..but won't tell me if she was diagnosed by doctor, so I only see what I read about the signs of dimentia, and it is really worrying me She has never tried to help herself, she's always been very dependent on others, husbands, family, friends. She is with what seems to be a very good mate, but he is crippled up to, and has that Agent Orange for his military years I really don't communicate with my niece and nephew because they only listened to Jan's whining about me when I stayed with her for a time but I could not be her caregiver. I'm not patient enough, and I wanted my little space, and payed her rent, then moved after 3 months. I found out though she wanted me at her beckoned call. That was 8-9 years ago, and got to move here after she had her kids tell me she wanted me to move out. She always has had her dirty work so to speak, done by for her "everything". Hell, I was not even in school yet when she left home! My niece and nephew loved me before she poisoned them with lies about how it was all my fault. 2 Days after I moved she had a man move in with her she met on a dating site. Somehow she always wants to look like the innocent, as they said she didn't tell me because of her so-called good heart. This was after I helped her make a profile on Plenty of Fish and she met a guy, she's so lucky he turned out to be just what she needed, a caregiver who was widowed and took care of his life-time wife as she was dying of something. I digress, I just need some support from others that might understand me, and possibly dimentia and what you think. They live way up the coast, and I do thank God for that, too far for not to have an excuse not to go up there.Why do I have to feel so responsible I have had a lot of trauma and trying hard to recover from a prescription doctors gave me that supposedly would help. Well it didn't. I just worked the last 2 -3 days trying to get her back on her facebook where she basically just plays slot machines, falls asleep off and on all day, just got out of the hospital with 2 rounds of pnuemonia, heavy smoker etc. I can only do so much with "remote control"' on her computer, but if you are locked out of Facebook, it's almost impossible, even for more tekkie person to get you back on My mother told me many times that she never worried about me, but poor jan, I don't know what will happen to her. I think that's why I feel so responsible, guilty, ashamed and like I owe my sister. I never owed her a thing, and never asked for anything from her. She never tried to help me except the one time I needed a place to stay and she asked me to come stay with her. That's when I found out she wanted to use me for her purposes, not to help me.
My wife has learned how to be tough, with her family, etc., thru me. That is the, "Tough Love", thing. When a person takes on "being responsible" for what a family member is going thru, mentally or physically, unless the person is truly "responsible", it can mess up their own life. IOW, a person can lay a "guilt trip" on themselves for no logical reason. Not a good thing to do. Best of Luck with this!
I absolutely know it's detrimental to me as I start physically shaking when she calls, or contacts me online. I am not capable of dealing with it because of past issues with family/her and others. I was glad we were able to still be friends, but she is controlling and manipulating. She never "asks for help" she whines and knows I'll say I'll take care of it. So I've enabled her not to do certain things herself, so that's part of the guilt thing I'm sure. I think you are absolutely right in all you said Cody. Each person has to make their own choices and be responsible, not rely on others to take care of us. I'm so opposite I never ask anyone for help, accept online feedback/help with something like this.
I have abusive manipulative relatives. There are only 3 remaining and I've tried to firewall them off of my life as best I can. It's tough because people like this know how to use, they know how to manipulate, and they know what people want to believe.
Sorry to hear that, it's pure hell at times because "I want to believe" she just wants to stay in touch, but it's mostly she wants something. I'm pretty sure I get to move further away, but that doesn't change her calling, writing, being online to send me chat messages. Oh well, I'm already calming down about it all now. It's nice to vent sometimes. I guess we have a venting topic, but I didn't think of that
I'm glad you've found a middle ground. It sucks having people leverage our good natures for their corrupt needs.
Well, it's more like me at 75% ground and she only has to do 25% but the thing of it is, how am I supposed not help when she is sick, and yes, she's done a lot to contribute to her illness. She never wanted to learn anything before she got sick, she'd rather have others do it for her. I'm going to leave her to her children, both grown and doing well but it's not them she calls for help because they both know how (and because they are far away)to say no. Anyway, I think I'll go read, or take a nap We can't let them ruin what lives we have left to live. I am going to put my foot down hard but she always tattles on me to my beloved niece and nephew, and they of course stand on her side, so I loose them too if I really do this Oh well, just because we're family doesn't hold a lot of water, not in mine, and sounds like yours too @John Brunner
You're definitely enabling her behavior. What you need to do is to stop doing that. The key things to do are to raise your standards, set some boundaries for yourself and enforce them.
There is no way that you could be responsible for someone else, even your sister, getting dementia, @Denise Evans . This is one of those things that some people have for years and it develops so slow that they do not actually show any signs of the dementia for a long time. It is actually related to diabetes, and comes from insulin resistance, just like type 2 diabetes does, but it comes from insulin resistance in the brain, and lack of glucose for the brain to operate properly. Dementia can be caused by other things, like the amyloid plaques which originates from gut issues and then ends up in the brain, as well as other gut issues. From National Library of Medicine: Alzheimer’s disease (AD), the most common form of dementia, is pathologically characterized by the deposition of amyloid-β plaques and the formation of neurofibrillary tangles. In a neurodegenerative brain, glucose metabolism is also impaired and considered as one of the key features in AD patients. The impairment causes a reduction in glucose transporters and the uptake of glucose as well as alterations in the specific activity of glycolytic enzymes. Recently, it has been reported that α-amylase, a polysaccharide-degrading enzyme, is present in the human brain. The enzyme is known to be associated with various diseases such as type 2 diabetes mellitus and hyperamylasaemia. With this information at hand, we hypothesize that α-amylase could have a vital role in the demented brains of AD patients. This review aims to shed insight into the possible link between the expression levels of α-amylase and AD. Lastly, we also cover the diverse role of amylase inhibitors and how they could serve as a therapeutic agent to manage or stop AD progression. Dr. David Perlmutter, who wrote the Grain Brain book has a new book out about brain health , called Brain Maker, which is about healing your gut microbes and helping to prevent dementia caused by gut problems. I just bought it because it is on sale for $3.99 right now on Amazon if you want to read it and try to help your sister, Jan, before she gets worse. https://www.amazon.com/Brain-Maker-Power-Microbes-Protect-ebook/dp/ An easy thing you might recommend to her is the low-carb diet as well as supplementing with coconut oil each day, or an MCT oil. The MCT makes ketones, and ketones can get through the blood-brain barrier and her brain can use the ketones as fuel, since she is probably not getting glucose due to the insulin resistance issue.
Without any first-hand observations, it sounds like your niece and nephew would rather be on her side in choosing you as her caretaker so as to relieve themselves of the burden and the guilt. But I understand that the decisions we make in life have more to do with who we are rather than who others are. Free advice is always easy to give, huh? And it's usually worth every penny
I don't see how you can be responsible for your sister's issues. I understand some guilt perhaps, but you cannot hold yourself responsible for the ills or behavior of others unless you had a direct hand in getting them hooked on drugs or something. Your sister needs help and her child should be responsible for assisting her to get that help, not her sibling(s). Maybe you should see a counselor yourself to help you see that you are not the responsible party here @Denise Evans .
My sister has never been willing to help herself ever by eating better or quitting smoking or sitting on her ass there is no willingness in her to do anything for herself and what she will say is I want to live my life the way I want to live my life something like that is always her reply she wants to enjoy eating what she wants and she's been very elderly since she was only about 40 years old or younger because she just didn't want to do anything to help herself now she's truly sick and I of course would never say I told you so she wouldn't even take a walk with me when I was staying with her and she was so excited that I agreed to come and live with her but it was for other reasons it was to wait on her cook for her her husband does everything for her including cooking and now she literally can't get off her butt except oh yeah she can always make it down to the casino when they want to go down there I just can't talk about this anymore I know I'm wrong to think that this is my fault and to let her use me and abuse me and I'm not going to do it anymore thanks for all the info but I don't give her any help information anymore because she won't even tell her doctor the truth about what's going on it's so horrific to know how she has declined so quickly it seems like even though I know someone said oh you did about the dementia starts way back cuz I remember when it started at least 10 years ago if not longer and I know a lot about insulin resistance but I didn't know it caused dementia so that's very interesting sorry about dictating this no punctuation I just am going to get up out of my chair after having a nice nap and get busy doing something else for the rest of my day thanks to everybody appreciate it
Sometimes, that is how it is with people, @Denise Evans , and when it is people that we love and are part of our family, it is especially hard. It sounds like you have tried your very best to help your sister, and I believe that you should feel good about yourself that you did try so hard to help her for all of these years. It is nothing to do with you that she chose not to listen, that was her choice. You are right not to want to be her caretaker, and it is up to her children to make those decisions, but she will probably end up somewhere in a nursing home and having to have a caretaker there. Just keep her in your prayers, and sometimes, that is all we can do. Sending you hugs and prayers, Denise.
I really felt kind of sorry for the guy she met because she came off being this woman that love to go fishing and do this and do that and he fell for her and she knew a good thing when she saw it and they were just recently married after living together for 8 years so they've been pretty happy to get there but he got real sick and she was sick at the same time and yet he managed to take care of her and I just can't talk about it anymore but it was just really her using him it was always about her so I know can her son my nephew will get her set up the best he can but he has a family now and a good job and a beautiful home but he certainly not rich and he told me years ago and she knows it that she cannot live with her children they won't they won't take her into their home and that's pretty sad but still I can't blame them because I know how she is as well I think that's why they moved so far away at least one reason anyway yeah I got to get past my mother's voice in my head telling me poor Jan someone's got to watch out for poor Jan I had just as rough a childhood as my sister experienced the same bad things and my mom never worried about me she told me to my face that she was never worrying about me but poor Jan poor Jan so I'll get over that I'm going to get past that because it means me being happier the rest of my life or constantly and anxiety over my sister I think I felt like if I did lots of things for my sister that I'd have family including her children which I helped raise because we lived close at that time and I love those kids like they were my own babies that I never had and I really wanted family so much especially now in my later years so I have bent over backwards to try and make her happy buying her things like computers I've kept doing computers for the last 10 years actually longer than that and fix them for her but I noticed how she never learned to do anything for self on the computer she was always calling me with the next problem and I am so sick of being on here and whining to everybody I've just got to stay off so I'll talk to you guys later