I'm not sure how to start this. I've been taking care of my grandmother since I was 15. This was not a choice. My grandmother has had frequent depressive breakdowns since I was very young. She would be hospitalized and usually come home doing better. Her only diagnosis was that she has frequent breakdowns with a history of depression and anxiety. This most recent breakdown, which hospitalized her for four months, caused a lot more problems. While in the hospital, she lost the ability to put her feet flat on the floor. The doctors didn't have an answer as to why. This lead her to be put into a rehabilitation nursing home for another month after being released from the hospital. They basically did nothing but send her home with a walker and long bill. She was also treated with ECT while in the hospital, which she believes to have given her memory problems. When I first brought her home she was doing so well. She ate a lot, laughed, talked, and wanted to go places. Now, it is a battle to try to get her to eat a full meal a day, let alone get her to drink water. I now have to talk her through daily activities like brushing her teeth, getting dressed, and bathing. She asks to go to bed before 8 p.m. but will want to sleep in until 12 p.m. She tells me how she was a horrible parent to my mother and aunt and that she was a bad grandmother to me (she wasn't). She also obsesses over her finances and says that she is going to jail for not paying her bills (which do get paid). I also need to be in the room with her 90% of the time or she will shout for me and ask where I went or what I'm doing. There will be the occasional good day where she wakes up early, gets dressed by herself, and even makes her own breakfast. What would this be called? She says she doesn't know what to do without me and I'm starting to feel suffocated. I have explained this to her doctors and therapist, but they don't really have an answer. There is no help in our extremely rural area. Frankly, our Agency on Aging has zero resources and there are no in-home caregivers for at least 50 miles. She also does not qualify for Medicaid. I just don't know what I'm supposed to do. I feel that I sound stupid, but I honestly do not understand a single thing I read online about trying to get some kind of help for her. We can't get in with her psychiatrist for months at a time. I have recently made and appointment with her PCP and am hoping to get a referral from him for her to see a neurologist in hopes that they can tell me something. I have severe anxiety myself, and talking to all of these adults who think I'm just being dramatic is incredibly hard for me. I know things are difficult for her, but they are for me too. I no longer have friends, I can't get a job, and I had to drop out of my second year of college to be with her every hour of the day. I'm sorry if this post is all over the place, but I can't organize my thoughts anymore.
1) You are living in your Grandmother’s house, just the two of you. Where is the rest of the family? What is their involvement, and their views about this?
2) You say she doesn’t qualify for Medicaid. Are you sure? Her house may bring her over the asset limit, but Medicaid can arrange for its sale until the limit is spent down. Some states have a trust arrangement, so that the house proceeds can be held – and if there is any left over at the end, it goes according to the will.
3) Your grandmother is 74, which is my own age. ‘Her only diagnosis is ….a history of depression and anxiety’. So there is nothing wrong with her medically, which perhaps explains the ‘adults who think I'm just being dramatic’.
4) Your grandmother has you thoroughly under her thumb, and you wait on her hand and foot. You can’t get ‘help’ for her, but then you are the ‘help’ anyway. Even if you were not isolated, you might find that she isn’t eligible for help anyway. She is not incapacitated in any way. Sometimes she is quite capable of self care – when she feels like it.
5) You future plans have fallen in a hole, and you have nowhere else to go. No wonder you can’t work out what to do!
BarbBrooklyn’s ‘just leave’ suggestion is probably very difficult to swallow. This might be a bit more digestible:
Make sure that there is enough food in the house for 3 weeks, then leave to go to the nearest city to see Adult Protection Services (APS). Phone them first to make and appointment and check the opening hours. Tell them your story. Say that Grandmother is currently alone in the house and you are not sure that she can look after herself. Take some paperwork to explain basics like your address, names, ages, medical assessments etc. They will arrange to send someone out to see grandmother. It might be a good idea for you to wait in the city until they visit and tell you their take on the situation.
You can’t work out what to do. You need to get other people involved (family or government agencies), because there are real problems here and you aren’t coping well. The agencies have the experience that you don’t have. Use it!
The sad thing is that my grandmother's sister lives not even two minutes away, but wants nothing to do with us. The rest of our family is the very same way. They don't do anything for others.
She recently applied for Medicaid and got denied so I don't know what to do there. The house is also in another state so I don't know if that adds to the issue.
Thank you for the advice on APS.
Is this expected in your culture? Where are her daughters, and what are they doing? Are you living in the U.S.A.?
Can you call your mother and aunt?
It is their responsibility to arrange care for their own mother, not yours.
And you are not the one to be given this responsibility.
Work out in your mind just how it was you who became responsible.
How were you conned into this position, if that is what happened?
I do not know what you can do. What were you doing while gma was in the hospital? Have you ever been hospitalized, or had a 'breakdown' of your own?
What do you want to do? What are some things you can do to plan your exit, if that is what you want?
Does anyone else live with you there at gma's house? How old are you now?
About 35?
Maybe start by telling gma that as long as she is not mobile enough to come to the table and eat, and toilet herself, you WILL NOT be her caregiver, and will be quitting.
PLEASE!