I agree that it’s gambling, but even if it doesn’t fit the technical description, her problems with it sound like textbook problems for an addicted gambler.
Yeah, I didn’t see that one coming. Is mental illness an issue here? Or maybe she is lonely and this keeps her busy?
Our other sister died three years ago. Those two were fighting. I think she is having a strange reaction to that event.
Ah. That does make sense. It sounds like you can’t get her into therapy (that it sounds like she needs) because she won’t admit she has a problem, but the rest of the family can get some help in figuring out how to help her. Here’s a link on problem gambling for you.
No, common sense is not part of every Ph.D. program. I know a number of brilliant astronomers who don’t have any common sense at all. I knew one who left one of the top astronomy grad schools in the country to become a professional poker player (no, I am not kidding). Intelligence and common sense aren’t the same thing.
Well. I guess I’m reanimating a zombie, but…
Things have and have not changed all that much.
Last year I cut her off telling her I would only help her if I saw she was doing things to help herself. This seemed to spur some action on her part.
In September, my sis managed to sell her house and make a little profit. I helped a lot- garage sales, cleaning, moving, etc. She paid me back the money she owed me (but not my brother). She moved to a very nice ‘low income active senior’ apartment complex.
She still gets some unemployment (she’s whatever comes after a “99er” as she’s been ‘on the un’ for about 3 years now). She also recently qualified for food stamps, so she’s not starving. She gets on occasional interview in her field but has not been hired for anything and suspects she has a bad reputation in her field. By chance, I met a recruiter in her field and referred her but she declined the one job offer she received as a ‘bad fit’.
I believe she sunk all her profits from the sale of her house into the stock market and possibly lost it.
She has been ‘working’ on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk and making a whopping 35 cents to 3 dollars per job writing articles.
She called me last night in tears because she cannot pay her rent and asking for a loan. She seemed anxious, depressed, panicky. Yesterday was also an anniversary trigger of the death of our third sister about 4 years ago. The stock market came into being shortly after this sister’s death.
Because of the ‘help yourself rule’, she noted that she has had an interview lately, but had not heard back from them. She noted her work on Mechanical Turk. I asked about her house profits, but she only said ‘It is gone.’ She has implied to me that she’s not in the stock market anymore but whenever I go to her house, I see stock stuff on her computer screen.
She’s too broke to drive over and pick up the loan (no gas), plus her car has an alignment problem and is chewing up a tire, so she does not want to drive it. I cannot do a bank transfer because her account was closed for repeatedly bounced checks. I also gave her two hundred dollars somewhat recently, so it appears the whole thing is starting all over again, which I find depressing and not affordable to me.
I’m going to give her the loan and invite her to walk over to the hamburger place near her home and apply for a minimum wage job. Really, her bills are so low now that a minimum wage job would do.
She’s gonna be angry, hurt, indignant, etc about this. She has a freaking PhD.
I want to know what happened to the $8,000 she cleared from her house 4 months ago. If she has it in the stock market, she does not need rent money from me- she can take it from there. If she lost it, this is further proof that she has a problem, does not know what she’s doing after 3-4 years of practice and should not be ‘playing the stocks’.
This is what she is doing : https://talkzilla.com/boards/board.aspx?board_id=4325&NextStart=76037
What the heck is this stuff?
I’m so sorry you’re still going through this, Ca3799. I don’t think you need to know about the house profits - I’d say the chances are about 99% certain that she gambled them away, since she obviously hasn’t addressed her gambling problem yet.
Do you really think these are loans you’re giving her now, not just plain old gifts?
Thank you.
She calls them loans, I don’t anticipate getting paid back.
I asked her about the profit from the house. She said it was only 4K and that she only put 2K into stocks, which she lost. She claims she still watches the stocks but does not have any money in them. This is probably true.
She was pretty unhappy with me when I left. Her rent is due and she’s short, so I paid her rent for February. I told her she needed to walk to one of the 45 businesses around her house (since her car is bad) to apply for a job- any kind of job. She needs about $350.00 to get the car fixed and about $1200.00 a month to get by.
She claims even the fast food joints won’t hire her because she’s too old, over educated, that they all make you apply online and that she can’t hide her over education or 3 years of unemployment, blah, blah, blah.etc. Of course, she has not actually tried.
She said the same for temp secretary work and that I just don’t appreciate how hard she has been trying. She claims to not have had one single response to her on-line job applications in her field. She had and interview recently that she hopes will pan out soon and she plans to attend 2 job fairs next week.
I told her there was no way I would allow myself to be this close to losing everything again without beating the streets and pointed out that she could pay her bills on a minimum wage job. How will she get to that possible future job that might pan out if she can’t drive her car?
She tried crying and being hurt and said that she didn’t feel I loved her or was being very supportive or understood how hard she is trying. I’m past this kind of manipulation.
In my view, it looks like she needs to set her sights lower and Get Any Kind Of Job That Will Pay Her Bills!
Being on her feet 8 hours a day at her age might not work out very well for very long, and fast food places do seem to trend towards to hiring younger workers, but you never know, I guess. A fast food job, particularly one you can walk to, has the added bonus of free meals on work days, a not inconsiderable benefit in these tight times.
Are there any optical shops (EyeMasters, LensCrafters, etc.) nearby? Those tend to pay reasonably well ($8-9/hr + commissions) and the employees are not on their feet the entire day. An older, educated lady might fit the bill even better than a young whippersnapper in a position like that. If they are not hiring for sales staff, she might consider applying for any lab openings they have, grinding the lenses. That pays more towards the $10/hr end of things, and again, the education might be an asset, if she’s spent any amount of time in a lab looking into a microscope. EyeMasters even gives their employees a free pair of eyeglasses once a year, which is a nice benefit for an older worker. Discounted eye exams, also. Some eyeglass shops allow their employees to wear scrubs to work, also, which is a very cost-effective way to go about things when it comes to work clothes. No fussing about with dry cleaning and updating your wardrobe every year.
Optical shops like that will also frequently have an on-site but separate optometrist office, that usually employ a staff of two or three receptionists/assistants that get paid in the $10/hr range. No reason that her age or education would play against her in a situation like that.
I have to wonder if she is sincere in her reported attempts to get a job. I’ve known quite a few people who have been on unemployment for a few years, and it took a terrible toll on them. They get so used to the lifestyle of not having a regular job that they were *very *resistive to the idea of going out and getting one. When I would show them an opening they would qualify for, they would always come up with a dozen excuses why they couldn’t do it. Only when there was no other option would they start applying.
At any rate, that only sounds like one of her problems. A more critical issue is that she doesn’t seem to be of sound mind. She needs therapy ASAP.
This thread is both sad and sobering. One of my wife’s friends is only 30, but is very much like this–theoretically smart and capable, but can’t manage her own life at all. Should be earning $50-60k, but is instead unemployed and not really trying very hard to get a job. Yuck. 
Good for you. Manipulation is exactly what it is, even though she doesn’t think so. Sounds like you’re finding an appropriate balance between disengaging with the bad behavior and trying to promote the good (and making sure she doesn’t wind up on the street). It’s not easy to deal with.
She needs $1200/mo on top of government assistance? That seems to be a lot for a single person living frugally. Does she live in an expensive area? Maybe she needs a roommate.
No, just 1200.00 total. She gets about 100 in TANF and about 400-500 in unemployment a month. The unemployment ends in February. She has managed to get on and off unemployment several times without working in between due to unemployment extensions. She needs 800 for rent. I did not give her all 800. She had about 500. She’s pretty frugal.
She needs therapy more than money at this point.
Why do you keep grilling her about where all her money went? You know blamed well where it went; it just annoys her and you when you ask. She doesn’t need lectures, either. She’s out of it. You’re just adding fuel to the fire.
I think you’re hallucinating. I’ll bet if you go and look at one of those jobs, you won’t find a 50+ year old woman doing any of them. And, just as a bonus, I’ll bet there aren’t any fast food jobs that give free meals.
I have read some doozies on this board, but this one takes the cake.
I really don’t know what I’d do if I were in either of your situations. It sounds like your sister is really messed-up emotionally. The death of the sister precipitated it, but I’m sure she was vulnerable to begin with. That’s sad, but her sadness shouldn’t be sucking you in.
Make her to look into “West at Home”. Google it and then forward the website to your sister. My sister works for this company and loves it. Think outsourcing except for Americans. If she can tolerate talking on the phone, she might be cut out for it.
You may want to think about being her financial guardian until she can prove herself. Tell her that if she doesn’t let you handle her money (like giving you exclusive control over her bank account, paying her bills, giving her an allowance, etc.), then you will no longer be able to tolerate the drama. Tell her that you love her tons, but seriously the madness must end. If she puts up a fight, warn her that she’s pushing you towards the edge of dropping out of her life forever. And be real serious about it. Ph.D or not, it’s clear she’s in over her head. She needs help, and if she’s not going to accept the help you’re willing to give her, then she needs to take care of herself. Or suffer by herself.
If she’s as lonely and desperate as she sounds, maybe this will kick some sense into her. If it doesn’t, I don’t know what else you can do. You’ve been a great sister. No one would fault you for throwing up your hands at this point.
All good advice here. She really does have to sink or swim on her own; helping her at this point (again) is enabling her, which I’m pretty sure you already know, Ca3799 - you seem pretty realistic about what’s going on with her. Is there a support group for people who have family members who have gambling problems? That might be the place to start. You want to help your sister, but it really seems like helping her again is just going to make her take even longer to reach rock-bottom, where she might start acknowledging that she needs to live her life differently.