JannaSenior Contributor
Some Advice For A Friend Please
I’m posting this on behalf of a close friend who is struggling because of the intense relationship issues she currently has with her family, and in particular with her brother. Her parents are very aged geriatrics; the mother has severe dementia and the father is simply very old and also has some senility. Her brother (the only other child) lives with and cares for the parents (he never left home). He employs a full-time carer and my girlfriend also “works” in the family home 2 days per week to help out. Her brother has lost the plot and is trying everything to preserve his parent’s life. He treats “Mum” like a baby - talks to her like she is an infant (“oh you’re a good little girl aren’t you” etc) and only gives her the best of everything - right down to reading labels of food products, eliminating anything too fatty, too salty, too rich, too processed, etc, etc. He overextends himself to the point of absurdity and is obsessive about everything. He obsessively keeps track of all bodily excrement functions, stresses out if there is constipation and gives Mummy an enema if she misses having her bowels open for a day or two. The same über care applies to the father. He takes them on a 2+ hour road trip each Sunday to the same place because “Dad loves it”, even if he is dog tired and has a mountain of backlog in work to attend to. He does anything and everything Dad wants meeting his every need and desire and is incapable of saying “no”. The latest is that he has announced that the mother can not be left unattended for 1 minute due to her propensity to fall. Everything my friend does is never right or good enough, be that good food which she cooks, or clothes that she buys, or housekeeping she has attended to, etc. He treats her like she doesn’t exist and displays the classic nice/nasty splits in behavior and classic passive aggressive behaviors. He also will not entrust her to care for the parents alone for any extended period of time because he fears the care will be suboptimal. She believes he has truly gone insane and is very distressed about it. Yesterday she found him boiling a kitchen sponge in a pot in order to destroy germs so that cross contamination and food poisoning don’t occur - clearly with the mother and father in mind. He intends to do this daily now! He refuses to consider placing either in a nursing home despite their incontinence and the fact that they need 24 hour assistance with every facet of daily life. He also will not consider respite because “I can’t do that to Mum”. His business is losing money, he is experiencing financial stress, he barely sleeps, he can’t have any time off and he is literally destroying himself in order to avert the inevitable demise of his parents. His declining mental health is being noticed by others, including his best friend who expressed his genuine concern only to now have been excommunicated and discarded as a friend. My friend is at her wits end and the whole situation is compromising her mental health. She is at a loss as to know what to do, given that her brother is in severe denial about everything and refutes all suggestions that could ease the situation. Apart from the obvious self-care and healthy boundary advice, I also don’t know what to recommend or how to advise her. I’m convinced that there are some serious mental health issues going on with her brother but it is all going under the radar in the name of altruistic care for his aged parents. My friend is unraveling herself and returns home from her 2 day stint as an emotional basket case needing days to recover. It’s easy to suggest reducing contact but this is not possible. Any suggestions anyone? And ideas of what exactly is going on here?
Janna ❤️
Janna
