I posted last year about my mother who was placed in assisted living a week after her husband, my dad, of 61 years died from Covid. One week she was watching Netflix with my dad. 2 weeks later she was in an AL facility, in a single bed, under Covid lockdown -- no one to hold her hand, no funeral, no counselor. I asked the facility if they had one and they responded cheerfully -- "We have a greeter!" To make matters worse she was drugged out of her mind on four anti-psychotics that she didn't need. My dad started that. They lived in Mexico for many years and there had been issues throughout their marriage with my dad's, um "charm". First let me say he was a really good guy in so many ways but very Jeckyl and Hyde. My mom confided in me for decades about how much she struggled with his "flirting" with other women. My dad (who wrote and said I was his "greatest creation" three weeks before he got sick) would have these moments of confession where his walls would come down and he would confess everything. He told me how he emotionally tormented his secretary, said he abused my mom for 50 years, said it must have really be hard to be me in this family. Evidently mom started bringing up those issues again down in Mexico and his solution was to sedate her. One thing led to another and the next thing we know Mom is drugged to the gills. She now has tardive dyskinesia but the symptoms are so much better since I've got her off the medication.
It's what I wanted but it wasn't my idea. The first neurologist I went to said it's likely all the meds were actually causing her symptoms. Want to start weaning her off immediately. Every day last summer she was pacing around her room and I was on the phone with her and would stay on the phone until she got her nightly dose of drugs and passed out. She couldn't sit down. She'd pop right back up. It was like a panic attack. I had no power, no information -- I was locked out. All I could do was be a voice on the phone. By that time I was scrambling to get packed up to get moved to a house bought at light speed out in Illinois.
Both my father and sister claimed, and told other family members that my mom was delusional. My sister claimed she had severe dementia -- said she needed 24 hour medical supervision. I knew that much wasn't true. I took the high road all year long despite years of abuse from sister (I finally cut ties 20 years ago, with my parents' blessing, but I had to show up again and submit to her tyranny to get my mom out of that situation. She threatened me (and my mother indirectly) for months. Complained constantly about the responsibility, resented both my parents, said, "She's all yours. We're done. We're moving to Montana." Told me "I don't like you, I don't trust you, and I have no faith in you." (The person who showed up for literally everyone in the family for decades.) "You're pathetic and ___ (brother) is a coward." F___ Y__." This was two weeks before I picked her up. She said if I didn't keep her on all the drugs she was going to come get her and leave her belongings. She sent laundry lists of all the things my mom couldn't do anymore. My BIL said she can't do anything for herself (she was drugged) --said she sleeps all day "and snores!" Said I wouldn't receive any money for caring for her and demanded I put her in assisted living. To get her out of there I agreed. He sent a letter telling her he hopes she doesn't get kicked out which sent my mom into a panic and I called an elder abuse hotline and read the letter and they said, "Oh my God, get her out of there any legal way you can." Once sister and BIL knew she was coming out to live near me they changed her e-mail address so that (surely) I couldn't see what else they'd written to her all year. We still don't have access to that but I've file a request with the required evidence to try to get it back. All of my mom's contacts are in that account. E-mail addresses for life-long friends....
Part II next...
We then went to see some other attorney's in town about possibly going for guardianship and as we were talking I just had a "knowing". I knew my sister and knew that any kind of challenge and she would come at us like a badger. I just knew that I needed to make her feel safe and let her deadlines pass and see what she did and I was sure she's hang herself. Sure enough, after claiming she didn't trust me or have any faith in me she never once, from the moment my mom arrived here, reach out to ask to talk to her or to inquire about how she was. She was probably to have that $5600/mo freed up as well. I had proposed an amount less than half of that to care for her in my home as she insisted on paying rent and utilities but my sister said that wasn't possible. More money for her. My brother too (another long story) hasn't been in touch. We don't even know where he lives. He skipped my dad's palliative care call and took off for Guatamala.
But of course my sister started getting paranoid and in early March a police office showed up at our door. My mom was hilarious and invited him and got him a chair and kicked her feet up on the ottoman....I explained that she'd made no attempt to contact us and noted that my e-mail and phone haven't changed in over 20 years. Not long into the conversation he said, "I think I'm getting the picture here." We told him she changed the POA and showed him the documents. He couldn't have been nicer, tugged sheepishly at his uniform and apologized for bothering us. We asked him not to tell her about the POA change. Said we still needed to find the money.
Same story two weeks later...I get a call from an attorney. "She says she hasn't heard from you." Haven't changed it. Happy to take a call....I shared a few choice anecdotes about her life choices including that my dad once said she had the morals of an alley cat and that elicited an audible "ugh"....We asked him too not to tell her we'd changed the POA and I don't think he did.
Four days later I get an e-mail. More threats. "When you took my mother (last year I was "your other daughter") I sent a debit card which you have refused to use." (Really? Seems like that ran out and I ended up paying the oral surgeon, and every expense since...actually...phff -- didn't say that, didn't respond). She said if we didn't use it in two weeks she was going to move the money out and into her financial portfolio. (I'd already found that account (and the brokerage account). There was very little in that account and she never did move it anywhere. We actually cleaned it out a few days ago and deposited it into her new account. :)
When I picked my mom up her glasses were so scratched up I don't know how she could have seen anything out of them. She had skin cancer on her head and a raging case of athletes foot. She had a temporary partial and a dead tooth. She had one bra that was almost torn in half and 3 inch holes in her underwear. Her towels, at any other time in her life would have been in the rag bin. I bought new socks and gave her some and she said she would just wear my old ones. She wrote her kids $1500 checks for their birthdays but couldn't spring for the extra $20 for an unlimited phone plan so my mom kept running out of minutes and couldn't all anyone for 10 days at time during lockdown.
Part III incoming.....
Many if not most of her tardive dyskinesia symptoms are gone or better, she's so alert and interested in stories on tv and notices every detail in moves (some of them are hilarious). We laugh so hard. The neurologists don't even want to see her for six months because she's doing so well. They can hardly get a word in edgewise and she asks *them* how they're doing. She could name about five animals when she was on all those drugs and now can rattle them off until you tell her to stop. She draws a perfect clock and is a sure-footed as a mountain goat. She has memory issues but that's better too. If I remind her she can remember almost anything from the last few weeks. In AL she couldn't tell you what happened three minutes ago. She had massive gains on MCT powder and lions mane and another big leap when I got her on vitamins and minerals. She asks for them daily now. She's been so traumatized and stress depletes...she reaches for that drink with both hands. When she got out here she could walk a block. We're now walking 3 miles almost every day. I know she was walking four miles a day four years ago before my dad started dosing her up.
I survived mercury poisoning years ago and learned so much from that. The body has an astounding ability to heal itself. And the heart has a fundamental need to feel seen and heart. My dad didn't understand that and chose to indulge her rather than help her to grow and in a lot of ways, emotionally, she's still a young child. No one wanted to go there with mom but I chose to have faith that she could find her way through it with my support and she actually thanks me for honest conversations now. There is some narcissism in the mix but at the same time she's very generous and kind. Throw in the detoxing from the drugs and trying to work full time with a mom who doesn't deal well with work and sleep...phew....But we're straight shooters. I told her some hard truths and she found her way through it.
It's understandable given all that we are dealing with that we are short on faith but one thing I've learned is that that is so very important.
She has had a really hard time with me working and sleeping so for many months I got about four hours of sleep a night. That's quite a bit better now. But I am turning my business over to a friend in a few weeks and she is paying me not to work. Which is better for both of us.
There's been a lot of attitude (this was the case all of her life -- this is not new) but a few months ago things started shifting. Making plans and working to get her money back seems to help her state of mind a lot. She lived with my dad for years in Mexico. I'm taking her back there. She deserves to live where she wants to live. All of the retirement money has been switched over and we've been shopping for clothes for her all week and she feels like the Mom I knew 30 years ago.
It's heartbreaking now to look back at the photos of her in AL. She looked like the walking dead. I had no idea she was capable of what I see sitting on my front porch now. He eyes are so bright. She can walk all day long. We laugh so hard, to the point of tears sometimes. She's still so bright, she gives good advice. She notices things I don't and has kept me from burning the house down a few times.
I'm choosing to believe that more healing is possible. I'm sticking to natural substances to heal her. We're getting colonics next week (I've never seen that mentioned here.) ;) Learned that from my mercury journey too -- everything starts with the gut.
I've learned not to be lazy. My sister was lazy. She left a passport with my mom and later surrendered her SS# because she couldn't be bothered and well, you know how that turned out. Every choice is a road. We decide where we want to go.
So....No regrets.
Thx for listening.
♥
I'm a big fan of truth. If you fail at least you showed up. "Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace..." -- Amelia E.
Maybe you could start a new posting that states only the basic facts.
Good luck with your situation, whatever it is.
Just bullets isn’t my thing. I appreciate details, but a more condensed version would be better. Or say things gradually instead of all at once.
My message was not meant to be interpreted as insulting at all. I hope that you didn’t take it that way.
I do hope that whatever you are struggling with will be sorted out.
I also said what I did so that you would get responses from the forum. Many people have said in posts that they skip over posts that are extremely long.
I hope that you’re not going for a merit badge. That’s not why people post on the forum. They post to receive feedback for their situation.
Whether a godly person would see a shaman or not depends on who their god is.
The majority of people aren’t looking for anything other than basic facts. Too many details can become irrelevant and confusing.
But do whatever you are comfortable with and people who like reading longer posts like yours will follow your thread.
Best of luck to you!
Have you thought about writing a journal? You might find it satisfying. Since you like to write, and don’t care if you receive any feedback, you could write pages in your journal on a daily basis.
fires, swearing, rituals.
I don't understand why you're so aggressive.