My dad is caring for my mother with dementia (she also suffers from depression an borderline personality). He is so stressed and keeps saying he needs time away from her so my brother and I hired home health. We are paying for but he complains the helper isn't worth the money (we feel it is), mom goes to adult day care Monday-friday and he complains about the cost of that. We can see his health declining but he refuses to admit it's stress and wont see a doctor. He's even stopped taking his blood pressure meds without an explanation. My mother has always been difficult to live with but my dad hasn't been like this. This is all making me so stressed and depressed. I just don't know what to do anymore. I'm heartbroken that my dad won't let us help and we are forced to watch this whole mess kill him. Is there anything we can do to make the situation better?
But, my mother is totally different as was my MIL with the constant complaining like your father does even they have or had in-house help. You have to walk away knowing you have done the best you could. You can't make them happy, no one can, but themselves by adjusting to changes and not constantly complaining about them. Blessings to you and take care.
HUGS TO YOU.
TRY AND GET A SOCIAL WORKER, CLERGY, HIS DR. OR OUTSIDE PROFESSIONAL TO TALK TO DAD. BELIEVE ME HE IS OVERWHELMED, STRESSED AND PROBALLY DEPRESSED AS WELL. TRY TO GET HIM TO SPEND SOME QUALITY TIME WITH HIMSELF AND YOU....
HOPE IT HELPS.
BLESSINGS....
your dad sounds like he is grieving losses--loss of his wife's health and therefore loss of his partner's ability to be as she was, as well as fear of aging further without her.
These things are pretty complicated, but it sounds like his "giving up" and behaving in ways that indicate he wants to just let go and die with her.
When somone has thoughts like that, they need Counseling at least, and maybe meds, to help pull them up out of those deep-"blues".
When someone who is essentially "normal" has been partner with someone with mental ills, it's a sure bet the "normal" person ahs some co-dependent behaviors that really need that person in their lives, too.
Being years with a mentally ill person, one develops guilts and other dysfunctional ideas about oneself, that make continuing on alone, hard, without help. It is too easy to feel one cannot manage alone.
Need professional help.
It is so hard to manage!
I pray you find just the right help to convince your Dad that resuming his needed meds is a good idea. Might he respond to possibly using his knowledge and abilities to help others? He surely has learned some coping skills, living with your Mom, that might be helpful for others to learn?
Perhaps he could volunteer with an agency helping elders and others, with this sort of issues?
It might give him a new focus and will to live, knowing he has a good reason to keep breathing.
My heart goes out to you!
Try to get a health care proxy that allows you to ask his doctor questions. Tell him you want him to sign one for both he and your mom incase of future problems, this way you can inform his doctor of things he is doing; like with the blood pressure medicine. After you express this I would let him know the next priority has to be you and him, b/c you both are the caregivers and suggest you two spend time doing things together for relief, lunch in the park, a walk at the zoo, a trip to the library or a movie, to relieve both your tensions. Good luck, when people are exhausted they become complainers without meaning too.
That much time in a relationship with a partner with mental ills, almost guarantees the healthy partner starts caving and accommodating the mentally ill partner...a form of co-dependant.
And it makes it harder for that healthier partner to function when the sick one gets worse or dies. The healthier one no longer knows how the rest of the world functions in a healthy manner. There may likely have been a certain amount of isolation behaviors happening, too.
SO it is important to try getting your Dad out of the house, participating in activities with other people, trying to help him learn to have "fun" again..
IT is possible, that by helping him learn to have fun, in small doses at first, again, that he will suddenly choose to start taking the needed meds again, as his joy levels increase, his will to live should also increase.
A Doc can make suggestions, and try to talk him into treatments/meds, but your Dad will not take them if he cannot find a will to live.
Maybe try to get him re-interested in hobbies or activities he used to like?
Take him places that bring back good memories, if that is an option.
Do these things while Mom is being cared for by someone else!
It might be hard to initiate at first, but might get easier with repitition.