The Caregiver & Dysfunctional Families: How are you doing?

My mother told me she is doing a Care Agreement document, getting it signed, witnessed, etc., but not having an attorney do it because, as is very typical for my mother, she doesn't see the point in spending the money when they can do a notarized doc all on their own.

I'm backing off, leaving it alone.

Just because your Mom said what she said about you being the one who knows the most about these things, does not obligate you to impart that knowledge.
It feels nice, now, doesn't it, to be a bit validated, at last?
That feeling will not last, and will somehow leave you saying: "Why did they treat me so bad?"
If your relationship with your Mom is only about this topic......think twice.

When was the last mother/daughter lunch out together you had?

Stick with Barb’s last 2 comments, Ali.

I oh-so-know know how hard it is to draw the line when parents groomed you to be their pinball.

Stay strong. And stay out of it.

Deliver concise, neutral, facts-only tips to both the trust and the elder care attorney.

Then no more.

(((((hugs)))))

Ali, your dad is competent and he's giving your mom money.

How does that come to be in your locus of control?

You can tell the trust about it, since they seem very interested in what happens to dad's money. You can alert the elder care attorney to it.

But that's as far as I would dip my toe in.

How do I not worry that she'll screw something really major up here? Medicaid fraud isn't something I think I can "detach" from here. It would be one thing if they were both doing this as a conscious thing, and I had to detach and let them make their choices, but my dad doesn't comprehend it... and honestly, I don't think my mom does, either. It's only a few hundred dollars, she's helping out every month, what's the harm... kind-of-thing.

I don't want to think about a bigger mess in the future, so I'm looking at this like -- fix the little mess now, permanently, by putting care plan and case manager in place.

Welp. This stinks. My brain is not wanting to sleep but I'm going to shut the laptop off and try to just sleep... and let a correct solution come to me over time. If I can see my way clear to leaving them all to themselves, I'll do that. If I think calling in the pros is the way to give myself peace of mind longterm, I'm going to do that. I'm not sure yet. Thanks bunches, so thankful for you guys, even when you say things I don't want to hear.  ;-) 

That is why you need to stay out of it, Ali. You cannot rescue them Ali. Detach.💓

This entire situation is bumming me out. I'm mad. I'm sad. I'm concerned.   

My father doesn't deserve to have his benefits revoked permanently because of my mom's actions, even if he does know what she's doing.  I don't think he's capable of understanding what could go wrong.  

My mom, for all her faults, isn't trying to "rob" my father in any way.  But she is a busybody FAR beyond what is healthy for ANYONE around her.  I think everyone, myself included, feels she's more than justified having a couple hundred dollars each month for her caregiving efforts.  She'd be "justified" in getting much more than that since she raised 3 children w/o the court ordered child support.  But I digress.   

Anything that happens will be through the Trust, a geriatric case manager, and the attorney.  I may turn this situation over to them, w/o saying exactly why I need them to craft a 5 year care plan.  And I'll tell older bro exactly why so he'll be on board.  

Don't "yell" at me, please.  I know you want what's best for me and I do, too.  I don't want anything to do with this circus but I'm not ok with allowing my mother to come up with any more bad ideas on her own, either.  Time to call in the experts and put a care plan - with a caregiving agreement - in place.
  

Ali, Ali, Ali.....

Ali; No. Just NO.

Not even ONE step back into dysfunction junction.

Your mom is attempting to tangle you back into the web. So that she can throw up her hands, blame you for all the problems and be happy with the drama she's created.

Stop the pattern. Here and now.

Oy vey. Nope, it never stops!

((((hugs, golden))))

thx for asking, becky. I am OK, Just lots of drama around here these days - granddaughter 14 going on 21 and has a boyfriend, dd back on the pills she needs which is good, R has major work issues, problems getting stuff delivered to mother, need to do my taxes... It doesn't stop does it?

Ali, send, Veronica and Golden have given you good advice. Stay away from the situation.
Golden, are you feeling okay? Hope so.

like guest and other said STAY AWAY. Even if you get a good plan lined up, your mother and father will screw it up. You can't fix your mother and father. Not your problem!!!

Oh Alli all I can say is follow the money. Mom and Dad have been divorced for forty years. There is no way she should be anywhere near Dad's money or care.
Mom thinks she has found the pot of gold and wants the key to unlock the box.

There will come a time, Ali, when you will be called upon (either by Mom or Medicaid) to
make a statement concerning what you knew about the monies your Mom is using.

That moment may be a simple conversation over the phone (with someone listening), when your Mom may say something like (with a bit of desperation in her voice):
"I used all the money for your Dad...right?" " I paid this, that, and the other thing, right?"
"I was helping your Dad, right?" [emphasis on the R i g h t ?].

You will somehow u n d e r s t a n d that if you say anything other than "YES", your Mom will be in big trouble, with your words to blame. So, faced with this, you may have to compromise the truth to protect Mom.

I do not recommend you allow anything to get to that point, and the gov't may be calling your Dad instead.

That is why, seeing how you are being pulled back in to the mix, and offering to help, "knowing more of what is transpiring", I recommend you no longer discuss your Mom's actions with her, and back way off. So you can even say: Since (today) I have stopped being Dad's caregiver, I do not know   a n y t h i n g    about what my Mom has done, I do not know anything about how my Dad was being cared for, etc.

It has been my experience that in a dysfunctional family, when the money gets funny, the perpetrator needs an accomplice. Protect yourself and don't take on that role.

Disclaimer: Not saying this is what is happening to you, but it could be.

I've been thinking about my father's situation. Maybe it's time to get him off Medicaid and SNAP, for now, and allow the Trust that is for his benefit (but is Medicaid exempt and otherwise doesn't disqualify him from things such as HUD housing) to give him money for groceries, if need be, and also he can go to VA for all his health care needs. That's what he's currently doing, is going to the local VA and not using Medicaid to pay for any medical coverage.

I do want to talk to the attorney about how best to proceed. There's no reason to not use the Trust money for his current care, and instead be receiving state benefits that he doesn't need at this time. He can reapply in future if need be and I don't want to risk future qualifying because he or my mom are being a little greedy here. I don't think they mean to be abusing benefits, and technically, they aren't, but also he doesn't need them at this time.

I'll talk to attorney, go from there. I am thinking I can get a plan in place that will work for the next 5 years or so, as long as there is no further medical crisis. My dad's in a good spot -- he has access to lots of help.

My head is a lot more clear about all of this now that I'm in a much better spot with my own health, emotional and physical and mental. I think it's time to figure out the plan for the next 5 years for my dad. I can do that. That's not too much and I'll sleep easier.

I imagine some of you may be saying to your screen "DON'T DO IT, ALI." lol Unfortunately, my two parents aren't good at this kind of thing, being organized and having a clear plan. I can wait and see if poop hits the fan in the future, or I can preempt any of that by outlining what the issue is to the Elder Care attorney, get her to help me craft a plan that is sound financially and legally.

Thank you, Guest. Big (((((hugs))))), I so appreciate the wise words that people contribute on this precious forum.

I know this, that this taking money every month without documentation in place is likely going to cause a problem, and I've tried to stress this to my mother. I don't know why she wouldn't go back to the area's Elder Care expert attorney that I've personally been to see several times, why she picked a new guy. And this "probably it's ok to take the money" doesn't wash with me, either. Either it is ok, or it is not ok.

There was a re-de very recently and supposedly, everything went fine. As you know, there are regular re-de's every year or so. I don't really know what more I can do that I haven't already done. I've already told my mother to go see the Elder Care expert attorney, the one who's written books and is the go-to expert on such things, the one who already has a file about my father's situation. I've already told my mother to get a proper Caregiving Agreement in place.

I've told her this money thing may come down very badly for both her and my dad. :-/

Edit:  I texted my mom just now.  I told her that I know she's busy right now with taxes and such but that in a month, to please go back to the Elder Care expert attorney (aka our family attorney) and get a Caregiving Agreement.  I have a feeling my words go into a vast nowhere.  But.  I try.  

Editing the Edit:  My mother called me and we chatted for a minute.  I told her that, if she wanted, I will book appointment with family Elder Care attorney around June 9, for when I come down for nephew's graduation, and will go in with her and my father to have a Caregiving Agreement done to protect both of them.  :-)  My mom, she's so funny/strange.  I said something along the lines of "we can have the expert attorney, our family attorney, handle this," and my mom said "yeah, she's the expert, that's why she gets people to give her all this money, why she charges so much money."  lol!  

First of all, my dad's trust will pay for the legal fees.  Second, this attorney billed me a whopping $116 for my last appointment with her.  Third, did I mention my mother is obsessed with money???  I just said "Well, you get what you pay for here."  

With a little luck, I'll get them into the Elder Care attorney in 2 months and get a Caregiving Agreement in place.  I don't mind participating in that, helping out with that, for one day if it means I have peace of mind that my mom and dad aren't going to be charged with Medicaid fraud!!  

Ali, if your father is getting SNAP or Medicaid, there will be a renewal. There will be a request for bank statements. If there are monthly withdrawals for cash, there will be a request for documentation. The money will surface. Your mother who is NOT organized won't have any documentation. A lawyer doesn't say Probably OK without lots of hereto's and wherefore's. Do you really think that Mom asked a lawyer and got a paid-for opinion elder certified and experienced in Medicaid and state aid or asked free consult and got what was paid for? A free consult is NOT considered advice that you can take a lawyer to court over in most cases if you get nailed by Medicaid for risky behavior. We here on this thread know you and really want you to succeed and be happy away from the drama. STAY AWAY. STAY FAR AWAY!!! Your family's pattern is to screw it up and expect you to fix. Talk to your therapist or us. D O N O T GO THERE.

Guest, I think you've hit the truth of the matter. My mom has a lifelong habit of needing drama and distraction in her life. I suspect it's part of a mental or personality disorder. It helps me to understand that she has a NEED to keep things churned up some.

Also, you're right that she thinks I'll help sort things out. That seems to be why she called, asking me some questions, said something like "You, Ali, know more than anyone else does about this."

Neither my mother or older bro knows much about what POA duties would entail. Also it's a moot point because my father won't give POA, and now mom knows that when the time comes, someone (my older bro raised his hand for this job years ago and I will attempt to hold him to it) will need to get guardianship. But we're not there yet. I asked my mom if dad is failing any ADLs right now. She asked me "what's that?" I told her about ADLs and how competency will be determined. She said "He loses his breath when he walks." And I said "That's due to COPD but it doesn't show incompetency."

CM, you're right that my mother and father both don't understand what a POA does. Mom is already taking money monthly out of his account, with his permission. And I asked her what the new attorney thought of that and she said that attorney thought it would be ok as long as she spent the money towards her caregiving expenses. I told mom to get a Caregiving Agreement in place, then. But I doubt she will do that at this point. It will take a bit longer, perhaps something semi-bad will happen (like a request for financial documents by Medicaid or SNAP where the missing money is noticed or mentioned) and then maybe she will get more of the ducks in a row.

The root of the issue is this: neither one of my bros wants any added responsibility with my father right now. The older one is spread too thin with his work and own family and the younger one wants nothing to do with it, saying (rightfully so imho) that our father did nothing for him when he was a child and younger bro doesn't want to do anything for father now. I respect that.

So there is this wide opening for my mom to get completely enmeshed, to do whatever she wants to do. And, in the end, I'm mostly just glad that someone is there for my dad but... that could easily be hired help. But he and my mom won't allow it, saying it's too expensive even though there is plenty of money to hire someone a few days per week, even 1 day per week.

So here is my mom, taking my father to attorney, and telling me how she's going to get "health representative" status for him with the VA. That's fine. She likes the distraction, she likes to feel needed, I think.

Honestly, they could both go on for many years in this pattern and I don't think it's going to be the death of either of them. It mostly strikes me as so silly that my mom takes on these things as she does. But... her life, her choices.

They've been divorced over 40 years at this point. They haven't lived together in any of that time, or even communicated all that much. My paternal grandmother mostly took care of my father, housing him and driving him to places when needed. My dad has an old brain injury and for that reason or others, he's low functioning but not mentally incompetent.

My mother raised her 3 kids by him in her home city, relying on her family's support to be able to house us. My father never paid child support or showed interest in being a father. My mother SHOULD know by now that getting enmeshed with my father isn't what's good for her, that it will be a drag on her own life and resources. My mother is a bit obsessed with money, even very small amounts of it. It's quite weird to me because she has always had a humble lifestyle, and gives tithes every week and does other volunteer work that costs her time off work and her own money, so I don't understand the obsession. But I mention this because I think my mom is very much liking that she gets several hundred dollars a month out of my dad's account and squirrels it away. She's mentioned it to me in person too many times for it to not be a main focus for her. She was also, some of you may recall, obsessed with what I was possibly spending for upkeep of the house when my dad and I were living in one household. She caused a lot of problems by triangulating my bro, saying he wanted to see bank statements when it was really her. One of the first things she did when my dad was moved to her city was to take him into the bank and have the accounts changed where I couldn't even view if his phone was being paid. She's a weird one about money.

Her phone call yesterday set me off for about an hour, I was feeling a little frazzled. But I'm fine and "it is what it is." I do think my mom, dad, and older bro all have this ability to cause a small PTSD-type reaction in me. My mom causing chaos in this way reminds me of how much chaos was in my childhood and I just feel BAD after having this conversation with her. But, moving on. And thanks, Send and Sharyn and others for the supportive words.  Thanks for reading my vent and knowing it really just comes down to "crazy families be crazy." 

Dori, happy you feel at home amongst the DYS thread, haha. We're all perfectly normal here even when we're not. lol

Ali, remember that some people love to be the center of the psychic storm. Your mother being POA for your father would put her back in the storm. She also thinks that YOU will be available to fix anything that mother messes up as you did before. Just smile and leave them to their own mess. At least you are out of house, safely living separately from father, and father is in supervised housing. Good for you!!!

Ali - nothing wrong with "nuts" as a descriptive. Not your circus....not your circus peanuts. ;-)

CM - I like Barb's suggestion for a quick note. Do you think it might be worth messaging the stepmom anyway? My stepmom wielded considerable influence over my father....certainly more than my mother did!

Lordy (sorry, that is one of my fave words ever since Comey testified), I feel so much closer to "normal" when I come in this thread....

I've been describing my brother's visit to a couple of friends, and I've been getting very wide-eyed stares in return. Best guy friend thought I wouldn't be cooking for him this week, since I must be exhausted from cooking for my brother all weekend. HA HA HA, no. Bro never ate with us once. Even BFF found that a little strange, and she definitely comes from dysfunction junction. I've been trying to explain my family to my friends for years, but I think they might actually be starting to believe me.

Ali, sometimes I think it’s much more interesting being on the outside than in the midst of.

Crazy dysfunctional families.

Ali has moved on from caregiving to taking care of her life, good job Ali!
It shows other caregivers how life works.
Sorry that the circus and the monkeys keep showing up.
Shake it off...

I think you're being quite charitable, Ali.

What did your mother think she would be doing with the POA if she'd got it? Bless her, I'm sure she means well, but I'll bet she's thinking it means "power over another" as so many mistakenly do.

If it leads to a conversation, can you maybe get her to say what she is worried about, exactly? What does she want POA for?

Maybe "nuts" isn't the right word. They have a double standard of what was expected of me, and now things are different. Why did they have to treat me so badly? :-( I think they all understand NOW that I was only trying to help out the best I knew how. My mother said as much. And my older bro who wanted to be POA is the reason WHY my dad won't give POA -- because older bro scared him off and my dad has never recovered.

lol

What a bunch of silliness. Meanwhile, everyone is fine, and the only issue is that my mom is meddling in a way that's going to cause some problems. But. Whatever. They all deserve each other. lol  And of course I still love them and I'm a flawed person, too, I'm not "above it all."  Just... weird how end of life planning for my father is bringing out things in my family dynamic.  

Hrmph.

Whew. I'm going to be a little late for work today, I think. My mom texted me that she took my father to a new attorney and tried to get POA. She didn't get it because as I've told her and others for many years now, my father is scared of giving POA to anyone. I advised her that trying to get POA without talking to her kids, his kids, was probably not something that would go over well, anyway.

My mother. My poor, silly, drama-creating mother.

She asked me where the trust documents are and I told her they are compiled and stored at older bro's house... and if she wanted to review them, to PLEASE return them, and not to take off with them.

She started crying at the end of our conversation, she says she is "stressed." I asked her why she wanted to take on the task of caring for my father when she had her own life to look after, and also, he is doing fine and as far as I can tell, while he is simple minded in some ways he is very far from a diagnosis of incompetency.

Welp.

It's really no big deal. My mom just has a way of creating new disorder where everything is going fine. She's human, and flawed, and has a good heart... so I try to overlook how silly she is.

I did have a moment of self indulgence where I reminded her that... upon arrival at my grandmother's house in 2011, I was thrown into the middle of a situation I was unprepared for, an ongoing APS investigation into physical abuse by my father. I had NO IDEA at that time what that meant. I did the best I could to keep my family together when claims of abuse were made, eviction papers filed against my father. I paid a lot of money to get guardianship of my grandmother but she died before I could go to court.

And my family - mom and bros - were VICIOUS about telling me that it was my duty to keep them informed of everything, as if I was trying to take over something. I wasn't trying to take over, I was just unprepared for all that was going on and was darn determined to protect my grandmother and my father. My family really treated me badly during that time. I had no one to turn to, and everyone said it was "my fault" that things were going badly, that I was to blame.

Those days are long past... but when my mother tells me after the fact that she took my father to get POA and didn't even bother to mention ahead of time to me... I just am reminded anew of the kind of crazy dysfunction that happens in my family. What happened to all this demand that things be discussed first???? My older bro had me take multiple trips to his city, with paperwork in hand, to have "family meetings" to keep him in the loop about things with my dad.

Now... it's like everyone realizes that I did a good job cleaning up the loose ends, my dad lives in a senior HUD building that I had to fight all of them (except my dad, he was willing to give it a try) to "allow" me to get him into... and everything is going so well.

And then I get this text and phone call from my mom.

Can't leave well enough alone.

That's ok. It's not my circus anymore, but it did remind me quite viscerally of WHY IT WAS SO NUTS FOR SO LONG.

My family is nuts. That is all. Thanks for letting me vent, I have to run off to work.

That's the right tone, Barb. I'll have to wait 'til the steam stops coming out of my ears, though! Grrrrr!

I might send him an email saying that it's a shame he's going to miss this important milestone and that she seems quite disappointed that he won't be attending. And leave it there.

It is, isn't it? It's not me being hypercritical or her being oversensitive, is it?

Honestly, for two pins I'd call him up and ask:

Is it because..?

her achievement is not important to you
you believe your participation is not important to her
her passing this three-stage examination with its 87% failure rate at the first attempt is not remarkable
you cannot be expected to travel 70 miles unassisted at three months' notice

I could offer to pay for a cab. He might suspect me of being sarcastic. He might be dead right.

Concrete-afficionado BF sensibly advised DD not to let it spoil things. Glad's point about not being able to make somebody love you the way you want them to very much applies. But all the same, if telling him "you really are complete crap as a father, you know" would accomplish anything useful I'd be the first to volunteer.

I don't know what Stepmother thinks, if she's even been consulted. But given that she's had to put up with the man for over twenty years I wouldn't dream of giving her more issues to deal with.

DD2, at the other extreme, has avoided potential disappointment by avoiding formal graduation. It is a condition at her place of study, Ex's alma mater, that students settle their accommodation bills first; which she could not be arsed to organise then and still hasn't ten years later. It would amuse me mightily to think of Ex wondering why he was never invited to the ceremony, and continuing to wonder until he gets billed for the compound interest.

You ladies are so nice to volunteer your time! :-)

CM - 3rd graduation or not, that's just really sh***y of your ex.