Is part of the issue with a nursing home/care facility that it would be hard to keep them together?

The biggest issue has been my mother's mental health--she's paranoid, anxiety-prone ("prone" doesn't begin to cover the extent of her anxieties: without a constant dose of Xanax, she becomes hysterical at the drop of a hat, or no hat at all), and claustrophobic. Just the thought of a locked facility sends her into conniptions.

But the paranoia makes it really really hard to get her to accept any help in the home, and Dad has been unwilling/unable to force the issue.

The best solution for them would be for me to quit my job and move in with them.

... that is, until I lose my mind and run screaming into the night. Sigh.

Allyson, don't know where I accidentally posted this instead of here but:

You have a decent job, and are a published author on the side even if the latter is not yet a major second income. You have tons of friends. You have the respect of a huge community. You do volunteer work besides. By any reasonable definition you are amazing and a success. I know "reasonable" does not affect feelings, but maybe coming from someone know for bluntness you will be able to consider that perhaps it is true.

oh Consuela. I'm sorry. Ugh.

Allyson, can you tell your folks that a friend (could be one of us) is suddenly in town and you will be spending the day with us? That will give you an out, you can get a hotel room and perhaps a massage and can get right.

Hell, maybe an ex-bf?

X-post with Bitches: Thanks, everyone! We have spent the last several hours figuring out where all the furniture goes and picking out paint colors. Now we're home having sparkling wine.

Allyson, I'm sorry you're having such a crappy time. You're family is in MA, right? If you need to escape my very messy apartment is available.

Thanks, all. The children are gone so I'm going to bed at 8pm.

Timelies all!

I'm sorry Allyson that things are crappy right now.

Rest up. We're here for you in the morning.

Man, in work news, I just tore through five months worth of back data entry thanks to the wonders of the digital world in which we live. I don't know whether to be thrilled that I got it done, or pissed that I've been doing it manually for so long. The next step is to get expensify swinging along smoothly, and then I will be able to disappear the bins of paper receipts sitting next to my desk, since the IRS will accept expensify's digital versions of those receipts under $50. Which means a certain amount of sorting and filing to pull out the ones larger than that, but still. That would be a massive change in my paper handling.

In other news, I think I've pulled off a surprise mini-birthday celebration for the SO. He's stuck at work all day, but with only a few lessons interspersed through the day because it's spring break and he has most but not all lessons cancelled. All of mine cancelled, so I was off the hook.

Anyway, I worked it out with the coffeeshop owner, so at around noon, some balloons should show up for him. Shortly thereafter, they will bring out a strawberry shortcake birthday cake for him, which can then be given to coffeeshop patrons, too. And from that point on, about a dozen of his friends will randomly show up at the coffee shop to say happy birthday and eat cake.

I just realized that was the situation this weekend, so I pulled it all together over facebook yesterday and today. I hope it works. The thing that's funny about facebook events is the people who exist on facebook but don't really use it. I don't have a good way to realize that to trigger me to contact them otherwise. The people that aren't there at all, I can contact. But casual users, I just don't know. So this will be an all active facebook users celebration.

The best solution for them would be for me to quit my job and move in with them.

Yeah, no. Losing your mind helps no one.

I'm sorry you guys are having a hard time, Suela and Allyson. (And anyone else I forgot.)

I just sort of had it out with my mom and told her that I spent the last 39 years begging for her to like me and I'm kind of done with that. She said that was unfair and not true. I asked her if she thought I was crazy or just mistaken. I know it was shitty to be a teenage mother, and she loved me and resented me at the same time. She's trying to make things right, and now that I gave the upper hand, I'm punishing her and making her walk on the same eggshells I've been walking on my whole life. It's poisonous.

Oh, I meant to say, I relate, Suela. Both sets of our parents are getting to the point where they at least need respite care for the caregiver parent to be able to get out. If we lived there, we could and would do that. But we don't.

The SO's siblings could do it, but don't for reasons that are fraught, and it's impossible for us to call them on it because they're upset we're not there to even see what's going on. (We're the only members of his extended family that do not live in the immediate metro area, with one other exception, who is getting ready to move back.)

They both recently had in home care, and rejected it. And then complained about not being able to get out.

It's just hard. I would like our parents never to age and become frail.