Posted on 06/04/2024 11:50:37 AM PDT by where's_the_Outrage?
Sometimes you can really mess up your life by doing something nice for someone, even a senior.
It can turn on an entitlement button and then you’re bombarded with demands and guilt tripping, like what happened to the young woman in this story.
Read it and you’ll see what I mean.
I’m 25 and live in a building with a lot of seniors.
One of my neighbors is in her late 80s.
She has pretty much been badgering me to help her do stuff and plays the guilt card if I say no.
At first I was willing to help, especially when the pandemic broke out, but picking up groceries for her and bringing her and her mail.
That quickly morphed into her trying to get me to fix her sinks, vacuum, make her dinner, wash her windows and when you say no she literally starts crying and throws a pity party.
The requests aren’t casual, but instead become a routine campaign of demands.
Whenever I got home from work she’d literally be waiting at my door to start making her demands for today and after that happened I had enough.
I told her to leave me alone a few times which worked for a few days before she’d go back at it......
When I told my grandma she called me a massive jerk as obviously this lady needs help and likes the company.
She told me to put her in that old lady’s shoes. I admit it made me feel even worse about it.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
I told her what I said here and she said she has to drive a long distance to come help her mom and begged me to go back to at least picking up her groceries again as it would take a massive chore away.
I said no, she started crying and insisted. I closed my door at that point.
Manipulators manipulate.
Helping someone is never compelled. It's voluntary and NO ONE is obligated to do so.
Clearly the old lady taught her daughter well.
He Must’ve been Jewish....................
They renamed the common cold so that they could destroy the economy and the currency.
Nothing in the story about the older woman offering to help the younger one.
Know how the young lady feels...
As a 90-year-old, I am constantly badgered by an 85.5-year-old lady to take her to the nearest casino (MGM National Harbor) at least twice or three-times a month...
Married her in 1960 and it’s been slavery ever since...
Okay. The Big Lie!
Frig that old lady who doesn't have the grace to just say thank you and demanding more. She is an example of why kind people have been backing away.
The worst troubles in my life have come from helping people in need.
In general, they are in need because they are bad people who make bad choices.
Me, I’m relying on the hope that personal care robots will be a thing by the time I’m of an age.
Ah. That’s different. The daughter can order her groceries on line and have them delivered. Sound like users.
A friend of mine asked me to help an old lady neighbor of his. He explained that she’d been abandoned by her husband and had several other setbacks. I was willing to donate a small sum until he added “She feels like the world owes her a favor.”
“Sorry” I said “I don’t want to be her ‘world’”>
🤣
Givers have to set limits because takers won’t.
We took a liking to the sweet old woman who lived next door. We’d help her with chores, shopping, meals, etc. We enjoyed her company and her stories about the old days.
One day her kids whisked her away to a nursing home in a sort of custody battle amongst them to see who would get her estate.
They cut our friendship off with her, thinking we too were after her money.
Poor woman died alone in the nursing home, her children couldn’t wait to ransack her house and who knows what else. Left behind photos, mementos, etc. - took only what was worth any money
Sad. How could such a sweet woman end up with such soul-less monsters for heirs.
Similar thing happened to my sister. Her neighbor in her condo was in her late 70’s. Her family, which was helping her, moved to another state. She didn’t want to go.
It started with “since you are going to the store, could you get me ______”. Often she wouldn’t have the money for the items when my sister dropped them off.
Eventually my sister was buying all her groceries, picking her prescriptions (often paying for them and not getting reimbursed), picking up her mail, helping her with her taxes, checking in on her in the morning and evening. She was basically an unpaid care-giver.
My sister had a break down during a visit with us. She shared how her non-work hours were totally consumed by this woman, who was disrespectful, ungrateful and just mean.
I told her to contact the family and tell them the situation. Offer that, if they would like you to continue, you would need $800 a month plus related expenses.
She did. They laughed and hung up.
My sister explained the situation to the neighbor who became angry AT HER, not the family. She was so abusive that my sister walked out and refused to speak with her ever again.
The family showed up a couple of days later to move her to where they were.
Years ago one of my sisters got herself into helping an elderly woman, and then she couldn't get her to stop asking for favors. I tried to tell her, that her problem was being too nice to begin with, and people would take advantage of her. My sister finally got up enough courage to tell the woman she couldn't help her as often as she had been, and it ended when the old lady died.
Most of the problems we have, we create ourselves. I learned a long time ago, that people will do to us, what we let them get away with.
I’m guessing that most of you lacking empathy for this elderly woman haven’t spent much time in residential care facilities.
I appreciate the guy needed to set boundaries, but the lady clearly needs help.
Possibly others in the building as well.
Why not try to organize a meeting of folks in the building, see who’s willing to help anyone else, who can do what for whom.
That kinda thing.
Also, find out if that lady has any relatives, friends.
If the lady is terrified of having to go to a home and/or she’s just lonely, there are other ways to be of help that don’t involve being on call.
I had a 100 year old neighbor. I would sneak back in to my house to avoid her calling to me to help her with something. Most of the time it was simple things like taking out her trash bins. Once though.... She called me over and asked me to help her fix some “technology” because she knew I worked with computers. I was just thinking “she probably just needs help installing a printer.” I went in to her office and she asked me to change the ink ribbon on a 1960s IBM typwriter. The thing was older than me.
She was a great lady though. Wasn’t really taking advantage. She just needed some muscle and enjoyed the company. And I enjoyed the stories she had from 100 years of being alive.
Are you sure she hadn't been a female guard in a Nazi concentration camp?
Exactly why hubby and I don’t do it anymore. Burned too many times, and somehow, we always end up being the assholes. Whatever.
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