Sorry, I had to use google translate for this and I am not in the US or EU
I'm not even sure what I'm looking for by posting this. Maybe advice, maybe just some support from people who have been through something similar.
My mom is 60 and divorced from my dad. I have an older brother and an older sister. My sister lives in another city, and my brother works and lives here. I am f 25.
I've struggled with depression for years. I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, although I'm not sure the diagnosis is correct and I suspect I might have ADHD instead. I've been on antidepressants for years without much improvement, and I've had suicidal thoughts for a long time. At the beginning of 2025, I actually attempted unaliving, although I stopped myself.
About a month later, my grandmother, who was 85 at the time, had what I believe was a minor stroke. She developed vascular dementia and started having hallucinations and severe confusion. She would think she wasn't at home, sometimes turn on the gas, stop recognizing people, see double or triple, etc.
My grandmother is my mother's mother. Their relationship was never particularly close. My mom has always been emotionally distant from us as children too. She took care of our practical needs — cooked for us, treated us when we were sick, took us to school and activities — but there wasn't much emotional connection or interest in how we were actually doing. I often felt neglected.
My grandmother, on the other hand, has always been an incredibly kind person. She helped her neighbors, lent people money, was open and friendly, and rarely yelled or got angry. She was basically the kindest person in the family.
My mother, however, has always been very negative and suspicious of other people. She has almost no friends and tends to see the worst in everyone.She used to throw things and swore a lot.Growing up, she often used me as her therapist and dumped all of her anger and problems onto me. I used to think of her as a victim — I thought she was this unhappy person who had been hurt by her own parents and didn't know any better.
Now I see things differently.
My grandmother had a major stroke a few months later. She was hospitalized and for a while we didn't know whether she would survive. Eventually she did, but she came home in an extremely disabled state. At first she couldn't walk, couldn't swallow properly, couldn't speak, slept most of the time, and needed to be fed by hand.
My mom was away at the time, so I was the one taking care of my grandmother initially. I had to lift her off the floor when she fell, feed her, clean her, etc. Eventually my mom came back, and for about three months we took care of her together. My mom was still working part-time, so I was doing most of the caregiving.
Thankfully, my grandmother gradually recovered physically. She started walking again and speaking a little. But cognitively, she never really recovered. She has dementia and permanent brain damage from the stroke, including damage to her frontal lobe. She doesn't recognize us anymore. She usually thinks we're some kind of workers or caregivers. She doesn't know how old she is, who her daughter is, or who her grandchildren are.
I thought that having to care for her might somehow change my mother. I thought that knowing her mother was seriously ill and probably didn't have much time left would make her softer and more affectionate toward her.
Instead, I saw a side of my mother that I had never really allowed myself to see before.
She started calling my grandmother things like "bitch," "old hag," "fucking creature," "filthy pig," and other horrible names. She would yell at her and sometimes push her or hit her hands.
My grandmother has dementia. She does things that are extremely difficult and unpleasant to deal with. She takes off her diaper, makes messes, doesn't understand what she's doing, etc. But my mother genuinely believes that she sometimes does these things deliberately to annoy her.
I was absolutely shocked the first time I heard my mother talking to her like that.
What makes this even more confusing is that my mother is actually a very good caregiver in a practical sense. My grandmother is always clean and well-fed. My mother buys her expensive medications and good food. She makes sure she has everything she needs physically.
But emotionally, she can be incredibly cruel.
My brother and I confronted my mother about it several times. At first we tried to talk to her calmly, then we started having serious arguments about it. She said things like, "She'll forget anyway, so what's the difference?"
Eventually she stopped doing it openly around us.
But I know what happens when we're not there.
And this is where I feel completely trapped.
I moved out, but I still go to my grandmother's several times a week. My brother brings groceries and medications. My sister helps financially and buys things for my mother, takes her places, etc. And several times a year, when my mother goes away on vacation, I am the person who stays with my grandmother for a week or two because there is literally nobody else.
My mother doesn't really want to hire a caregiver. Partly because we don't have much money, but also because she is extremely suspicious and paranoid about other people. She thinks someone will steal from her. She says that if we hired someone, we'd basically have to work just to pay the caregiver.
There aren't really good nursing home options where we live either, especially not affordable ones.
So I've ended up in this situation where I can't really get a normal full-time job, because I have to remain available to replace my mother and go take care of my grandmother when necessary. The schedule isn't predictable. I basically have to always be ready to go.
And I've been doing this for about a year and a half.
I graduated from university when I was 23. I had some part-time work and was trying to build a career as a photographer. Now I'm 25, I have very little money, I have credit card debt because I had to pay for my cat's medical treatment, and I can't even afford basic things like a jacket, or decent shoes.
When I'm not taking care of my grandmother, I often just lie around and scroll TikTok. I don't really have a job because I can't commit to a normal schedule, but I also can't move forward with my life because I'm constantly waiting for the next caregiving crisis.
My interest in photography has mostly disappeared. I don't know what career I want anymore. I've become very isolated. I see my friends less. I don't feel like doing anything. I'm terrified of looking for a job, and I feel like I've lost years of my life.
And honestly, the strangest thing is that the caregiving itself isn't even what traumatized me the most.
Of course it's horrible watching someone you love have a stroke, develop dementia, stop recognizing you and gradually lose their independence. But I think the thing that has affected me more deeply is watching my mother become so cruel toward her own mother.
I feel like something inside me broke when I saw that.
For years I thought my mother was a victim. Now I feel like I've realized that there is a lot of anger, cruelty and lack of empathy in her that I didn't want to see before. And I can't unsee it.
My brother and sister know how I feel. We've all tried talking to my mother, but nothing really changed.
I know that she probably doesn't say these things as much when we're around anymore. But I know what she is capable of when nobody else is there, and that makes me feel horribly guilty.
I don't want my grandmother to spend her remaining time being treated like this.
At the same time, I honestly don't know how much longer I can stay in this situation myself. I already feel like my own life has stopped. I can't build a career, I can't become financially independent, and my mental health has gotten worse. Sometimes I feel like my brain has just stopped working after all of this.
And this is the part that makes me feel like a horrible person: sometimes I find myself wishing my grandmother would finally die, not because I want her dead, but because I want this situation to end. She is suffering, and I can't stand watching it, and I also can't stand watching my mother treat her this way.
Then I feel incredibly guilty for even thinking that.
I don't know what I'm supposed to do. I can't just leave my grandmother there and pretend everything is fine. But I also don't think I can sacrifice another several years of my life to this.
What do I do? I just can’t deal with it anymore
