The guilt of not being there enough

[JessN12]

My mum has Alzheimer's and I'm just really struggling to not feel guilty about going to visit her and my dad more often.
I'm 33, work full time in a fairly demanding job. I live about an hour and a half/2 hours away door to door depending on traffic and mode of transport.
I go once a month, usually for the full weekend, Friday night and Saturday night then go home Sunday but I just find these visits so stressful and anxiety inducing. Just sitting thinking about going tonight is just making me fell really stressed and upset. This is part of the reason I don't go more often as I just can't take it. But I'm also just busy, I get married in June so there are a lot of extra bits to do with that and also I am trying to live a normal life and socialise etc like a normal 30 odd year old. Maybe I should make more sacrifices with my own life?

I just can't shake the feeling I should be going more, and enjoy the visits. I'm an only child so that doesn't help. But if anyone has any tips on how to mot get so worked up about this they would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Kevinl]

We have children, 3 of them as it happens, but we did it for love not to make ourselves carers for our later life.
I always told our kids to come when they wanted to and not as a duty.
I appreciate that as a single child it must be much harder ours didn't have a rota or anything and 2 live and work abroad, other one about 150 miles away so not easy for them.
Modern technology means you can video call with the aid of s friend or neighbour helping her end, maybe, just a thought.
As I say we had children to love them, not breed carers for ourselves later in life.
Just my thoughts on it. K

 

[SeaSwallow]

Hello @JessN12 I know that it is hard but please do not feel guilty. You are young, have a job and are going to get married, you have your whole life before you and I am sure that before dementia struck that your mum and dad would not have wanted you to give up your life.
Maybe if you reduced the visit to one overnight stay it would be less stressful. @Kevinl has given you some good advice, but I know that it is not always easy to look at things that way.
Do your mum and dad have any carers coming in to help them., if not it might be a good idea to suggest to them that they have a needs assessment for your mum and a carers assessment for your dad, these can be arranged through their local adult social services.