Mom has been trying to put diagnosis off for two years. COVID hasn't helped and decline has been severe. We are now in agressive behaviors and with short term and long term memory loss. I have been bobbing and weaving on my own though the anger and crying bouts, making the meals, doing the shopping, paying her bills, wiping her behind, cleaning up the messes.
My siblings have acused me of stealing and taking advantage of our mother which is so far from reality. I was making a very good salary before this current fall and I was the only one willing and able to do the care. They bark orders to me via text while trying to say I am not mentally fit to take care of a plant.
I have joined this forum to get support in a situation where I feel quite alone, and attacked by my own family in a heartbreaking way.
4 Answers
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The rest of the family has 2 options.
Someone else can assume the role of POA. ( this would probably have to be rewritten by a lawyer)
or
If no one wants to become POA you can inform the group that again there are 2 options.
1. leave you to do the job that you were chosen to do and you don’t want to be berated for your actions. And you will do this as long as your choices are respected.
2. You can contact the lawyer and request that she be made a ward of the state and someone court appointed needed to be made her guardian
The lawyer drew up another document last year that was about someone coming in and trying to change my mother's will while incapacitated, giving me the right to sue. I'm just looking for peace and quiet and not this talk and fear about money. It is acutally kind of gross to me.
Thank you for your suggestions! Very sound advice!
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Anyway, everything i did and every decision I made for my mom was second guessed and armchair quarterbacked by the two of them. At one point, I told them to arrange care for her in their city and they could take over. I stopped taking their phone calls and I had my husband screen their emails. I quit giving them updates on her. If they asked, I told them she was doing as well as could be expected. When it was apparent she was going, I called both sisters and her grandchildren and told them they needed to see her if they wanted to. The grandkids came and said their goodbyes. The sister who lived 200 miles way came to see her and my sister in California called her. I don't regret going silent on communicating with them I needed to do it to keep my sanity.
I am.pretty much in the same boat with my husband's adult children. I have not called them or given them any updates on their dad, because they have not called or tried to see him for two years. The daughter and her kids caught the bus IN FRONT OF OUR HOUSE for 6 years and never stopped to see him. When the COVID crisis hit, not one of them called (he has 3 adult grandchildren) to see if he was okay. I will tell them when he passes, but that is it. And I have no remorse or guilt over this decision.
The dynamic is as dysfuntional as it comes. It has put a huge strain on what is already difficult as the sole caregiver, shopper, bill payer, check book balancer, apointment secretary, cook. cleaner and chief butt wiper. If they want to dismantle the POA they are more than welcome do it but that would mean their lives would be on hold. I also feel phone time needs to be curbed because my mother likes to dial people up and I cringe thinking she will lose friends that way when they don't respond the way she wants them to. I hear the conversations and its uncomfortable for me to even hear. My sister says it is cruel to take the phone away. I'm just trying to spare everyone from the wrath of the 4pm-9pm mood swings my mother goes through. She still translates from French to English so she says "Stop Screaming" when you raise your voice when she doesn't put her hearing aids in and says "huh?" 5 times. So she tells everyone that I scream at her all day, since I don't have anything else to do like check the mail, empty the dishwasher, do another load of crapped sheets.
I can bob and weave with them and I get exhausted and don't want others to have to do the same so she still have people that will call her from time to time. I have a set schedule even down to when we do bills, after Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy. First medication is at 7am, breakfast at 8. Lunch is at noon. Dinner at 6. Bedtime is 9pm and there is a lot of push back. I have done a lot of research on how to soothe and care during the difficult times. She asks for a specific meal from her childhood, I make it. She has a gluten and dairy free diet and I have to adjust it.
So all in all I think I am doing a pretty good job. Except for the so obvious time I have on my hands to liquidate all of my mother's assets and put it into various offshore accounts because I am as horrible as my siblings make me out to be. I am kidding of course. Most days I can't even leave her room to use the bathroom while she's on bed rest without being interrogated on where I am going because the TV channel needs to be changed every 10 minutes due to a commercial that has made her upset or disoriented or just disgruntled.
Boy I feel like I have been able to unload a lot!
1) Get a good summary of the duties and obligations of a POA. Send it to the siblings, with a question about what behaviour aspects they have doubts about. Give them all the information they want. It is very annoying to find that they don’t trust you and want it all spelled out, but it is even more annoying to be mistrusted long term.
2) Offer to swap with one of them for a weekend. Perhaps not sleep with their spouse, but you should be able to do everything else about the house just as well as spouse. Having even one of them spend a couple of days with mother, doing all the things you normally do, may make a bit of difference. Butter it up with flattery, not anger. Say that it would be so wonderful for you to have even a little bit of time off, and it would be fantastic for your mother to see more of another child for a couple of days. She misses their cooking so much! What can they do for a treat for her Saturday Dinner? Don’t ‘teach’ them what to do, that will get up their noses again.
3) At least ask if one of them would prefer to take over the POA duties, if your mother would agree. Do this AFTER you have sent the info about the duties and obligations. If their noses are out of joint because mother asked you, that might straighten them out. If mother is still legally competent, she can change the POA, and then change it back again after a few months if it really is more practical for you to handle it.
PS I just love ‘not mentally fit to take care of a plant’! When I think of the plants I’ve killed, I wonder about myself!
I love the suggestions! (Except one lives in Arizona and we are in Virginia and neither can cook.)
I think the POA is just about trust and I don't think that the dynamic of my brother's new wife and my mother runs down that path. My sister loves to say it's mom's money and she can do what she wants with it. I've been helping her make the right decisions when either of them are coming for money such as not withdrawing from her life insurance to upgrade my sister-in-law's diamond and $500 for a pair of shoes for my sister's son sounded suspect. But I don't stand in my mother's way to do what she wishes while she seems to still be able to write a check with help on what goes where.
I have always made a pretty good salary but currently not working due to my mother's recent fall requiring constant care. I was transitioning into a business start up after getting accepted into an incubator so my life is on hold. We have had to wait a month to get a diagnosis in order to figure out the care she needs now.
Do I sound like a control freak? I hope not. I just care a lot.