Struggling badly with grandmother. (long)

[StormInside]

Hi. I'm dividing this up into 2 posts as it's long. I really need some kind and non-judgmental advice, as I may sound like an awful person with what I'm writing here. Basically I had cancer when I was younger, and the side-effects of treatment, and severe stress, caused me to drop out of university. I went home, where my grandmother had moved in with my mother, as my gran had been widowed and didn't want to live alone. When I got a bit better, my mother suggested that I become my grandmother's official carer (for which I receive a small weekly allowance from the government, as you can't care for someone 24/7 and still work outside the home) and I agreed. I would never have taken this on if I'd known how hard it was going to be.

My grandmother can do most things for herself. She's just legally entitled to a full-time carer because A - she claims to be deaf (more on that later) and B - she has fallen over and broken a bone before, so in theory shouldn't be left alone.

I didn't know her very well before I started, and I've found that she is extremely selfish and manipulative. She doesn't care about anyone else and wants everything her own way. She is so awful that other family members rarely visit, and when they do, they leave early because they just can't take the stress of being with her. I don't really know where to start. Firstly she complains non-stop about everything. She literally never has a nice word to say about anyone or anything and everything that comes out of her mouth is either a complaint or a demand. Today as soon as we woke up she was already complaining really angrily. First that our neighbour had parked his car in front of our house. She went on and on and is threatening to go next door and start a fight with him about it. My mum took us to the supermarket today and she was moaning and [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse]ing that she had to walk to the end of the street to get in the car instead of having it parked outside. My mum was waiting in the car and she saw some old papers I'd put in the recycling bin and said she was going to look through them to see if any post was in the bin for her ([bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse]?) I said "No, there's nothing for you, come on mum's waiting." She tried to get to the recycling and I said, Come On! And she started yelling at me "You're always so miserable! Why are so you such a miserable person?" To which I got angry and responded "Because of you!" Basically this is a small sample. It's like this non-stop all day every day.

If she doesn't get her own way, or is told not to do something, she pretends to cry. When she first moved in, she thought the washing machine took too long to wash her clothes, so she kept fiddling around with it and broke it. My mum had to buy a new one because of her, and she would not contribute to the cost. With the new one, she tried the same thing and I said, "Don't do that, you'll break it and mum will have to buy another new one." She pretended to cry (total pretence, no tears in her eyes) and started yelling "Everybody in this family is horrible! You're all horrible to me!" My mum was so used to this behaviour of hers she told me to just ignore her.

She makes non-stop demands. Bear in mind that I don't get holidays, or evening and weekends free. This has been 24/7 for the past 6 years. I have to start at the crack of dawn. She wants her newspaper collected the minute the shop opens, so no lie-ins for me. Then she sends me back and forth doing stuff all day. Here's an example. She'll say she needs milk from the supermarket. Of course she waits till I've already got the newspaper before telling me, so I can't just get both at once. I go on a mile-long walk to the supermarket and get her milk. When I get back she says, "I forgot, I need bananas too. Go and get them." Another mile-long walk to and from the supermarket. When I get back, she's forgotten something else and I have to go back again. If she tries to send me to the supermarket a fourth time in one day I refuse to go, and then when my mum gets home from work my gran tells her I refused to go to the shop for her and won't do anything to help her! Luckily my mum knows how aful my gran is and tells me not to listen to her.

My gran also pretends to be deaf to save herself from doing any kind of work. When somebody she wants to talk to, such as my aunt or cousins phone, she can hear perfectly well and chats to them on the phone. But anything that requires effort, such as phoning someone to make an appointment, or dealing with other non-fun calls, she pretends she can't hear what they're saying so that I have to take the call and do everything. We are talking multiple calls that she should deal with herself - she does nothing but sleep in her chair all day, while I have shopping, cleaning, dog-walking, collecting prescriptions and her laundry to do, never mind if I need to actually do something for myself in a day as well! She won't so much as even take her own tablets - she insists that we dish them out to her as she just can't be bothered to remember to take them at the right time.

 

[StormInside]

She is so selfish with money as well. She sold her house and moved in here, so she has hundreds of thousands of pounds sitting in a bank doing nothing. The rest of my family are struggling for money, yet she won't help anybody. Here are a few examples. My aunt has severe depression and rarely leaves her house. Her only companion is a dog. My aunt phoned my gran crying because her dog is dying of cancer and needs an operation, which she can't afford. My gran pretended to be sympathetic, but refused to help financially, which meant her daughter had to lose her only companion. My sister was admitted to hospital in terrible pain and was found to have a growth in her stomach. She needed an operation but the NHS had such a long waiting list they said she'd have to wait a month. This meant a month in hospital, in a county a 5 hour drive away, separated from her child, in terrible pain. My mum asked my gran to lend them the money to go private to get the op done at once, and she refused. When our kitchen roof began leaking and caved in, my mum asked my nan to lend her the money to get it fixed. She said no and my mum had to get a bank loan and pay a ton of interest. My gran didn't care about the roof as she has her own annexe with her own kitchen so it wasn't affecting her. Once my gran told me to take her out to a café. When we got there she ordered lots of food and drink for herself. She said to me, "Aren't you having anything?" I said, "I don't have any money." She just shrugged and sat there stuffing her face in front of me while my stomach rumbled. If she makes me go and do so much shopping for her that I have to get a taxi back (I don't drive) she doesn't pay me back for the taxi. She often doesn't pay me back for all the shopping. She insists on having the heating on all day but won't pay her share of the heating bill, so my poor mother, who is 67 years old and still working full-time due to poverty, has to pay for this indulgence.

She insists that the family (meaning me and my mum) do everything for her, and she won't let us get outside help so that we can have a break. There are schemes where people like her can go out for the day with a group so the carers can have a break. On one occasion we persuaded her to take part in a lunch club like this. I dropped her off and when I collected her the other old people had all made friends and were chatting at a table together. My grandmother was sitting alone at a different table, her face turned away and her nose actually up in the air like she thought she was too good to associate with anyone. Now she won't go anywhere unless we take her, so I haven't had a break in years.

But it's the non-stop complaints and nastiness that are really wearing me down. Nothing we do is ever good enough, and people avoid coming to our house because of her. She complains all day about everything - if she gets post because its a bother to deal with, if she doesn't get post because she's waiting for it, if she can't get an appointment, if neighbours park in front of the house or step onto our property, if the dogs bark (I've caught her beating our dogs with her walking stick and locking them outside in the rain) if she has to do anything for herself, if I displease her (which is always as she is always naturally displeased) just constantly. She even hates my mum having a life. My mum works all week and then if she wants to visit a friend or something at the weekend, my gran has a go at her, saying things like, "Oh you go out and have fun while I'm sitting here twiddling my thumbs!" But if my mother invites her along, my gran refuses to go. She just wants us to sit in the house all day being as miserable as her.

The problem is my grandfather spoiled her. He did all the work, dealt with all the hassles of life, and was a constant companion to her so that she never needed to associate with anyone else. Now she expects the same from me, to the point where she is angry if I do anything that doesn't involve her. If she doesn't want to go out and I go somewhere without her, she gets so angry that I just stay here and now have no social life or friends left at all. She honestly seems to think my sole purpose in life is to be her slave.

There are only 2 reasons I don't quit are A - it will make life for difficult for my mum, as she'll have to take time off work to deal with my gran. B- I wonder if God has put me in this situation to teach me something. If I wasn't a Christian, I would kill her and then myself, I hate her that much. Yes, I vehemently, violently hate her and wish she would die. I know that's wrong though, I mean Jesus forgave the people who were crucifying him while they did it. I want to change my feelings, but don't know how. I feel I'm turning into her - an angry, bitter, nasty, complaining old woman, and I need to change before its too late. C S Lewis said something about how if you let your hate and anger last into eternity then soon that's all that's left of you and maybe that's what hell is. I feel my grandmother is a living embodiment of what NOT to turn into. But how do I stop it? You need to be a saint to put up with her and I am far from a saint. How do I stop hating her and being angry with her? How do I stop the flood of rage I feel every time she is demanding and selfish and unjust towards me? When she yells at me for things that are her own fault? All day I have visions of murdering her going through my mind. How do I stop this? What practical steps can I take to stop myself becoming like her? She puts me in such a bad mood that I find myself being short and unfriendly to shop staff and other people. I don't want to be like that. What can I do?

 

[StormInside]

It's got to the stage now where I am trying my hardest to avoid her. Once I've done my daily chores/work for her, I either get out or stay upstairs, and I can constantly hear the door that leads from her annexe into our house opening and her traipsing around the house screaming for me to come and do more thing for her, or just to complain about things. I am hiding from her in my room right now.

 

[JCFantasy23]

Ugh I'm so sorry, that sounds really miserable. She sounds like a miserable woman who let herself turn out bitter, and that's hard to be around. I don't know of much advise except to get away somehow if you can. I know you're worrying about your mother. Is there anyway you can get her into some sort of other living arrangement, or is your mother refusing to do that?

 

[StormInside]

She won't do that. She also finds her mother stressful but I think she thinks it's our Christian duty to care for her ourselves. I just want to know how not to be angry and bitter in my behaviour towards her.

 

[Kate84]

That sounds so hard. I'm praying for strength and hope for you. Shouldn't think you're turning into your grandmother, you said she was spoilt and you're going through the complete opposite. And you care about behaving like that. Sending a big hug.