I cut ties with my verbally abusive mother 2 years ago. My father died 6 months ago, and we had to reestablish a bit of a relationship to handle to his end-of-life care. When he passed, she accused me of outlandish offenses, like saying that Dad didn't like the color green during the funeral planning which "destroyed" her. She also accused me of breaking into her house and vandalizing it. Before I cut ties with her 2 years ago, I tried desperately to get her help for obvious mental health issues but due to doctor-patient confidentiality, I do not know if she has a diagnosis or not, if she is being treated for mental illness, etc. I received a call today from a woman she has harassed for 3 years by accusing her of having an affair with my father and hacking her computers, phones, etc. In fact, my mother has changed her phone number and internet accounts numerous times in the past 3 years because of the alleged hacking. With the phone call today, I found out that my mom sent the accused woman a box of chocolates with a threatening note, has called her boss, her husband, her husband's boss and various relatives to threaten and slander the woman. The accused woman called to ask me to help and get my mom to stop these things. I do NOT know what to do. I feel like by not getting involved I am allowing my mom to be a danger to herself (in that she is setting herself up for arrest or law suit) and potentially others (the woman is scared, had the chocolates tested, and has involved the police), yet I cannot force her to get help and only seem to get thrown under the bus and further abused when I do try to help her. If the claims against my mom are true, she could be headed toward arrest and/or law suits against her. I don't want to see her in jail or to lose everything she owns. Should I try to convince her to get help or should I stay out of it and let the chips fall where they may?
We all have to learn about posting. I got my hand slapped by AgingCare.com for asking members for information as part of a forum discussion. I was warned "failure to follow our guidelines in the future may result in being kicked off of AgingCare.com". It stung and was because I had asked for clarification. BUT, we all read posts with our own deciphering.
AgingCare.com policies are at
https://www.agingcare.com/info/our-policies/member-comment-policy.aspx
Perhaps they can add a few words of guidance about posting in short sections.
Having developed and managed knowledge discussion venues with over 66,000 members authoring long posts without and line breaks I recognize this as a a universal PIA. While I did all my administration off forum the writers had hurt feelings when I contacted them. Please consider this comment as a friendly reminder from a forum bud. Please do not kick me off of AgingCare.com
I understand and appreciate your comment . . . However, in this scenario and on the topics discussed on this forum I believe that the respondees write about their own experiences not simply to offer help to the person who asked the question, but to help themselves through a common shared experience. I know, that was a run on sentence. I posted a question of my own once. I found that those who responded with short, curt answers had not even read the question carefully and reacted to one art of the issue. Those comments were sarcastic, judgemental and hurtful. I will never post a question again and open myself up to unnecessary criticism from the few hateful and bitter followers.
Uncle D;
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You CANNOT win in this situation. I had them same mother who had with narcissistic personality disorder.
They never think they are wrong it is always YOUR issue to fix. I agree call your local Department of Aging and Disability Services and Adult Protective Services before they start calling YOU and investigating you for abusing your mom, exploitation, fraud, theft non of which you are guilty of.
They will investigate you even if the accuser is looney-toons and you DO NOT want to be in that position. Please do not think you are in control here now or ever. And please don't let yourself believe that things will improve because they won't it only gets worse. And don't feel guilty about the fact you can't change things.
Contact those departments in your area and then step back and remove yourself from the situation as much as possible. If I were you I would have that woman who was in receipt of the chocolates document her story. I would also suggest you get a small hand held recorder and tape your mother as she is trashing you.
Buy several tapes. Save the really abusive ones so you have them as back up if APS starts harassing you.
When APS started investigating me (several times) and they found that the accusations were false I befriended a couple of the investigators.
I called them asking for help getting meals on wills for my demented friend. I asked for help getting his motorized wheelchair fixed when Medicaid refused to fix it.
APS sent a financial planner to oversee his bills because he accused he of stealing his money. After a few months one of the case workers was calling ME to see how I was doing and asking if there was anything she could do to help me.
She finally got it through my thick head that it was time for me to walk away and move on with my life.
These agencies are there to make certain the elderly and disabled get what they need but they can help you protect yourself, get respite care for yourself and keep yourself healthy.
.................. You are in the right place on this forum. Use everything you can get from it. My heart goes out to you and I will pray for you as I do for all the caregivers out there.
Since you mention personality disorders, may I add here (for a little pat on the back) that:
My 32 y.o. daughter has narcissistic and borderline personality disorder. Yesterday I called her and "released" her, calmly and quietly, from my life--and "released" myself from hers.
After twenty years of rages, insults and accusations, she is on her own and I am free.
I will spend the last chapter of my life with people who care about me.
Ta da!
P.S. I did take her to court a few years ago for legal visitation with my grandson with whom I am very close. that still holds.
I recall when I was active on the CTPP forum there were hundreds of Dave's. I was frequently seeing me myself being confused with others named Dave, Thus was born my pen name UncleDave,
It is easy to loose trak of who said what, I should force myself to include the name of the person I am offering my two-bits too.
My apologies to fellow list buds.