I need advice. I with my partner made the decision about a year ago to allow my elderly mother to live with us so we could take care of her.
Since day 1, she has offered me food. Her idea of nutrition is and always has been entirely non-existent, other than “eat your vegetables.” So she will take things like pasta and stick a few bits of vegetables in it and think it’s healthy.
Her understanding of type 1 diabetes is even more non-existent: “It says low sugar!”
On day 1, I respectfully asked her to not do that as I prepare all of my foods so I can calculate the carbs and dose insulin accordingly.
This has progressed for nearly a year. I have tried explaining that I cannot eat what I want when I want and that I eat what I must when I must.
I have explained that insulin can kill me, so taking large doses to cover huge amounts of carbs is dangerous and could be fatal.
I explained that my mental health suffers from large constant glucose swings.
I’ve tried just saying no repeatedly thinking after a few months of saying no she might get it.
I have snapped a few times and yelled and felt terrible for having done so.
We are now a year in. Every day, 5 or more times a day, she offers me something that I am not going to eat and acts pouty if I say no.
As an extension of this, when I am preparing my food, she repeatedly offers suggestions, tells me I should add x, try y. Asks if she can help me cook. Etc.
I have spent 20 years working out a system where I can prepare my own food and eat it and with the cgm/insulin pump I can just barely not die sometimes and have brief moments of thriving.
Cooking is math intensive to me: carb counting, understanding the other macros, etc. Deciding how much and when to bolus based on what I’ve built. It has to be my free space to cook and think about what I’m doing. Her unhelpful suggestions and offers while I’m cooking send me into a state where I can’t think clearly.
I have tried everything to get her to stop this, too, but nothing works.
I have found myself eating at restaurants or fast food just because it is easier to predict the carb counts there and not undergo the pain it brings me to try to cook at home.
Other things she doesn’t understand that irritate me and generally make care difficult include comments like “you should get the saw and cut these branches down” when my glucose is 110 and and I have 1U of onboard insulin when I know that will 100% end up with a hypo.
90% of the time she tells me to do something like that, I look at my watch, say “well, my glucose is 110 and if I do that right now I’ll definitely end up with a hypo, but I’ll try to work it in.” The other 10% I give in and I spend the rest of the day chasing numbers.
She notices when I have hypos as well and comments on them. I told her since day 1 that we don’t JUDGE highs and lows; we steer. If we judge constantly, we burn out.
A year inX I am burnt out as fuck. I can’t cook. I can’t think. I can’t find relaxation. I can’t be anything but frustrated 100% of my time.
My partner says it’s selfish. I don’t think anyone who isn’t a type 1 diabetic could ever understand, so I don’t blame her for thinking that. I have asked for my partner’s help and have not received it. I have given up on that.
My mother is definitely in age related cognitive decline but we don’t have a diagnosis of anything beyond that. Getting her to just go to a doctor is a fight.
Short of moving her out to a senior care facility or me moving out and leaving my partner and her and my life as I know it behind to focus on my own care, what the hell can I do?
I am open to any and all ideas and curious if anyone else has had to take on the burden of caring for their own type 1 diabetes and an elderly parent who seems to be trying to kill them and made it through it with their sanity intact and if so how.
TIA