My Caregiver is Having Meltdowns Over My Life

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My life is hard right now. My father is dying. He was beat up by another resident in his rest home last week and I need to have an incident report sent to his lawyer on Monday. I live 2500 miles away from him and freak out in airports and have to bring an autism support worker (caregiver) with me when I visit every few months. I have intense family drama, layers of enmeshment and dynamics so complicated they feel like calculus to me.

I'm preparing to be executor of the estate when he passes. Between the emotions, the obstacles, the zillion details to take care of now and probably for the next year.. considering he will most likely die in a few months and probate can take up to a year.. I need a caregiver who will not have meltdowns.

Fights over probate are ugly and nobody wants to touch them with a 10 foot pole. And we're only starting the process of looking into the future now because we do need to prepare. I'm not worried about the money. I'm not materialistic. But, those who are are doing all kinds of neurotypical craziness I cannot interpret, and I've been trying to get my support worker to interpret and advocate.

Last week, my caregiver yelled at me and was calling me paranoid and lying. She had called to advocate for me to my dad's accountant and she ended up believing what the accountant said instead, and my accountant was misinformed and was blaming me for something I did not do. My caregiver believed her and not me and she was mean. And I felt traumatized. And I melted down and cried and cried. She kept telling me she didn't want to get involved in my issues like this but my whole life is issues like this. She kept venting about how hard it was for her. Do I, her "charge" need to hear her problems?

She's been an excellent worker up to now but I just emailed and asked her to think about is this really what she wants to be doing, since I need someone level-headed to help keep me level-headed and that it adds to stress and trauma when I have to deal with her out of control emotions.

Her supervisor told me this happens often in caregiver situations when people are around 20 hours a week or more. Boundaries get crossed. People burn out. Etc. It happened to the worker I had before and she quit Christmas Eve while screaming at me that my life was driving her crazy.

I am autistic. And they are mad at me that my life is driving them crazy. Not me. My life.

Every day is a draining minefield of hard situations and I need help. Why is this so hard for even a normal person? It's not even their life?

I'm just sad, drained, flabbergasted and wiped out.

I cannot handle a caregiver who gives me nothing but more trauma at a time like this.

Thoughts?

Yikes. All I can say is try and find somehow stim and special interest time to release some of this.

Um...this is your employee! This isn't okay! Talk to the supervisor again and ask if the advocate can be A) reminded of his or her appropriate "place" as your employee and advocate, failing that, B) replaced!

An autistic person with a social advocate or personal caregiver is NO different than say, a rich person who needs a person to make their bed or mow their lawn. You may need to display your authority in writing, or even use a personal friend as an additional social advocate to put your wishes in words that your employees will understand. But still, remember that YOU are in charge and things need to be done YOUR way!

I mean, good god, your dad is dying. You're dealing with enough.

Thank you, SocOfAutism. You understand this really well and I appreciate your compassion.

We did have a meeting yesterday- my autism service worker, her supervisor and me and we set out some better boundaries, guidelines, expectations, etc. My service worker/caregiver profusely apologized. She was sincere. But, if she ever does anything like that again- She has to go.

Like you said, my dad is dying. Anyone adding to the stress must go..

Good. Sheesh.