Do you think your parents planned you to be their caregiver?

Years ago I remember reading that 'rich people hire their caregivers, poor people breed & break them'. The gist was that they would find the most sensitive/empathic of the children, then break them so they weren't any good in the world, & would therefore be be available to devote their lives to caring for elderly parents. When I read this (wish I could remember where), I saw examples in the neighborhood: the unmarried teacher living at home, caring for her parents & getting deliveries from the liquor store. After her parents died, she was retired, went nowhere but for her own medical appts, until she died. There was the neighbor whose parents put down every choice of job, and even forbid his choice of who to marry. After his parents died, he went down to his basement and committed suicide, taking his dog with him. I see overweight, dowdy, burned-out women, who are caregivers & little else. And hey, now it's me!

I was assaulted at a social service caregiver job, and wound up with a chronic pain injury (multiple herniated disks), and sub-poverty compensation. I wound up caring for my mother through her long journey to death from cancer. No help from anyone, just demands and questions about "well, why isn't this done"? They'd come to visit, and I'd have yet more work from having houseguests. My father did nothing, as he's from the era when men worked, handed over the money, then did nothing. The closest sibling worked and cared for his severely autistic son.

Near the end of my mothers' life, I started cutting to relieve stress. I tried exercising, hyper-exercised, lost 45 lbs, but it didn't help with the stress. I tried drinking, even pot, didn't help. I wound up getting therapy in a 1 year treatment study, for people who cut.

There I learned about Borderline Personality Disorder. It's not genetic. This is something parents do to children. The child is raised in an invalidating environment, where the child's needs are ignored, fears and self-expression are dismissed or ridiculed. Not all children are affected the same way. Sensitive children are the ones most damaged by this environment. Studies have also shown that parent(s) do not treat all children the same and may validate some children, while invalidating others.

During the course of therapy I remembered many things, conversations which I had blocked. Including one when I was going to move out. My mother lied about the circumstance of why I was there, and threatened me with incarceration, saying "you're not going anywhere, I OWN YOU". In the years that followed, my father has apologized for not standing up to my mother more, when it came to me.

After the year of therapy ended, the therapist said it would be better for me to leave the house & move to a halfway house and continue therapy. But I had a dog who wouldn't be allowed, and my father was alone and had no one to care for him so I declined.

So here I am, with a father in his mid-90's, me in my mid-50's. He's looking forward to hitting 100, I am sleeping, or trying to, sleep up to 10 hours per day. When I sleep, I'm not here. I had a 2 day vacation 2 years ago (1st in 7 years), and came back to 6 hours of housework (bundling up trash and recycling, doing dishes, cleaning, etc). He's on a 1000mg 300mg per meal, low sodium diet, which means no take out, 1 healthy choice dinner, no fast food, no restaurants, ever. I cook everything from scratch, spend about 6 hours a day just in food-related busyness (not including shopping). I used to like to cook, not so much anymore. I am a vegetarian who has to cook traditional American food (meat/starch/veg) twice a day. I've lost weight because I'm burned out on cooking & cleaning up pots after because the only choice I have is whether to cook for myself. I often don't because it's less drudgery. I keep track of medications, take him to appointments, keep track of appointments (and forget about my own, never finished the rest of my physical therapy appts). Even when I am sick, when all the herniated disks are in full pain mode, I still have to cook his food, and he won't choose anything simple like microwaved oatmeal. He wants me to cook bacon and eggs, make sure he has a cookie or something to have with coffee. Even carrying the throwup bucket around (before the muscle relaxers kick in, causing reflexive vomiting), I'm supposed to do my job. He thinks its enough that he let me have control of the living room tv, because when the disks go painful I have to sit in the living room recliner for support of my neck.

I thought I was managing to cope, with the 10 hour sleeps providing 'not here' time. But yesterday he mentioned that my birthday was coming up & he would be giving me $40 (all the other siblings got $20, even though he is not financially hurting). I replied that it wasn't enough for me to pay someone to get a day off. He went into 'you do so much, I don't know what I'd do without you' speech, not addressing my need for a day off. You can hear his tv from airplanes flying overhead, but for some things, the hearing is selective. He doesn't want strangers in the house.

Wow, tmi. Back to the point. I don't think I would be where I am without my mother targeting me. The therapist heard more, and said that, with this information, she would have been surprised had I not made the decisions I had, and had there been other outcomes. The vote was for damage being on the nurture, not nature side. I am wondering if anyone else out there who has wound up not doing so well in life, not alot of self esteem, is a sole caregiver, even though there are siblings who have lives? If so, do you remember differences in the way you, as opposed to your siblings, were treated? Were we all kneecapped early on, so we would be available to fill the need?