My dad died of Covid in November. He didn't tell me how unwell my mom was. I'm now dealing with a narcissistic sister who somehow got power of attorney. She is really feeling it and using it to settle old scores. I haven't talked to her in 25 years and it is now worse than I remember. She and BIL were incredibly abusive to me the day my dad died. I was trying to figure out what was going on, to help. I had to find out where he was and which hospital on my own. My sister would respond with "We don't need your help" and "If you keep texting me I'm going to block you" (this was the only phone I had to connect to my Mom). "I'm only giving you information out of respect for your dad." All this because my sister told me about the affair she had and tried to enlist my help to hide evidence. Knowing full well BIL could take the children, I said, "No. I will not do anything to hurt your children". She tried to hide my mom from me, it took me a month to get a phone number for her. My sister dropped her off at assisted living in a different state 100 miles away 1 week after she lost her husband of 61 years a few weeks before Christmas. My sister picked her up for one day on Christmas then back to A.L. Our mom was not happy or well for months. She tried to make the best of it she told me later. She is very submissive and depressed. As she started coming out of the grief she said she was terribly lonely and asked if she could live with me. I was in an RV and said I was going to get a house so we could be near each other. This cheered her up immensely. I realized she was still in there, personality and sense of humor intact. She became a bit playful and goofy and thanked me over and over. She confided in me that she doesn't like my sister and that she "makes her uncomfortable". She told me she trusts me over and over. My sister was unraveling, of course she was all bent out of shape that my mother was unaware she was sending repetitive e-mails (very short short-term memory). That she couldn't appreciate all that she was doing for her. Me! Me! Me! When I grew concerned that I was being blocked on e-mail I was transferred to the director of the facility. They were incredibly defensive despite telling her my mom was very happy with the staff just depressed and missing family. I told her I was just trying to troubleshoot the problem without getting my sister and BIL involved. The Director then tells my BIL that I'm plotting to file complaints with the state and instead of communicating with me he tells my mom that I'm creating trouble and "I hope you don't get kicked out." She rants about her complaining and lack of gratitude, says it's making her sick and affecting our marriage and says, "Maybe you should go live with (me) in _____." My sister writes me soon after and says, ,"She's all yours. You figure out how to get her out there and I'll write the checks." Then she CCs me in another narcissistic masterpiece to my mom which includes a laundry list (wrapped in "love") about all the things she can't do anymore such as make friends, play games, do puzzles, be creative. Basically everything that made life worth living was gone. I tell them that can never happen again. BIL's letter was elder abuse. My mom begs to live with me. I'm trying to figure out a way to make it work, we found a house and are excited then my sister today said; No mom, you need professional carer 24/7. My dad took care of her and had no immediate plans for assisted living, I could do the same. I work at home. I could be with her 24/7. She agreed to mom moving several states away because I could do all the work. As of today I am "your other daughter". I'm exhausted but I have to get her help. She needs to be evaluated, learn her rights. She's fully on board, but I don't know where to start. If we do this my sister will cut off our communication. Does my mom have the right to choose who cares for her and spend her own $ to pay for that? Mom is getting $10k/mo from Dad's retirement and can't touch it. I feel so helpless.
My sister herself claims my mother has "severe" dementia but I've consulted the 7 stage scale and my mom is *early*stage 4 at worst. Just found another one today and she doesn't have any of the symptoms of even moderate dementia. So stop diagnosing people you don't know. And yes. It gets worse. I get it. And I will roll with that...get help where I can, and pivot when it's time to pivot.
People have been telling me things are too hard or impossible all my life and I've proven them wrong every time.
I hear you. I hear that you're at the end of your ropes, that your "burnt"...I've been burnt and at the end of my rope for 40 years. You have no idea -- I survived mercury poisoning, traveled solo into the Sinai desert and still remembered at an immediate care Clinic in Chico CA because they said they never saw anyone laugh their way through a kidney stone. I've had 18 and drove myself to the hospital for every one of them. I have suffered enough to know that "this too shall pass"...I found my way to gratitude. I see the beauty in ugly things. I realize that the hardest things in my life brought me my greatest gifts so now when things really suck I know one day I will look back on that with gratitude.
Watching you pathologize everyone in my family when you really have no idea...honestly...I can't imagine having the time to spend that much time analyzing people I don't even know. I've learned...the more you show up and do your work in life the more people who haven't seek to take a piece out of you.
I hope one day you are able to wake up every day seeking to feel and express only love. That's my goal. Every day.
Think I'm done with this place. Thanks for those who compassionately and respectfully helped and peace out.
You pathologized your family accusing your Sister of many many things too numerous to go into and your BIL of abuse and other things. Not us. You have gone the whole route from narcissistic to abusive. No one but you did that.
You have no right--NO RIGHT-- to your Mother's health information or financial information. Not until you are made guardian. So why not just see an attorney and get that show on the road.
Burnt,
Now it comes into the fray she had not much use for DAD either. Our OP couldn't get along with ANYONE but to me, now there are other issues, like trying to get Mom to buy half the home with her so she can "care for her". I have read every single sentence our OP has written. I find her scary. She claims we have pathologized her entire family. No one here did that, unless believing her every word they did it to the sister. Our OP has pretty much skated right on out of here with sympathy and with people telling her to get guardianship. I would be willing to stake a whole lot that that will not happen, no matter how much money she has to sink into the whole thing. Just my own personal guess.
I am going to avoid this whole thread from now on. As I admitted, I identify too deeply with this situation. Warring siblings was always my least favorite thing on forum no matter my own situation. Mine aren't at war as the good long ago gave up after decades of trying on the "other". It took me to age 80 to give up. And despite the giving up I would never withdraw inheritance, so she still stands to gain that (I believe withdrawing any inheritance is tantamont to a last punch no one can answer, so wouldn't ever do that).
All we try to do here is present differing opinions for you to consider. Be well.
I was the one who was picked as POA by my parents. It is not a task taken lightly by those who appoint you.
I am just going to hit on a few points here because I tend to ramble on.
you cant do any if the things you want to do. You cant move your Mother, buy a house with her and you have no control over medical or bill paying. Your sister has that control. You would need to hire a lawyer, go to court and prove your sister has been incompetent in her roll as POA. Considering you have been estranged for 25 years I have no idea how you intend to prove that.
you say you will ask for financial documents to prove fudiciary duties were carried out properly by the sister.
$10,000 a month plus S.S does not even come close to covering your Mothers care. Insurance, medical bills, medical supplies, memory care etc. are all very expensive. As a POA responsible for all of my Moms bills (Dad died last September) she spends in excess of that and she isnt in memory care. Your sister would not have placed Mom in AL if she was after her money.
my advice to you is to park your camper near Mom as it appears you can work from home. Help your sister out with care for your Mom. Work together and give support. Your Mom seems to be well taken care of and dementia is a difficult disease to deal with.
I beg you to rethink your strategy and think about your real motive. I think you are a bit jealous that sister was appointed POA. I have a sister who told me she didn’t know why my parents didn't make her POA. It has been just shy of 3 years since I moved my parents near me and she hasn't said that since. That sister has been the most support to me. She comes every few months for a week so I can sit in my jammies till noon.
I will mention something that stood out to me and no one has touched on. You mention that you live alone, never married or had kids. That is lifestyle you chose and I respect you for that. Considering this you are the last person I would choose to take a dementia patient into their home.
I am not being disrespectful but stating a fact. My mom is in assisted living and it is at best a part time job for me. You have no idea what you think you are taking on.
if you really have proof that the sister and BIL have taken advantage of your Mom then please go to the proper authorities with your proof. You mention her being taken advantage of monetarily. It should be easy to prove that with the right legal representation.
after reading through all the posts on this I feel for your poor Mom
Lawyers are allegedly advising you take her out of state. How? The poa of sister is active. If mom tries to sign out with you, the AL will immediately notify your poa sister. If you two take off in a surprise move, the police will be called to find the missing person.
Should you surmount that somehow, then what? What is your immediate housing plan for her?
I'm not sure what sort of professional that is.
I understand narcissism well and this disease aside theses people are human and have hearts and I think your sister has your mom’s best interest in mind. I Am estranged from my narcissistic sister as well (we are both in our late 60’s). She took care of our Dad until he died and I took care of my my mom.
I would venture that you don’t know what being a caregiver 24/7 is really all about. Even if she is physically very healthy it it very good you are looking at hard work.
Make a plan, with your mother before you take her out of AL. Get her POA (one less battle down the road)
$10,000 a month is a hefty motivation factor for anyone. Be sure you are ready to take responsibility for that much money.
make sure you are ready for this. I am a bid proponent of parents staying home with caregivers. Facilities just aren’t the same. A good facility would cost about 10 grand a month. Maybe that’s why her hubby set up trust like that.
Be honest with yourself and sit with mom and figure out what’s best for her first and then see where you can facilitate that.
love and light
PGH, I strongly reiterate my previous advice, before you "rescue" mom, please seek some counseling to help you find a strategy for dealing with this emotional mess of a conflict, for your sake as well as your mom's. Caregiving 24/7 for anyone is heliacally difficult, even for those of us who have strong family relationships and support. To try and do it without that? Especially with dementia in play?
If you love your mom even half as much you claim to, you will seek outside advice and support, before you try to remove her from care. For her sake.
There are many legal issues and many questions.
Many of these homes have severe neglect and even abuse. Your mom is far better off living with you. Someone who loves her and will care for her. Your sister can come visit or talk to her on the phone. But it should be up to your mom where she wants to stay and who she wants to care for her. She is a human being and needs to be treated like one.
God Bless you ...Good Luck to you and your mom!
Always come back to what is best for the person who needs care. What is best for Mom here.
Mom has dx dementia so although being able to state what she WANTS at that moment, may have lost the insight required to discuss what she NEEDS.
Eg needing assistance for ADLS, meals provided, round the clock care on call.
POA sister has arranged AL. That's really all we know about that.
OP wishes to rescue Mom.
Why?
* To enjoy cuppas on the sofa.
* To make Mom happy.
Feels good to share good times - sounds sweet.
Also sounds like when my 6yo daughter had tea parties with friends. For an hour. (Wasn't 24/7.. that would involve an adult taking over, structure other activities, feed them, break up quarrels etc).
So I ask, is the OP lonely?
Who else comes to sit on the sofa? Dad recently passed away I believe. Grief can bring up all sorts of emotions - a desire to reconnect with family being just one.
Is there sibling rivalry driving these wishes?
I WANT to be able to make Mom happier than sister can.
Why? To gain more of Mom's gratitude & love??
Yes I am sure I will be accused of being harsh. I agree.
I really do hope the OP can find a way to enjoy happy times with Mom - without causing mayhem & further stress, to self & rest of family.
I want to caution you to be very careful here. It sounds like you have the ability to visit your mother in the AL and maybe even are allowed to take her off site for visits if no one would question you removing her. You have been very resistant to a lot of the advice here - largely because you have your mind made up. And I can understand that to a point. You told me directly that is because you are intuitive and to a point I can understand that. I don't claim to be very gifted in that manner - but I do understand the concept of trusting your gut - however I also believe that you need to follow that up with a healthy dose of realism where possible. In moments of dire circumstances or emergencies trusting your gut is often imperative. BUT there are definitely times when it is VERY important to stop and take a moment to temper that with reason and logic.
Please take the time to look into the legalities of removing your mother from the AL. The advice you received from the resource at the Elder Abuse was ADVICE, if I'm not mistaken, with no component of LEGAL involved. If I'm not mistaken you do not know if you could get into any trouble - legal or otherwise - if you try to permanently remove your mother from AL. You are not her POA, you are not her legal guardian. In fact, you don't have any legal say in her affairs.
You want to help her -which for all intents and purposes is admirable. That being said, don't shoot yourself in the foot before you have even started, by not doing your due diligence because you are anxious to get her out of there and she is panicking. She is NEVER going to be happy there. And you have visions in your head of how happy she is going to be with you. I won't manipulate you with the visions that a lot of us are having of what is likely your reality. I will just offer this. You need to slow down and do this right. Your sister could literally call the police, put out a missing persons report and report you for kidnapping. And if your mother is not competent you could 100% lose any access you have to her in one fell swoop - permanently.
As painful as it may be, the better approach is to slow down and come at this from a different angle. You can't make this happen as fast as you would like. You can't make this happen today. Mom is unhappy. The vast majority of people in AL probably are. Their lives aren't what they used to be. But those same people generally aren't happy ANYWHERE even home because their lives aren't what they used to be. But please just try doing this within the system - it may be slow and painful and it may not be what you want but you have a better chance of getting what you want out of it.
If she is competent - SHE can ask for a family meeting and have you there - and talk about her rights. But in the panic and rush to get this done fast, something is going to break irreparably and you may not be able to fix it and then she really will be stuck there without recourse and you may not have access to her at all.
My father (deceased) was the witty one and I (51) get it from him however, once in a while mom would come out with a zinger. I was teasing her after a year of Covid and said "Momma, you are spoiled rotten" due to all spoiling and treats I took her during that time. She quickly retorted, "Yeah...I am your spoiled little brat!" I laughed so hard I had tears rolling down my face. So, for Mother's Day, I bought her a Spoiled Little Brat T-shirt. She absolutely loves it. :D
Mom sewed us matching clothes growing up. I carried on that tradition buying us matching clothes. It brought her so much joy and loved that people noticed! :)
Also, I made her for Christmas 2020 a custom blanket with family pics...She was so proud of it. The care staff placed it on her bed every day after they made her bed so she and everyone could see it. We decorated for all holidays/seasons outside her door. We made wreaths/decorations which she loved! :D You make the best of the dementia situation! It is very possible! :D
You come across as arrogant with all your "abilities/experiences" that have nothing to do with care giving. You have disparaged you father and sister/BIL and seem to be spiteful. I question your motives based on all your posts. There is a reason your parents chose her for POA, and I sense jealousy. Your father did not decide for your mother her POA. Legally, only she can make that decision, sign and notarized. If you are so "close" to your mom, why did she not choose you for her POA? There has to be a reason! Do you have mental illness? Rhetorical...
Talking on the phone with a dementia patient is no way to assess the dementia.
My mother was dx Oct 2017 with mid-stage Vascular Dementia after a 6-hour evaluation. As of today, May 23, 2022, my mother could easily mask her dementia on the surface as she can present VERY well. However, she is incontinent and does not get herself clean or properly bathe as she will leave soap in her hair. etc. Unless you are there on a consistent basis around her you have no idea the level your mother is at. I had to have 2 Drs. to sign off on Memory Care. Just now my mother had drainage from her nose and was completely oblivious. I asked her to get a tissue and she wiped it. Then I had to ask her to blow it to get it all out as she was just wiping. These are not things you would realize unless you saw her frequently.
I in no way am trying to be hurtful...just honest and real. It is sad you asked for advice and argued when you got an answer you did not want to hear. You want validation and based on what I have read, I cannot give it in good conscience.
Usually what I have always found is who steps forward to do it? The problem arises when family members cannot agree on what to do with the loved one.
I look around at how people treat their loved ones. See by their example how they treat their parents, children and basically who shows up in life.
That is usually who makes the decisions. Sometimes older people assume their so-called favorite is going to step to the plate. How can you do this out-of-state.
It's really who the loved one trusts and are you available? Are you there in the trenches. To orchestrate these things out-of-state is not the same. Your situation is not unusual. Your sister probably thinks, you are not even around. And down deep your mother probably thinks the same. This is quite common in a family.
Unless you plan on coming to see your Mom, hold her hand, decide that you will move her and care for her. To do things by the sidelines is not the same as being in the trenches.
You sound like you love your mother a lot and are not happy with the present situation. Your Mom probably has good and bad days and really can't make decision for herself and she knows you are not around. The Sunday night phone is ok, but it's not the same as sitting and holding her hand.
These things are difficult and you need to make a plan. It's your mother and sometimes a house can be divided. Come up with a plan for your Mom--perhaps sell the house, move your mother and give sis some $$$ for her caregiving. It's a win-win situation!
"I have the PoA now as well as my mom's wish for me to be her guardian if there is ever a challenge. You mentioned that caregiving is never what people expect. I went into this with my eyes wide open and it has actually been almost exactly what I expected. Not easy, no, and sometimes completely overwhelming, but I'm grateful every day that I can help her as much as I can. I figured out she needed one med in four smaller doses a day rather than two and that has eliminated some serious agitation/panic/ stuff she's been dealing with all year. I also discovered her apnea is severe, 40 periods of not breathing for 30 to 70 seconds per hour followed by a giant gasp (my sister took away her CPAP machine which she'd been on for 20 years) and have an urgent referral for a pulmonologist. I think most of her symptoms stem from that as adrenaline issues were her biggest complaint when she was first diagnosed with apnea.
She's been in survival mode all year since my dad died and he never would have taken it away and she was religious about using it. And I got her off one medication (we were running out and my sister took several days to respond and even then was vague and not helpful so my mom went into withdrawal) that every doc, even the AL place says she should have never been on it daily anyway -- it's a drug that you give people before surgery to make you drowsy and my sister had her on it 24/7. She woke up looking like the living dead and now wakes up cheerful and quite awake and gets dressed and ready to go. She's able to run errands with me and take long walks. Talks about wanting to take trips. When she first got here her legs hurt after a block or two. We're now walking 3 miles several days a week. (Smoothies with glutamine for the muscle wasting.)
Most of the things they told me about her and her needs were false, which I suspected. She can do many things for herself and no incontinence issues. She really cares about her appearance. She should not live alone but loves to help out, does the dishes, cleans the floor, makes herself some cereal. Want's nothing to do with the stove. Today she insisted on helping me rake the yard. "How can I help." All day long. She thanks me several times a day. She sits on the porch and says, "You know the best thing about being here? That (sister) is so far away." The other day I was talking about her and she said, "Please, can we stop saying her name."
I'm not getting much work done but we'll figure that out...it's been a big transition. My sister also claimed that all of the docs agreed that this move would be traumatic. We did it in one day (she wanted to do it that way)...6 hours of driving and 6 hours waiting for a delayed flight and she never slept once. An hour from home she said, 'This has been a pretty easy trip!" She is incredibly agile, can still run (! -- 81) and when she trips she catches herself. The other day she was saying, "What would I do without you" and turned and nearly walked into the wall and made the funniest sounds and we both laughed our heads off for two straight minutes.
That's the good stuff. There have been difficult moments. There are meltdowns and some dysfunctional stuff revisiting from my childhood but we had a good talk and she thanked me for the conversation and things are better. And I realized that much of that is medication related. If she gets it more often we can head off those episodes. We both know this has to work.
She arrived here with ancient underwear -- some w/ several 2-3 inch holes (she now has new underwear) and towels that would have ordinarily been in the rag bin. All that retirement coming in and that's how she was living. She was so excited that I had new sheets and towels waiting for her. She kept asking me if she would be living in the basement.
I washed her neglected feet today. Sprayed on some antifungal powder. I am so thankful for this chance to help her. I woke up in the middle of the night and realized...she can't reach them. We called it a spa day. Clipped her toenails... I can't bear what she went through this year. Really figuring out how to navigate her day to keep her calm and awake and happy and make sure I get enough sleep. She's made great progress in just a month.
My grandmother died many years ago from a cascade of issues that started after my Aunt nicked her toe while clipping her toenails. Medicare pays for this to be done several times a year.