, it still doesn't stop me feeling sad and shit from time to time.

I'm really short on advices here. One way is to do as your psychiatrist told you to and leave. You can focus on doing personal development to increase your ability to understand the situation and accept the emotional suffering that comes with it. For me that decision was a double-edged sword emotion wise, as while I became more understanding, I also became more sensitive to my feelings. Anyway, that has been really transformative and I don't regret it.

Another option is to stay until your grandmother passes away and the situation settles. Considering her age, it wouldn't break your life to stay there for few more years. At least you would have less guilt to deal with and cleaner conscience. Also it might give you more energy to know that you've decided to stay for a while longer, knowing that you soon get to live your life with no regret.

I know it can be really hard, especially if you are attached and strongly bonded to your family, especially in your situation where there might be no half way option, only all in or all out. Anyway, it will get better eventually, don't let the desperation eat you alive!

 

[mmKay]

Very tought situation. I feel you. Soon enough I will find myself in a similar place, and so will many other sons and daughters.

Empathy is a bitch sometimes. Some people have very little of it or don't have it altogether. I don't really envy them though. But what would that kind of life look like as a thought experiment? What would it look like for you not having the capacity of imaging the emotions of others?

If I were you i'd get a full time job, sleep in my car and pay for caretaking. This would give a healthy distance and  alone time away from the situation . Maybe do extensive research into any goverment help ( maybe you can get some paychecks )



Your situation could be seen in a very simplistic way as an  issue of lack of money, not knowing how to release/deal/cope/ with your own emotions and not establishing boundaries / not communicating clearly.

 

 

I may be totally wrong. I barely know your situation and this is just my personal opinion.  Don't take this too seriously and follow your own judgement.

Looking back at your life 30 years from now, tell us exactly how your situation folded out , how you feel about it, and what did you learn. Make it VERY DETAILED

Edited May 16, 2024 by mmKay

[gettoefl]

write a contract with you mom, divvy up the necessary home tasks, she needs to support you by signing or else you're gone

[Clarence]

9 hours ago, Snader said:

I know it can be really hard, especially if you are attached and strongly bonded to your family, especially in your situation where there might be no half way option, only all in or all out. Anyway, it will get better eventually, don't let the desperation eat you alive!

The halfway option could be to rent a place to live half of the week in. But this wouldn't be easy financially and mentally as it would be a hard shift to switch places twice a week. And I still wouldn't be much freer, so it's hard to decide whether it's worth the investment in money and worry.

Thanks… though the desperation is already eating me alive. This decision would actually be made out of desperation, which isn't ideal.

But it's really hard to conceive staying stuck for a few more years either.

6 hours ago, mmKay said:

Looking back at your life 30 years from now, tell us exactly how your situation folded out , how you feel about it, and what did you learn. Make it VERY DETAILED

It's a really though exercise. I can't decide how it will unfold… I don't know how much longer my grandmother will live nor if she will die suddenly or after having disminished a lot more. But I feel like I will have many regrets wathever happens. I'll feel guilty for not having been more patient and present with her, and for not having helped my mother more - even if that is due to my health/lack of wellbeing.

Maybe that tells me that I should figure out why I feel so much guilt. I think that this was transmitted to me from my mother, because she is feeling a lot of guilt as well. But right now, I haven't figured out where it comes from exactly, nor how I could change it.

How you summarize my situation sounds quite correct, but to leave them to live in my car and to work full time is not realistic for me. It would worsen my health a lot.

3 hours ago, gettoefl said:

write a contract with you mom, divvy up the necessary home tasks, she needs to support you by signing or else you're gone

That's not really how it works here because the feeling I should care for my mother is within me. There's not really something she could sign that would improve the situation.

[mmKay]

Being in a though situation sucks. Feeling bad about being in a though situation just adds salt to the wound.

Learning how to cope/release/aliviate your emotions would be at least something. Maybe let's explore that.

What exactly is causing you to feel guilt and shame?

[gettoefl]

34 minutes ago, Clarence said:

 

That's not really how it works here because the feeling I should care for my mother is within me. There's not really something she could sign that would improve the situation.

right now you are both doing a job together and so you need to be on the same page, if she plays ball now you will be there for for the long haul

you need her help and support to make this whole thing work, set up the parameters and both agree for each other's sanity and happiness

[Clarence]

15 hours ago, mmKay said:

Feeling bad about being in a though situation just adds salt to the wound.

Hahaha good point. That's a pretty bad habit I have…

15 hours ago, mmKay said:

What exactly is causing you to feel guilt and shame?

I think it is the fact that I am not doing well mentally and that I can't find a way to improve how I feel. As a result, I'm not doing as much as I'd like to at home, and it is very challenging also to find the strength to leave half of the week. I feel ashamed and guilty for struggling so much and for not finding solutions - I feel like I'm at the opposite end of what Actualized.org is teaching.

I'm currently seeing a psychiatrist, a neuropsychologist, and energetic healers, but all of this combined is not powerful enough - or I haven't been doing them for long enough or not properly enough. I feel some despair and worries for the future because nothing seems to help. Psychedelics I also tried despite the lack of time I have for myself, but as the conditions are bad, they tend to bring me bad trips.

My psychiatrist talked to me about trying s-ketamine, but it wouldn't be possible to try the treatment as I would have to leave the house for two days, and I don't want to let my mother know why, so it's too complicated while I'm here. And I don't want to take other kind of medecines.

So I feel guilty for failing all the time and for not doing things right, for not being positive and energetic enough for my family and for myself.

[mmKay]

@Clarence there is a lot to unpack in that.

Let's start with this 

What are some statements about life at large that you would like to be true, and if they were true, they would solve/ease your emotional issues?

Answer in a moment, first understand the following

Silly example: My dog sheds hairballs all around the house. This makes me angry at my dog. The beliefs causing my emotion reaction ( anger ) are:

My dog is not supposed to shed hair.

Dogs are not supposed to shed hair.

My house should be clean of dog hair by default, I shouldn't have to clean hair because I own a dog.

 

(It's a silly example compared with your situation, but this is literally how unconscious beliefs run our emotions.)

 

Result :

My beliefs about how reallity SHOULD be doesn't match HOW IT REALLY IS, causing a spectrum of negative emotional reactions in me.

 

Solution:

Embrace truth and how reallity actually is. Align your beliefs about how life should be with how it actually is 

Mentally reframe ( embrace , understand ) that dogs shed hair. And that if you own a dog you will have to clean dog hair.

 

Find out WHAT beliefs are you unconsciously holding about your situation and life at large

HOW are they inaccurate ( partially or absolutely) causing inaccurate perception of reallity, triggering negative emotions.

And now answer the initial question for the proper mental reframe. I challenge you to find how the answers you come up with ( the ones that give you mental health emotional peace) are actually TRUTH , and many of your current beliefs are false and inaccurate perception.

 

Suggestions : explore beliefs about : your age, accomplishments, your responsibility about others physical/mental wellbeing, living up to others expectation, the nature of being alive as finite creatures... Feel your intuition here.

 

Warning : this may get you initially worse as you challenge many of your core beliefs about life and get lost in confusion before you ground yourself.

 

Let us know how that works for you

Edited May 17, 2024 by mmKay

[Clarence]

@mmKay I think that the biggest beliefs I have are that:

- I shouldn't feel bad.
- I shouldn't have a victim-like mindset even in situations I can't fully control, because this mindset is completely wrong and despicable.
- I should't feel like a victim of my mind.
- My mind should work better (for exemple, send me hormones that make me feel good when I do something good, like finishing an important task, doing some work, doing some physical exercice).
- I should want to have a life purpose.
- I should be positive and add value to the word in some way and so I shouldn't have too much negative energy within me.
- I should do more and be better.
- I should more actively try to change myself, to more actively try to control my thinking and how I feel, and be able to change how I feel however how my life is.
- I should be able to change much more quickly. I am waisting time while life is short.
- People should not be cruel, mean or stupid, but I should be capable of accepting humanity as it is, so I am the one at fault here too.

So my core beliefs are that everything that is wrong is me/within me, and external reality is just as it is/as it should be. Though, I wish I was born on another planet with more advanced beings, and so I wish I was myself one of those more advanced beings on that other planet. But that is a side note, because I know this can't be another way now and it is a bit easier to accept than the rest (or rather, I try to believe that I accept that more easily). As I know the only thing I can do about that here is to reach alien intelligences and stuffs like that, and I get excited about this too (but just slightly because my mind doesn't give me strong "excitment hormones" either).

 

It doesn't make me feel worse to think about those things because I constantly am thinking about them… so they're more conscious than unconscious.

But I really struggle about the accepting part. I sometimes really try to accept a situation, something that happened, or just that I am not perfect. But I can spend hours trying, and it still wouldn't work, as if I had extremely strong patterns in my mind that I can't break. It really feels solid, and the part of me that wants to change that or accept things is not strong enough or clever enough.

I can't see what I do wrong nor why I can't succeed at that, at accepting and changing.

Now, if everything I just wrote above was really untrue, meaning… I should feel bad, my mind should not send me feel good hormones, I shouldn't do more and I shouldn't be better, I shouldn't be able to change quickly, etc. I feel a slight relief, but it is so slight I barely notice it.

Edited May 17, 2024 by Clarence

[mmKay]

@Clarence Thats a good start. Let's put it on save for now.

What are some statements about the situation that you find yourself in,  that you would like to be true, and if they were true and you managed to embrace them, they would solve/ease your emotional issues?


For example :
It is absolutely okay to be selfish. I do not owe anything to anyone. It is not my job to save others from suffering.  ( imagine what this would mean for your emotional wellbeing if you managed to embrace this as a truth - as a thought / emotional experiment )
 

Come up with personalized ones. Really take your time with this.

 

Edited May 18, 2024 by mmKay

[k-ahmadzadeh]

@Clarence It is really tough condition. The last few years of my lovely grandfather was similar to your grandmother. His wife and my mother took a lot of trouble to take care of him, and it was very annoying experience. 

Perhaps you can hire a caregiver to lessen your trouble. In this case, I guess, the costs of it would be lower than moving to another home with expensive rental prices and so on. 

[Clarence]

@mmKay Okay. I will take your example as a first statement.

- It is absolutely okay to be selfish. I do not owe anything to anyone. It is not my job to save others from suffering.

- It is okay to not have all the answers yet, to be unsure about what my purpose is or of what it could be.

- Where I am now and the suffering I face will not last forever. I will eventually find cures or solutions not to suffer forever. I will find what makes me happy and what will bring peace to my life. (And I will find these solutions and cures pretty soons… like in the coming months).

- I will understand why it is that I feel like my brain is not super efficient in regulating hormones. I will get to know if I just make that up as an "excuse" or if there is an actual dysfunction. (It might come from my diet).

- I can regain (or find a way to regain) strength, willpower and clarity of thinking.

- It is okay to not be as good as Leo or others here in applying self-help material into my life. We all have different life conditions, brain chemistries and personalities, and we're not all as able to do the same things in the same amount of time.

- It is okay to have priorities that are not self-serving and that completely reshape one's life. (I guess it is, it's quite in conflict with the first statement).

- It is okay to take time for oneself in order to heal. And it is okay to ask for help. There is no necessity to feel guilt and shame for that.

- It is okay to change in front of people, especially family. It is okay if my mood and character changes. It is okay if how I behave changes. And it is okay to change back into how I was if I fail. It is okay if they point out changes to me, even though I absolutely hate being seen.

Maybe I could find other statements, but so far that's what I have.

 

@k-ahmadzadeh We actually have caregivers who come every Monday so I have a free day. And I've asked a week ago to have a second free day during the week. I think this could help a lot for appointments and such.

But I also want to move because there are many changes that are harder to do while staying home, like changing eating habits, adopting a more positive outlook on life, taking psychedelics, and so on. Also I live in the countryside… I'd like to move near a city to have more facilities.

So that's true that more free time could help in the meantime, but there are also a lot of downsides to that (having a stranger coming in the house, worrying about how they will "care" for our 4 greyhounds while they're there, and so on). We did a great job creating a complicated life :).

That's true though that it is much less expensive than moving out… Maybe I should find a solution in that for a few more months or until my grandmother passes…

[enchanted]

@Clarence

Yes this is a tough situation indeed. 

You are doing a valiant and admirable thing by stepping up and helping the people around you who need help. This experience will serve you well in the future. 

Hang in there, at 93 there isn't much time left and things will change soon. 

The universe will reward you very soon for your good deeds. 

Edited May 19, 2024 by enchanted

[Clarence]

@enchanted Thank you…