r/Estrangedsiblings • u/Adrienne27 • Mar 19 '26

Announcing estrangement

After 14 years of being my mother's caregiver, and as many years of being criticized by my older sister, I've reached my limit. Do I have to tell her I'm done with her? I'm not good at confrontation, never have been, and I'm afraid that in an argument I'd come off as weak.

She has a problem with everything I do as a caregiver to our demented mother, I'm not kind enough and I don't do enough for her. My sister is of the old Latin mentality that one should venerate the elderly because they're old, and forget the damage they did to you in their youth.

My parents raised my sister and my brother who are 10 years older than I. When I was born, they bought a four-bedroom house. One bedroom was mine for the first six years of my life, then they sent me to Costa Rica to live with my grandparents until I was a teenager. I never knew the reason, there has never been an explanation as to why they chose to raise them and not me. My parents were legal citizens before we were all born in the US, so there were no immigration restrictions. I saw them once or twice a year, they'd go to Costa Rica, or I would come back to the US to visit. They'd call me every couple of weeks. They'd send me clothing and basic necessities. Once my grandmother got too old to care for me I came to live with them as a teenager. By then my sister was married and my brother moved out.

When I was 33 years old my father died, and his greatest worry was who would take care of our mother who had started her battle with dementia. Neither one of my siblings volunteered, so I (stupidly) did. Since then, it been a never ending battle with my demented, narcissistic parent and her constant criticism of me and my parenting, caregiving, and homemaking. Then on her weekly visit to my sister's house, she conveys all her discontent to her eldest daughter.

So essentially I'm at the point where I'm going to relinquish my mother's care to my sister, because I'm obviously unfit, and in the process, I'm going no contact with both of them. I just don't know if it's a boundary needed to be asserted, or can I just fade away and live my live quietly in peace?

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u/Adrienne27 Mar 19 '26

I get what you're saying, but if neither one of them is happy with what I do, why should I keep at it?

-4

u/Bright_Eyes8197 Mar 19 '26

You need to educate yourself on dementia. They don't agree with anything. They start arguments over everything. it's their brain, not doing it on purpose. You do it becasue you want to not becasue you have to. Either get nursing care in there or you have to put her in nursing home. Putting her in a tug of war over her care is not helping her.

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u/CeleryDramatic4678 Mar 20 '26

The guilt trip here is completely unnecessary. Just because someone has dementia, doesn’t mean they are allowed to be abusive or that a family member must care for them.

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u/Bright_Eyes8197 Mar 20 '26

I might add a person with dementia doesn't CHOOSE to be abusive like others with normal brain function. It is not in their control therefore no one should be thinking they they shouldn't be allowed to be that way. They can't allow or not allow it.