Hi everyone my granny is 75 and she had a stroke in the beginning of the year. She could not walk or use her right hand. We placed her in a carehome we could afford. It was not themost luxurious care home, but we thought that she would be taken care of. After about a week she told me and my mom that she is getting abused in the care home. She said that the carers are taking her prescribed medicines and swapping them with medicines she is not familiar with, stealing her personal items, giving her spoilt food (which resulted in diarrhea everyday), leaving her in messy diaper, not doing physio, and giving other patients unprescribed pills to make them quiet. This alarmed my mom and I and we reported this carehome to the police. My granny stated that she wanted to live with us. We could not afford another care home, so my granny came to stay with us.
I have cooked 3 times a day for my granny, helped bath, and change diapers. everyday I also massage my grannies legs, and entire body for over an hour as she says that she is in pain. I have done all of this while studying full time for my masters degree.
When we go grocery shopping we try to sanitize often, and observe the social distancing regulations put into place due to COVID-19. Whenever we go out of the house my brother assists with my granny. My granny gets angry at us for going grocery shopping. She says that we are going out. Her doctor advised us to not take her out at this stage of the lockdown, but she says that other elderly people are going to the shops so she should too. She calls my mother and I b****** when we leave and she says that she hopes we crash the car and die. She says we are keeping her in jail.
I have tried my best to do all I can for my granny and to make her happy. We have a big yard and space outside. I try to encourage her to go outside or try to garden, but she is on facebook all day sleeping on the bed. She calls me a b**** and she says that I am a loser. She says that my degrees are stupid because I am not married. I am the only one in my family to go to university and get this far. I have always passed cum laude. I am not ugly, I have a good heart, I have friends, some people like me more than a friend, but I do not want a relationship. I try to explain to her that I am trying to work on my career and better my life and get myself out of poverty. I have tried to stay out of her hair to try and make things better. I try to assist her and then stay away. I work on my thesis outside and do my research outside. I eat my food outside. When I'm not researching I clean outside. I spend everyday outside from the morning till around 7pm, but when I come back inside she still talks to me negatively.
She also threatens to call my university and "tell them how I am" when I say that she is being abusive towards me, and I don't like it. she shouts and says "then why do you help me!". She goes outside with her wheelchair and shouts at me so the neighbours can hear. She says "I'll call the cops on you" "I'll take you to court, you're abusing me".
All of her family members and her other children have abandoned her at this stage. The rest of the family seems to have lost respect for her due to her abusive nature and vanity. My granny catfishes men aged 26, 27 (my age and younger) on facebook with her younger photos. She lies about her age, and her condition. We have asked her why shes doing this. She says she wants someone young to look after her. She gives out our address to these men online. We explained that this is not right, but she disregards us. The convos with these men are sexually explicit and one guy told me over FB he masturbates to my gran. I am slowly giving up.
I am physically and mentally drained. I feel suicidal. I don't want to be alive anymore. How do I get my granny to stop abusing me and lying online?
8 Answers
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Stop caring for her. Focus your attention on school. She isn’t well. She needs a psychiatrist! She isn’t your problem.
Tell your mom that you are no longer available for helping with granny.
Let mom deal with it. Get your degree. Live a good life. You deserve it.
Best of luck
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In the meantime - firstly;
Keep studying & set some new *house rules*.
A home that is safe & has harmony is important. Set rules around private info being disclosed on FB. Warn that if this rule is ignored, internet privilege will be removed.
Ignore all tantrums & name-calling like you would for a toddler or child. You can't stop what Granny says - only your reaction to it.
Secondly, start looking for a new NH for Granny?
Caregiving is a long difficult road, and we're happy you have found the support of others here on this site.
However, there are limits to what untrained members on our site can provide for you.
Please reach out to experts for additional support and the help you need 24 hours a day at the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline:
Call 1-800-273-8255
Well, there's the million dollar question...why DO you help her?
You are only 26 years old. You cannot continue to accept this abuse. Where is your mother in all of this? Does she also provide care?
You and your mother should NOT be paying for Granny's care home. If she can't afford it, does she qualify for Medicaid?
If YOU are the one providing the bulk of care for Granny, then your mother is allowing YOU to be abused. NO ONE should put up with this. Just because you are young does NOT mean you have to be abused.
Please get yourself out of this situation somehow.
Granny needs to be in a facility. Can't you see now that she lied about the abuse to her there; that she lies about everything? She will be medicated, which is clearly what she needs.
Please don't continue to destroy your life by putting up with this!
Since you are connected with a university, PLEASE, TODAY contact your university counseling services and tell them your story, just as you’ve written it here. Doing so will relieve you of the concern that your grandmother has the ability to “get you into trouble” there, because SHE DOESN’T.
You have wound up in an unmanageable situation. If your grandmother has any money, you and your family MUST determine a NEW care plan and act on it.
Your grandmother MAY have sustained neurological damage that has caused her inappropriate dealings with the people within and outside of her environment. MANY stroke patients have moderate to severe emotional/social difficulties as result of the stroke itself, but in addition, your grandmother may also have early dementia, which also causes loss of previous control.
Would it help YOU to know that instead of “abusing” you she is actually mechanically saying words that are only partially, and perhaps not at all meaningful to her?
She has no reason to be online, and should ONLY be getting online time when some family member is willing to supervise her. Have you had SPECIFIC RECOMMENDATIONS from her neurologist for MANAGING HER CONDUCT? Have you reported her behavioral difficulties to her physicians? What you are characterizing as “lies” may very well be HER TRUTH, as she sees it in the moment of time when she’s describing it.
Many of the threats you have described are tragically NOT within the realm of reality. It becomes YOUR JOB, for your own safety, to consider her verbal assaults for what they are, the random meaningless “wording” of whatever is flashing in her damaged mind at the moment. Not about you, not your fault.
You and your family may need to do a perceptual shift about your grandmother’s ability to independently manage her own conduct. It may be time to request a cognitive evaluation of her present functioning, to determine how much independence is currently appropriate for her. It is also possible that a cautious trial of mood stabilizing medication may be worth considering- only through her physician’s intervention will this be possible.
YOU ARE IMPORTANT. YOU have done brave things to help yourself being a worthwhile adult and enjoy the good things in life. DON’T let yourself become any more distracted fromYOUR GOAL.
NO ONE can change what your grandmother thinks, BUT- her conduct CAN AND SHOULD be managed, for HER WELFARE but equally as important FOR YOURS.
PLEASE LET US KNOW how things are going.
She will never change so your only alternative is to change yourself. In the short term you need to detach emotionally from her, let her jibes and slander roll off you as though she is just an unpleasant stranger that you are in no way related to - look up going grey rock.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmksB-SIvtA
In the longer term she needs to go (or if this is your mother's home perhaps you do).
In the meantime - firstly;
Keep studying & set some new *house rules*.
A home that is safe & has harmony is important. Set rules around private info being disclosed on FB. Warn that if this rule is ignored, internet privilege will be removed.
Ignore all tantrums & name-calling like you would for a toddler or child. You can't stop what Granny says - only your reaction to it.
Secondly, start looking for a new NH for Granny?