Posted in Rantings & Cranky on December 16th, 2009
Tags: bullying, emotions, family caregiving, frustration, stress

The caregiver’s stress compounded by emotional frustrations of bullying, and family member’s inconsiderate actions.

The frustration of family caregiving can take its toll on your emotions and health. When life is difficult already, bullying from others can seriously harm your health.

Friends and family members may not understand the hardships involved in family caregiving and may actually add your burden.

I may have had a small stroke, or will have a disabling stroke soon from far too much stress.  So for this blog I am going to vent which may help to relieve some of the stress and prevent my head from exploding.

Mentally exhausted, my head hurts and I am having problems seeing out of my left eye, my face is in pain and numb at the same time.  Thank goodness for spell check as my typing is glibly goop.

I have had to deal with far too much stress for far too long.  All of the stress and frustration in family caregiving plays on your emotions and gets the best of you. The following is a list of what I have had to deal with, besides having to care for my disabled husband, Barry, who dislikes his life and emotionally beats me up for it. 

So here it is – Let me vent.                                                                   

•  I lost my business due to a few morally corrupt individuals (and I  know who they are)  who had maliciously attacked my former website, praxea.com with click fraud, a method used to inflate a business’ advertising costs, which forces the website off the Internet as advertising costs exceed sales. 

 

• From this I was no longer able to afford the medical debt incurred by my husband’s disability, leaving me worried sick about the bills.

 

• Barry and I have had to declare medical bankruptcy, losing everything.

 

• My father had just passed away and was not able to attend his funeral in Edmonton, due to the lack of funds and not able to place my severely disabled husband, Barry, into respite care on short notice as there is no such service for emergency respite.

 

• I had to walk away from my family 17 years ago, one of many reasons, I was tired of my father’s violent threats on my life to “cut my throat, break my neck, beat the p*ss out of me or to blow my brains out” or to hear his curse of “I don’t deserve any better.” Regardless of my father’s emotional instability, I cared this man for all the good he did do for me in my life.  Sadly, because I was not able to return back home for the funeral, my name was omitted from my father’s obituary, possibly as a way to punish me for not being the “take charge” person as I am and deal with the funeral arrangements.

 

• It is interesting that when my husband, Barry, had his stroke, died, and was brought back from the dead to live a life of hardship and in order for Barry to have a quality of life worth living, I had to give up my life these last ten years and during that time – not one family member called to offer condolences or to ask if they could help in any way. Now that I had my hands full with poop, pee, and vomit caring for a disabled husband, I am of little value to my family members. The saying, “You really know who your friends are in a time of crisis.” is so true.

 

• In the last few weeks, I had to spend precious time on numerous emails and phone calls to my internet service provider for doubling billing my account in the past and was now demanding additional payment for my husband’s account.  This company still threatened to disconnect my husband’s service unless we paid the extra billing.  After threatening to report the internet service provider to various government agencies, and losing my temper – I became a raving lunatic from the dark side of the moon –  did the company admit they had made a mistake.  Researching the company later on to find it is in serious financial trouble.

 

• Stress from having to deal with a landlord, who illegally raised our rent.  The landlord has the advantage, knowing I cannot easily move my disabled husband, who needs a home modified for wheelchair access and disability care. So we are forced to pay up or leave, even though we are left with 291.00 per month for groceries, incidentals and spending money each month.  That also includes keeping his property looking nice and clean.

 

• Due to bankruptcy, Barry and I had to open up new banks accounts, for fear the previous bank creditors could seize Barry’s disability pension. We had to find a bank that would accept us as clients, as not all banks will accept clients after they have had to declare bankruptcy. This created a problem of issuing new rental checks to the landlord for the rental increase.  The landlord was concerned about his rental payment, even though our rent was always paid on time each month for the last ten years. Luckily, we found a bank that would accept us as customers and were able to provide postdated rental checks to the landlord.

 

• Legally the landlord must return the old postdated rental checks that had a value of $6,600.00 back to us to be destroyed.  Raising our rent illegally wasn’t insulting enough, the landlord refused to return the old postdated checks back to us, turning me into a crazy person.  Here we are going through bankruptcy and my landlord expects me to not worry about $6,600,00 worth of postdated checks in his possession.  Geese – I wonder what the bankrupt trustee would think of that. I told the landlord that if I were to treat his wife or his daughters the way he is treating me, he would have my head.  I screamed at him that if he was dealing with a man instead of me, he would not withhold the checks and he is only doing so because I am ONLY a woman with a husband too ill to defend my rights.  The landlord returned two hours later and in a very angry demeaning manner returned the old checks back to me.  He is probably sorry for his behavior, but enough is enough.

 

• Did I mention my husband is dying and only has 13 % kidney function so moving to another place right now will cause us further hardship and unnecessary stress.

 

• Besides the hardships of dealing with Barry, the bankruptcy and losing everything we have worked for, when Barry dies, my income dies with him.  I shall be left homeless and living on the streets after my husband dies. Minimum wage doesn’t even cover the cost of rental units here in the valley with many employed poor living in make shift campgrounds. The home I am living in was valued at $95,000 when we first moved in ten years ago.  Today the house is valued at $500,000 and with this inflated value the cost of rent in the valley has also increased. The landlord told me on two separate occasions that I should prostitute myself if need be, so I can afford to remain living here – because I am such a great tenant. With all the hell I have gone through these last ten years, I am primed to be a wonderful dominatrix. I wonder if the neighbors would mind.

 

From all this stress, my vitamin B levels have crashed resulting in my brain not manufacturing happy hormones. I had emotionally flat-lined and was unable to express emotions any more, feeling emotionally lobotomized. Brain fatigue at its worst.

UPDATE – On the first week of April, I had a mild stroke caused from far too much stress. Even though I take steps to “decompress” my life, silent stress over long periods of time will harm health.

SUMMARY:

FAMILY CARE GIVING – A roll taken on by a family member to care for a loved one in need.

STRESS – A silent killer and must always be held in check.

BULLYING – Predators will always look for the weakest member in society.  As a family Caregiver we may send out our vulnerability and exhaustion which may invite bullying from others.

FRUSTRATION – will happen each day and will add to the stress levels of Family caregivers.  You must control frustrations by either changing the problem or by having to conform to the problem as we cannot change everything.

EMOTIONS – listen to your emotions as they are your best friend – only if your best friend does not get out of control.  If you emotionally lose it, take a break – you are only human.

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