My mom is nuts and I could use some advice (very long)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

bangs head repeatedly on my desk

My mom just called me (at work) to ask me to cancel a check I gave her and my step-father at Christmas. Then she asked me the question I’ve been dreading for the last couple of months - “Can I come live with you if I have to leave?”

bang bang bang

Here’s the problem. My mother is nuts. Crazy. Cuckoo.

Let me back up some more. I’m 27 - Mom’s 52. I have a four year older brother. She and my father broke up when I was four, and got a divorce a few years later. Soon after the breakup, she met my step-father Kevin, and they’ve been together ever since. So I was raised spending my weekdays with Mom and Kevin, and every weekend with my Dad (and eventually my step-mother Robin).

She was almost normal when I was a child, or at the very least, not so out of it that it was a problem for me. She had quirks, and was prone to coming up with wild schemes and stories, but she worked and had friends and a had a normal life. The biggest problem was that she was also massively, obsessively overprotective - I wasn’t allowed to walk up two blocks to the main street of town by myself until I was 16. (Kevin eventually interceded on that one - that’s the only reason it was allowed.) Fortunately, I was a boring child that would rather be reading in my room then playing outside, so I coped.

Then came time to go to college. I decided that the most important criteria for choosing one was that it was too far away to live at home, because I couldn’t take the smothering anymore. I eventually decided on one that was a six hour drive away. My mom and Kevin drove me up for a campus visit, though mom was visibly tense. When we got back, I announced that I had decided to go there, and mom a) burst into tears, and b) had a screaming fit. (She had convinced herself that as soon as I realized how far away it was I would decide to live at home.) The screaming fits continued at random intervals for most of a month. I would arrive home from school and then retreat to my room for the rest of the night, only emerging to make myself a sandwich for dinner. (My dad, incidentally, offered to let me live with him at this point because he was so worried about the situation. My brother had done that at 14 because he couldn’t take it anymore either.)

Well, I went. And, other than the first two summers during college, I’ve never lived there again. I met my husband at school, and after graduation we moved to a location that was only about 2.5 to 3 hours away from my mom, which was still far enough away that I couldn’t be expected to visit often.

My mom got sick several years ago (I’m still not sure of what, just that it had something to do with blood clots in her legs and that it could kill her), and did not tell me about it until she was almost out of the hospital. (This gives her plenty of fodder to complain about how I didn’t visit her in the hospital when she was dying.) She got Social Security Disability (about $400 a month) and ceased working. This is when things started to go bad.

In the years that she’s been on disability, she’s been on a slippery slope away from sanity, and she’s picking up speed. It’s difficult to tell what could or could not be an effect of her illness, but it’s obvious that she’s lost it.

A woman who used to get up at 6 am every day sleeps until 2 pm, goes to bed at 8, and complains about how tired she is. She does no housework but complains constantly (and to his face) that Kevin is lazy for not doing everything. A rented house that was always in bad shape but was once at least livable, has become a warren of junk that she has picked out of the neighbor’s trash. The gifts that she gives at Christmas and on birthdays are from the same piles of trash. Walls are half painted, or painted around the furniture, from the “projects” that she does around the house. Open cans of paint are left in the rooms she abandoned months ago.

She leaves the house as little as possible, complaining when she has to go out for groceries, and will no longer visit her sisters 45 minutes away. (Because she’s scared to drive that far. She’s been driving for 30 years and there’s no medical reason why she can’t drive.)

She has driven away her friends, either from being so unpleasant to be around, or accusing them of stealing from her. My brother recently moved back into the area to be closer to the family, after spending several years in Hawaii and California. She bitterly complains about him not visiting her enough (i.e. everyday), every time I talk to her. She complains constantly about my brother’s girlfriend, claiming that she’s using him for money (he has none) and that she thinks that mom’s a racist. Then mom makes racist remarks about her.

She can’t/won’t take care of herself. She still smokes despite the blood clots. OK, I can see that - it’s an addiction, right? In the years since her original illness she has also been diagnosed with diabetes. And yet she lives for days on end on nothing but Rita’s Mango Water Ice. She’s lost all of her bottom teeth and won’t get dentures. She talks about how good her hair looks now that it’s grown out (it’s turned white and wispy, and she never gets it cut anymore).

You cannot trust anything she tells you - not the simplist of statements. It’s not that she’s lying - she’s convinced that she’s right. She will insist you to your face that you said something five minutes ago that you never said, or did something that you never did. Two weeks ago she spent 10 minutes on the phone trying to a) understand the difference between a check and a gift certificate and a money order, and b) tell me that half of $150 was $100, not $75. (She used to do all of the bills, so I know that she used to be able to do simple math.) The suicide death of a close friend of her last Christmas has changed in her mind from the sad result of 25 years of alcoholism, to a murder at the hands of some conspiracy I can’t quite follow well enough explain here.

She did go to a therapist once - for about two months, several years ago. As she tells it, the therapist was on her side on everything. Since you can’t trust anything she says, there’s no way of knowing if the therapist just believed her, or if mom’s repeating the conversations incorrectly.

This brings us to this past November. My mother, a woman with constant delusions, who has no friends anymore, who won’t leave the house, who won’t take care of herself, who constantly belittles and complains about everyone around her (often to their faces), and who incidentally has no visible injuries - informs me that Kevin hit her the previous week. This is a story that she has repeated twice that I can think of since then.

Okkkayyyy… so now what do I do? Do I believe a woman who, as far as I can tell, never speaks the truth anymore? Or do I believe a man who has been like another father to me for 23 years, and who never showed signs of being violent towards any of us, and who has put up with enormous amounts of crap from her for years?

She’s also been going on and on about his drinking too much at night (he doesn’t drink much at all anymore, according to my own observations and the phone calls I make to him at night, but I’m not there often). About him being jealous of her and my father (??? as far as I know, they haven’t so much as spoken since I moved out of the house and dad no longer needs to pick me up on the weekends). About him keeping all of the money from her - frankly, I wouldn’t blame him if that one’s the truth, since I don’t think that I’d trust her with money anymore either, and they basically have nothing aside from the car and about $5000 left over from a car accident settlement.

Oh, and as of about three weeks ago, she’s reporting to me that she hates her entire family (six brothers and sisters), because they’re all ganging up on her and think that she’s crazy, when she’s not. And that they all like Kevin better.

She’s been hinting for about a month that they’re breaking up. I’ve been trying my best to ignore it, as it gives me cold sweats to think that he wouldn’t be taking care of her anymore. I honestly don’t think that she can live on her own - she’d probably end up on the streets. But I don’t know if I can live with her either. I don’t think that I can. And it might kill my marriage - my husband can’t stand to visit her for two days, much less have her stay in our house.

Today’s phone conversation, paraphrased:

Mom: “Can you turn off that thing you gave me?” (Note: At Christmas, aside from the various physical gifts, I gave her a $50 gift card, him a $50 gift card, and a $150 check made out to both of them that was specifically to cover the heating oil they just bought. She’s been mad ever since that it wasn’t made out just to her.)

Me: “You mean cancel the check? Sure, but it will cost me like 30 bucks. Why?”

Mom: “Kevin won’t admit it’s half mine, and you said that both of us need to sign it to cash it.” (Note: I know for a fact that their only bank account is a joint account, so if it’s deposited it’s both of theirs anyway, and this was to cover oil THEY ALREADY BOUGHT OUT OF THAT ACCOUNT.)

Me: “It was for the oil.”

Mom: “I know, but…[insert explanation that I frankly can’t follow, and suspect makes no sense. This is common in these phone calls]. Besides, he won’t give me any money. I’ve been walking around for three months without a penny in my pocket, with broken ribs [true, she fell on the stairs] and a punctured rib with bleeding and they thought that they would have to operate on the thoasic thing.” (?!? I think she meant a punctured lung from the broken ribs, but I’m pretty sure this didn’t happen.)

Me: “You have a joint account. You can just go take some money out.”

Mom: <silence>
Mom: “I can do that?”

Me: “Yeah.”

Mom: “If he kicks me out can I come live with you?”

returns to banging head against desk

Sorry for the length of this, but I really don’t know what to do.

2

…

If it were me, I would have a serious talk with my stepfather, something along the lines of:

“I know that this is probably harder on you than it is on me, you have to live with her every day, but she’s not healty and she needs to get some help. You need to get her some help.”

Possibly with a hospital visit. Very bad mojo not to be taking care of the diabetes, too. Especially with previous vein trouble.

3

My sympathies. Your mom sounds like she has some major issues.

Call Kevin when your mom isn’t around or when you and him can talk without her listening. Ask him what is going on. Find out as much as you can. Ask him if they are breaking up.

Talk to your other siblings. See what they think.

Sadly, it sounds like maybe you guys might have to consider that your mom isn’t well enough to make decisions for herself.

And finally, your marriage is your most important thing now. You are an adult and you don’t need to cause tension in your marriage as a result of your mother’s problems.

Of course, this is all just my opinion and what I would do. You need to do what is best for you.

4

Oh, and when she asks if she can live with you, say “no, I’m sorry. Remember how we used to fight when I was living at home? I don’t think we can get along when we live together.”

5

I have nothing to add, other than Do Not Let Your Mom Move In With You! Being married is hard enough without having Mom-In-Law-in-need-of-medication running around. My dad’s the depressed hypochondriac and my mom’s the paranoid bi-polar and together they’re not as bad as your mom sounds. And after every visit, I have to promise Hubby that they will never come and live with us. Gee, I’m sorry.

And ditto Call Kevin. Sounds like he might need someone to talk to.

6

Please Risha, from a psychologists point of view your mother needs some form of intervention. Most likely inpatient intervention. Does she have any insurance at all? If so, then a talk with your step dad and a visit to the hospital seems warranted. The hospital will make her see a psychiatrist, who will most likely evaluate her and put her on meds which may make her able to rationalize her situation a little more. This is where you will need your step father to help. Because she will be released, and depending on how she takes being in inpatient care, she may be angry, or she may see some reason behind it. i.e. you love your mother and want her to get help. But you step father will have to help with her meds when she gets on them, he will have to be helpful, and not condescending…And no, I do not think she should move in with you, your marriage is the most important thing at this stage.

If it would make you feel better, call the hospital and ask to speak with the psychiatry department family liason…they are there to assist people in your situation…sometimes they even make house calls…good luck

7

How very sad for all concerned. She obviously needs help.

Call Kevin, have him schedule a doctor’s appointment, and call the local Community Services Board or whatever agency offers mental health assistance in the community. They’ll be able to give you some additional resources.

8

Risha, I know she is your mother, and you love her, and are concerned about her, but frankly, this is not your job. She is married. This is her husband’s job. At most, it is the family’s job, jointly. You are taking on too much.

Call Kevin and have a conversation with him. This is a medical problem, and requires medication and long term care (if she isn’t getting it). From the description of things, I would say that therapy alone is not the answer; this requires a physical / pharmacological approach. It would have to be a combination of diet, exercise, and medication. If she is willing to do that, and stick to it, she could probably be fairly normal; however, omit any leg of that triad, and she will wig out.

Without fairly strong medical intervention (the three pronged intervention that I mentioned above) she will deteriorate, lose touch with reality over time, and eventually (or quickly) require hospitalization, and end her life in an institution. I am not being pessimistic here; I saw it happen to my grandmother, and I am familiar with the syndrome, and the progression (or deterioration) of the symptoms. She can live a normal life, or she can end her life in the looney bin. The choice is literally that clear. I may be wrong here — it may be Altzheimers or something else that is not easily treatable — but from your description I don’t think so. A doctor will be able to tell you.

But the main thing is that she has to get on the program (diet, exercise, and medication) and stay there, steadily, for the rest of her life. Or her life will be hell. No middle road.

Good luck. Prayers coming your way. It’s going to be a hard road for you.

9

Do what Phlosphr says. I am not a doctor, lawyer, etc., but you should do some thinking about who in your family (Kevin, aunts/uncles, etc.) would be the best person to be responsible for medical and/or legal decisions concerning your mother, in terms of obtaining medical and/or legal powers of attorney.

10

Just chiming in that it sounds very much like your mother has a medical or psychological problem – maybe something like early-stage Alzheimer’s, maybe a mental disorder. She needs to be taken to a doctor ASAP for evaluation and treatment. I don’t know that you have the grounds for an involuntary commitment of the type PHLOSOPHR discusses, but Kevin and your family should be having her evaluated, meeting with doctors, and discussing her situation and your options as early and as thoroughly as possible.

And the answer to “can I move in with you?” should be a firm No.

11

I am only going on the brief history described in the OP. Your mother may not need an involuntary commital. Then again she may. But if she flatly refuses to be seen, assessed or otherwise treated for what ailes her, she may need a little nudge. Trust me, what I say may sound like a not so difficult thing…but it is extremely difficult, and if not approached correctly can do more harm than good. This is why speaking with Kevin and family is not only necessary, but crucial. The burden is not on your shoulders alone, or at least it shouldn’t be.
Possibly a last ditch plea with your mother to seek help, and make sure you say this infront of at least one other person, preferably two, your husband and Kevin.

This may be early dementia associated with any number of other health concerns. She needs to be evaluated. I’d hate to generalize and infer in a case like this.

12

Please let us know how it goes. Your mom needs some serious help, and it sounds like poor Kevin is coping all on his own.

It sounds like she’s had problems for a long time. She may need to be put in a supervised facility, for her own sake as well as yours.

Does your dad have any insight into her character? What about her other family?

13

Mmmmm… <slobber>

Sorry you’re going through this, Risha. Take the advice other people have offered and ask your stepfather to get your mother some medical attention. Good luck.

14

Thanks everyone for your replies, though I have to admit that reading them for some reason made me feel worse. I was pretty close to tears by about the third post. Maybe because seeing it all spelled out on the screen means that I can’t keep ignoring it and hoping the problem will go away.

Oh, and I can’t tell you how relieved I am that no one seems to think that I should let her move in! I was feeling like the worst daughter in the world.

takes deep breath OK, decision time. This is what I think I’ll do.

  1. Resolve that my mom WILL NOT be permitted to stay with us, even on a temp basis. There’s no conceivable way that it wouldn’t end badly, even if it was only for a week (which it wouldn’t be).

  2. Now that I can stop worrying about that, I can talk to my husband, which I really should have done as soon as she started dropping hints. I try very hard to keep the two of them separated, but he knows how bad off she is so it won’t be much of a surprise.

  3. Call my brother tonight. This could be a difficult conversation - he’s very sensitive and will go a million miles out of his way to never say a negative word to people or about people. But he’s not stupid either, he has to have noticed. And I’ve talked with his girlfriend about my mom before, so she can work on him.

  4. Call Kevin this weekend. This one is a real toughy. The tricky part is that my mom is always home, so my only real hope is to call at times that I think she’ll be asleep. He also dislikes discussing their private issues with us kids - he’s always been that way.

  • Alternative #1, I could ask my brother to talk to him in person. The problem with that is that they’ve never really gotten along (lots of arguments when he was a kid). And ditto with the privacy issue.
  • Alternative #2, I could call one of my aunts or uncles and have them make a visit. This will probably increase mom’s “they’re all against me” paranoia, because, again, she’s always there so it will be tough to talk to him privately.

We’ll see how it goes. :frowning:

15

Oh, and random answers that I forgot to add to my previous post:

Yes, they have insurance (an HMO). I’m not sure what sort of mental health coverage that would include. Paying for treatment may become an issue. In case it wasn’t clear, they’re very poor. My mom worked under the table most of her life, which is why her social security is so low. Kevin collects the change out of vending machines, and makes about $25,000 a year. My brother is currently working 6 days a week as an apprentice carpenter and is supporting his girlfriend through her masters degree, so he doesn’t have anything to spare. Hubby and I make good money and could probably manage something, but we have a mortgage now and we’re still paying off credit cards and student loans.

I haven’t really talked to anyone about this - my family is very good at avoiding this kind of uncomfortable conversation. And we tend to be rather eccentric, most of us, so to a certain degree odd behavior is tolerated but not mentioned. I have no idea if it’s pertinent information, but one of her sisters is a schizophrenic who spent many years going in and out of hospitals, and had some of her children removed from her. And my grandfather was a bad alchoholic.

My dad doesn’t talk about her much but has occasionally expressed concern in the past over isolated things that she has done - such as supporting me in the college arguement.

16

Does Kevin have email? Maybe you could email him and ask him to call you when Mom isn’t listening.

17

Risha
I’m really sorry to hear about the difficulties that your mother has been having, and the effect those have had on you and your family over the years.

I think, as others have suggested, that it is important that your mother receives the correct diagnosis and the right care plan; counselling for you and the rest of her family may also be of benefit.

You stated that your mother said she had been hit by your stepfather: now, whilst you also mentioned her tendancy to fabricate, I would suggest that you don’t necessarily ignore these claims either. It is not that uncommon for vulnerable people to be exploited and / or assaulted; furthermore, some carers (who very often are family members) are placed under massive amounts of stress because they see what is happening to their loved one and feel powerless to help - or perhaps don’t want to admit there is even a problem and need “outside” help to give care etc- and they themselves can be assaulted by the very person they are trying to look after: assault is not necessarily anyone’s fault - it is the result of an underlying medical condition.

Best of luck to you all.

18

No email (he has no computer and no training in using one), and no cell phone. And he doesn’t have an office - he works out of a company car.

I’ve heard the same thing, which is the only thing that made me give it any thought at all - it isn’t pleasant to live with my mom at this point, could he have snapped? But I really don’t know how to verify or deny these claims since I can’t trust anything she says. And she’s been scattering them into a list of other complaints about him that I know aren’t true.

If it were true (and I’m far from convinced), how could I ever know and what could I do about it? No, I’m not being sarcastic, I really don’t know.

19

Empathy and sympathy are two very different things. You don’t need to be sympathetic towards her, but a little empathy would be a nice thing. Someday, as hard as it is to believe, you’ll be in your 50s as well, and someone might call you “nuts” or “cuckoo”. Also, remember that actions really do speak louder than words. She may be past the point of knowing how and when to ask for what she needs. I’m not saying you should allow her to move in, but I think some action on your part would be wise. A thorough physical exam is definitely a good place to start.

Life is just really hard for some people, you know??? I’m hoping things can work out for you and your family.

20

I’m afraid anything you do at this point is just going to make your mom more paranoid.

So, even though she thinks you may be ganging up on her, you MUST talk to Kevin. It sounds like she’s delusional anyway, so you can’t do any more harm by talking to Kevin. Don’t let him evade the issue. This must be taken care of.

Can you call her doctor?