Tag: guilty

Feeling Guilty, Feeling Inadequate

My elderly Mom (a Senior) has recently been in the hospital for several days. She has had a close friend/comrade staying with her during the night in the ER and then each night she was in a hospital room.

If this were to happen again and this comrade were not available, I would have a hard time sleeping in the ER and sleeping in the chair by the bedside once my Mom moved into a room.

For my own health, I need to be in bed by 10:00pm and up around 9:00/10:00am. If my Mom were to be readmitted to the hospital, I would need to put my own health first which means taking meds at regular hours and getting a very full night’s sleep.

I feel guilty and inadequate about not being able to care for her as I would prefer. But like the saying goes on the airplane safety drill, put your oxygen on yourself first and then others.

I know the right thing is to accept what I can do for my Mom and maintain my health. It is just that my wishes are that I could be with her round-the-clock if needed.

I Woke Up on Easter

I woke up on Easter yesterday feeling depressed. This is not unusual for a person with bipolar disorder but it is somewhat unusual for me – my go to emotion is anxiety that may be caused by simultaneous lows and highs. But this was all lows. What was bothering me was that me and my teenage daughter were planning to do a social distancing grocery drop at my 83 year old mother’s condo. She is a widow and lives alone. There has been a no visitor in and no person out mandate in place for several weeks. I know she has been feeling very isolated because of covid-19 (we talk on the phone twice a day) and has had very little actual face-to-face time. As a daughter I feel guilty about not having made social distance grocery drops on a weekly basis prior to this time but I have had low white blood cell counts because of the meds I take. So it has been important for me to shelter in place as much as possible with a compromised immune system. I don’t have any real message behind this post except to say I think it made my Mom’s day for us to visit and chat outside for a half hour at the social distancing space despite the fact that I had reservations/depressed feelings about going. I guess I pushed through the depression to the other side so to speak. But I still worry about things like her contracting the illness and not being able to be there for her. I feel like I need(ed) to put my immune system first but I also feel guilty for not doing more for my Mom.

Does anybody else have a story of how they have stayed connected with an elderly parent through all this? Or even before this all occurred?