The caring game blame

I hate being in this caring role. At first I thought I was strong, had my anticipations and worried anxiousness, but thought I was able enough to cope because these were my parents and they needed me not just as their son but as a caring, loving, emphatic son whom they could rely on to care for them as they now required.

So four months into this journey and I am fighting demons in my head. In essence governed society doesn't give a damn...why because my parents have the immediate fortune to fund their care which sadly for them is expensive whether it be in their own home or if they were ever forced to go into residential care.

Secondly, why should they have to go into a care home. Just because my mother had fall she is recovering and fighting back being resilient as she can. My dad, though he has dementia, just doesn't deserve that indignity and loss of going somewhere strange. They ought to have the choice to live and die in their own comfort.

And that is where I fight my demons. My parents reward me an allowance, cash gifts in their need. Deep down I don't wish for them to go into private care as the battle is to keep them well in their home...sadly a home that cannot meet or fit their present needs. 

It is the daily routine of emptying a commode; the daily task of encouraging my mum to overcome her fragility of fear; the daily witnessing of my father wetting himself or not consuming his food in a normal person's manner; or on some days the constant operation of laundry; the planning out of their meals; it is the blanking of his swearing moods as I change his clothes for an umpteenth time, sometimes myself snapping in tired frustration and concern; it is carrying the shoulder of their daily worries and pain; it is the worry of leaving them in their own company at any time and coming back to unexpected, but knowingly I should  be prepared for such eventualities, confusion and pain so ought to spring into mindful action and compassionate help...but just lately i seem to have hit a wall.

Then there is the burden of home, my family, my wife, my children. My wife also cares for her parents and holds down a full time job. I fear our children are suffering just as much as I feel for the pain my wife burdens as I burden the same here...everything seems just wrong, WRONG I tell and keep telling myself.

I blame myself, frugal living of not having the wealth or the forethought to have rightly planned or of not having had that care to have led an exemplary career to give my children that right to have a good start in their adult life's. I look back and I have wished that I hadn't done this and that and put more thought into certain things that have deemed our way  presently. I just feel I have let everyone down because I have not found the safest path in this journey and that the path i am on is crumbling away.

Sincerely, I have the assurance that I am not alone and that every person who cares for a dependant is in the same situation and feels the same frustration and pain. I just feel that I have more complex pain and right now that wall, I want a large sledge hammer and smash that wall and those bricks into, not rubble, but brick dust. I want to scream at the top of my head and shout, "Lord, I asked for an Angel and you failed me...YOU FAILED ME!"

God bless

Amen.