My mother has been hiding her money in the house for a while now, but last night we seen her with a garden shovel digging a hole and hiding an envelope with money! She sat on the porch watching to be sure no one was watching, then knelt down and buried it. We watched carefully this morning, and she went back out and unburied it this morning!
HA!
They all pretty much stopped communicating with me, because Mom would call them and fill their ears with all kinds of tripe she dreamed up for 6 years.
She is so good at her theatrical delivery of her stories, they fall for it.
The last straws were when I realized they were only making verbal statements [plausible denialbility--they can always deny they said nasty or damaging things], and play into her statements, so they all escalate.
Once I recognied the mind games they were playing, it became clear that this sort of behaviors had been going on for a lifetime.
At that point, I realized the only way to stop that crazy ride, was to stop suckering for their "hooks" to talk more with them, and indeed, to just stop talking with them unless it was unavoidable...they were the ones who blocked me out first...I let them, and just took it up a notch to not answering useless, fishing questions, and keeping any responses to needed information, to the fewest possible words.
Not one of them has bothered to contact me otherwise, since then.
They did try to get me to call Mom, but since she has my number in her cell phone, I figured, that if she wanted to call me, she can try.
But none of them wants to leave a message on a recorder, or write things down [cannot deny they said things then].
Gosh--what a relief!
But it probly is not over yet. those sorts are not happy when someone limits their games, and will keep trying.
My best ploy is to do whatever I can to help heal my wounds and get as stable as possible, to best be able to keep on an even keel when they try something again.
Healing our own selves, is the best thing we can do, and choose a better healthier life.
Chimonger, sorry you had to go through such an odeal and some of the family members were against you. It seems all they want was the money and for some reason the person that is ill don't see them that way. We went through similar issues with the mnl. she went through her IRA retirement 40G's withing 3years for a so called family member supposedly was helping us out with her. She helped alright! Couldn't prove it either for the mnl to this day thinks the world of her and she can do no wrong. However, she is not welcome over our house!
These creative little stories are intended to comfort and sooth the person with dementia, and help her feel safe.
(Someone ought to get a grant to hold creative fiction writing seminars for caregivers of persons with dementia. I'd sign up.)
As for the money, she never has large sums of cash, right? And it sounds like you keep an eye on her when she is out of the house. Wandering is very common in some types of dementia, but infrequent in other kinds.
(The only thing that kept our sherrif's office from being bombarded with calls when my husband was in his paranoia phase was the fact he couldn't dial a phone correctly.)
Be sure that her dementia doctor is aware of this behavior.
And try to keep your sense of humour!
One either must figure that, hey, the rest of the family members never had that money, it belongs to the parent to do with as they please, and resign to it's being lost;
OR, have the parent declared incompetent, and remove them from handling their money.
Our Mom has been able to get people to think she was generally OK to be in charge of her affairs, BUT, if ANY of my sibs had been being helpful at all, they probly should have had her declared YEARS ago.
But she wasn't.
So when her house sold, she had about $240K in cash, to do with as she pleased. She begged me to bring her up to live with us. BEGGED. Stated she was not comfortable staying with the others. I believed her, but understood how unreasonable she was being.
She stayed with us for 6 yuears, totally disrupting our lives and destroying family connectivity. She was extremely adept at that.
I figure she buried some of her money, even though she knew first hand, that it rots pretty fast buried in the ground!
Large amounts were given to my siblings.
She told others that we stole lots of it from her, but I saw her burying it and hiding it in various places on 10 acres of overgrown property
--just unable to find it to dig it up to save it for her actual needs.
She had enough money that she could have been fairly comfortable, could have had a modest house set up for her, but at every turn prevented that.
Long story short, my siblings got generous amounts of financial aid from her, Mom managed to block getting any appropriate help because of how she handled her money, and we got shafted big-time.
She "disappeared" all the money from her house, paid no taxes, just as she had done with 3 earlier chunky inheritances--crazy like a fox, that!
YET, even though all my sibs knew she routinely hid money and valuables then claimed someone stole them, they all chose to get on her side against us, believing her accusations that we stole from and abused her [though I was the one with bruises from her aggression].
So, if you have siblings or other family members with interests in your parent, and they refuse to work together with you for your parent's best care,
ON PAPER [not just verbal-ever],
that is, if you are stuck dealing with your parent's version of "eccentricity"
[to be kind], all alone, but others are waiting in the wings who could go against you,
your choices might just be to get THEM to take her,
OR, get her into a facility,
OR, get legal help from your local Area on Aging or similar, as to how to take appropriate legal steps to protect her assets from her odd behaviors: it can make the difference between her getting the care she needs, or not.
My sibs kept saying things that were inappropriate,
or, said they agreed to things, then denied them.
They were NOT cohesively helping take care of Mom in any recognizable way.
Without their help,
and because of her bipolar and dissociative behaviors,
we were unable to do anything to protect her assets,
and unable to get her placed in any assisted living.
We FINALLY managed to motivate another sibling to come get her and her mega-hoarded piles out of here.
All we could to was keep repeating "I wish you well".
It was very painful; ALL of my siblings have now chosen to avoid contacting us, all the while saying that they aren't.
We here, are recovering from the abuses and damages she laid on us, and have no intention of going back to my family for more of the same.
We have even been threatened with eviction, because we have been unable to clean up the messes she left here, fast enough.
So yes, it can get very ugly and painful
--you can have your whole heart in taking care of your parent, do the best you can, and still get shafted by family.
Advice: do whatever you can to cover your behinds! Seek help and advice from Area agency on Aging, or whatever it is called where you are. Seek legal advice. Get any aggressive behaviors documented via 911 emergency line, since that has to get documented as a police report--no matter what!
I failed to do that each time Mom aggressed on me; I only realized it needed done, by about the 3rd time she did it...I was in shock, unable to process what she had done--one social worker answering one emergency line, actually told me it was too late to file a report, not to bother....I later learned that was wrong information, that ALL aggressive episodes should have been reported to 911 for a police report, immediately. The hard part was, if the person is only doing it when you cannot get to a working phone, and you cannot dial a phone while the person is attacking, you STILL can call to report it after-the-fact as soon as you possibly can. Just do it. IT creates a paper tail. IF you can get documentation from the Doc, DO IT.
Paper trails.
If you are caring for your parent, you NEED them, no matter how "sweet" a person may be or have been, during their good times.
Does your mom seem okay in other ways? If so, I think this is just something she may be obsessive/compulsive about; especially if she has had to struggle all her life. I agree with someone else who said get her a lock box with a key(s) for you and her and watch when she goes out to see where she puts it. Maybe suggest to her that she spend it on something she wants or needs. Believe me, she could have much worse habits. Bless you for taking care of her.
I guess I'd ensure that she never has large sums of cash on hand. Keep track of where she buries it, in case she forgets about it. If it begins to cause problems with the appearance of the lawn and that is important to you, you may have to try to redirect the behavior, but otherwise what harm is there in her digging a few holes and burying a few dollars?
I wonder if she'd ike a small box that can be locked with a key, to put her treasures in? (Hint: keep a copy of the key yourself!) I found a lockable cosmetic case when I needed to keep my husband's pills out of harm's way.
Is she just secretive about her money, or is she generally paranoid? If this is her worst paranoid behavior, it is really kind of charming and harmless.
We certainly have to deal with enough alarming and/or unsafe behaviors. We might as well relax and enjoy the sadly amusing ones.