Wednesday is visitation day at the Care Center. The Care Center is where my mother lives. She is rated for nursing home care, she is not rated for assisted living or living on her own.
She came to live at the Care Center over two years ago when she clicked her lifeline button and got an ambulance to come and pick her up on the pretense that she was having a heart attack. Needless to say there was no heart attack. I got a call from a woman who lives in mother's hometown because she thought mother should have a family member at the hospital. I went to the hospital and there was mother trying to get a diagnosis of just about anything to get attention. I had been on a ten day vacation, my sister had been on a vacation, and the sister was out of town with a friend. Mother desperately needed attention, and you might say we should have given her attention; and you might be right except for the fact that mother is a raging narcissist and has been diagnosed with BiPolar. This was just one more try at manipulation to get us to "make her happy".
So I talked with the doctor and she wrote anxiety attack on the chart and signed mother into the hospital overnight. Mother continually said she was not going back home. She had signed herself up for title 19 a few years before this so all that paperwork was already in place. I got in touch with the Care Center and they sent a person to talk with mother. The doctor also talked with her and she decided she would try out the nursing home. So when she was released from the hospital the next day I drove her straight to the nursing home. They talked to her again, she signed the papers, and off to a room she went. She was also put on various anxiety and depression medication.
Mother still had the cell phone the other daughter was paying for so she started the calls. Three or four times a day, emergencies galore. After about a week or so a meeting was set up with the staff to assess where mother was in treatment or rehab. Blindside! She had told them we were mistreating her and she was a poor woman with nasty daughters who were out to take all her money and possessions. The other daughter walked out. I sat there laughing; I couldn't believe she had tried to use the nursing home staff to get us to take care of her. I left and became very cautious about any communication with the staff. I knew what was going on but didn't quite know what to do about it.
The first month we visited regularly, together (sister and I) and alone. Within that month I spent more time on mother's problems then on anything else in my life. My husband finally asked me when I was going to be his partner again. It was bad. She had me stopping before work, after work, spending all Saturday with her and most of Sunday. One of those Sundays I realized mother was so doped up that she didn't know where she was. During this time I was getting calls from mother and the staff who were trying to figure mother out. Mother got so frustrated at one point that she called 911 and told them she was being held prisoner. She was mean and nasty to her children, I mean really nasty. Nasty enough that it was like we were little and she was getting ready to go off the deep end and start smacking people. She accused us of "putting" her in that place which she said was terrible.
The nursing home started seeing what they were really dealing with and their attitudes improved towards us. We also got her to the doctor and got her medications straightened out which turned out to be not such a good thing because then she became nastier. But through all of this she kept up with the idea that she didn't want to go home to the house she owned outright. I truly believe she thought one of us would take her in and let her dominate our lives forever. We both thought we had good boundaries as concerned mother, we found out there is no such thing as a boundary with this woman. She wanted every minute of every day devoted to her care because she gave birth to us and we owed her.
The other daughter is the power of attorney and I am the durable power of attorney. So at least that was taken care of beforehand. When she signed up for title 19 her house became the property of the state it had to be cleaned out, sold, and the money used for her upkeep until it was gone. So we got to cleaning because she was getting kicked off of title 19 until the house and car were sold. It took us a month of after work and weekend cleaning to get things ready for the auction. Mother kept talking about the nice little house or apartment she was going to get with the proceeds of the sale. By this time she was rated as full care, which she scoffed at while not doing any therapy or rehab to be qualified to live in assisted living or on her own.
We had several meetings with the staff at the care center about mother's behaviors during this time, it was just always something. She called the lawyer and wanted us removed from power of attorney and durable. She called a used car salesman to try and borrow a car. She got into a fight with a roommate, yes a fight. She hit a staff member. She decided she was going to get us to step up and take care of her by using the care center staff; she thought that if she got herself evicted we would have to do something with her.
The staff took her phone away after the 911 incident. They also talked us into instituting a list of people who could take her out of the nursing home because she has a tendency to buy aspirin and stool softener any time she gets in a store. She is not allowed to have these things in her room because of her own tendency to overtake medications and for the safety of the other residents. After the house was sold and all the proceeds accounted for and several months of care paid mother went back on title 19. We also instituted the visit together rule. If we only go together she cannot talk bad about the one that isn't there and we can protect each other from her manipulations.
She has been there a little over two years and has countless emergencies, countless run-ins with the staff, and gone through 9 roommates. Yes 9 roommates. She asked one of them when they were going to die because she was sick of listening to them breath. When asked what her favorite holiday was she told them it was her birthday…..LOL!
So anyway we started going to visitation on Wednesdays, and I have grown to hate Wednesdays. I feel the need to make sure mother is taken care of, I just don't feel the need to do it much myself. I can detach and not let it bother me until Wednesday, and then the dread starts building around noon and gets increasingly greater until the other daughter shows up and its go time.
Finding things to talk about for an hour is terrible. We cannot talk about anything we might be going to do or anything we have done because mother invites herself along or gets mad that we did something without her. I don't trust her with any information she can twist and use against me or the staff members. I tried having her at my house for Sunday lunch and she said inappropriate things to my grandchildren because they were getting more attention than she was. She made one of them cry uncontrollably by squeezing his arm and telling him under her breath he was a naughty boy. I just caught the tail end of that one. That was the last Sunday lunch at my house for mother.
She lies without pause, she manipulates so well that I feel the need to be hyper-vigilant, and she changes the past to suit her purposes. And today is Wednesday again and I feel like a really big ***** because I hate Wednesday visitation. Help..........
She came to live at the Care Center over two years ago when she clicked her lifeline button and got an ambulance to come and pick her up on the pretense that she was having a heart attack. Needless to say there was no heart attack. I got a call from a woman who lives in mother's hometown because she thought mother should have a family member at the hospital. I went to the hospital and there was mother trying to get a diagnosis of just about anything to get attention. I had been on a ten day vacation, my sister had been on a vacation, and the sister was out of town with a friend. Mother desperately needed attention, and you might say we should have given her attention; and you might be right except for the fact that mother is a raging narcissist and has been diagnosed with BiPolar. This was just one more try at manipulation to get us to "make her happy".
So I talked with the doctor and she wrote anxiety attack on the chart and signed mother into the hospital overnight. Mother continually said she was not going back home. She had signed herself up for title 19 a few years before this so all that paperwork was already in place. I got in touch with the Care Center and they sent a person to talk with mother. The doctor also talked with her and she decided she would try out the nursing home. So when she was released from the hospital the next day I drove her straight to the nursing home. They talked to her again, she signed the papers, and off to a room she went. She was also put on various anxiety and depression medication.
Mother still had the cell phone the other daughter was paying for so she started the calls. Three or four times a day, emergencies galore. After about a week or so a meeting was set up with the staff to assess where mother was in treatment or rehab. Blindside! She had told them we were mistreating her and she was a poor woman with nasty daughters who were out to take all her money and possessions. The other daughter walked out. I sat there laughing; I couldn't believe she had tried to use the nursing home staff to get us to take care of her. I left and became very cautious about any communication with the staff. I knew what was going on but didn't quite know what to do about it.
The first month we visited regularly, together (sister and I) and alone. Within that month I spent more time on mother's problems then on anything else in my life. My husband finally asked me when I was going to be his partner again. It was bad. She had me stopping before work, after work, spending all Saturday with her and most of Sunday. One of those Sundays I realized mother was so doped up that she didn't know where she was. During this time I was getting calls from mother and the staff who were trying to figure mother out. Mother got so frustrated at one point that she called 911 and told them she was being held prisoner. She was mean and nasty to her children, I mean really nasty. Nasty enough that it was like we were little and she was getting ready to go off the deep end and start smacking people. She accused us of "putting" her in that place which she said was terrible.
The nursing home started seeing what they were really dealing with and their attitudes improved towards us. We also got her to the doctor and got her medications straightened out which turned out to be not such a good thing because then she became nastier. But through all of this she kept up with the idea that she didn't want to go home to the house she owned outright. I truly believe she thought one of us would take her in and let her dominate our lives forever. We both thought we had good boundaries as concerned mother, we found out there is no such thing as a boundary with this woman. She wanted every minute of every day devoted to her care because she gave birth to us and we owed her.
The other daughter is the power of attorney and I am the durable power of attorney. So at least that was taken care of beforehand. When she signed up for title 19 her house became the property of the state it had to be cleaned out, sold, and the money used for her upkeep until it was gone. So we got to cleaning because she was getting kicked off of title 19 until the house and car were sold. It took us a month of after work and weekend cleaning to get things ready for the auction. Mother kept talking about the nice little house or apartment she was going to get with the proceeds of the sale. By this time she was rated as full care, which she scoffed at while not doing any therapy or rehab to be qualified to live in assisted living or on her own.
We had several meetings with the staff at the care center about mother's behaviors during this time, it was just always something. She called the lawyer and wanted us removed from power of attorney and durable. She called a used car salesman to try and borrow a car. She got into a fight with a roommate, yes a fight. She hit a staff member. She decided she was going to get us to step up and take care of her by using the care center staff; she thought that if she got herself evicted we would have to do something with her.
The staff took her phone away after the 911 incident. They also talked us into instituting a list of people who could take her out of the nursing home because she has a tendency to buy aspirin and stool softener any time she gets in a store. She is not allowed to have these things in her room because of her own tendency to overtake medications and for the safety of the other residents. After the house was sold and all the proceeds accounted for and several months of care paid mother went back on title 19. We also instituted the visit together rule. If we only go together she cannot talk bad about the one that isn't there and we can protect each other from her manipulations.
She has been there a little over two years and has countless emergencies, countless run-ins with the staff, and gone through 9 roommates. Yes 9 roommates. She asked one of them when they were going to die because she was sick of listening to them breath. When asked what her favorite holiday was she told them it was her birthday…..LOL!
So anyway we started going to visitation on Wednesdays, and I have grown to hate Wednesdays. I feel the need to make sure mother is taken care of, I just don't feel the need to do it much myself. I can detach and not let it bother me until Wednesday, and then the dread starts building around noon and gets increasingly greater until the other daughter shows up and its go time.
Finding things to talk about for an hour is terrible. We cannot talk about anything we might be going to do or anything we have done because mother invites herself along or gets mad that we did something without her. I don't trust her with any information she can twist and use against me or the staff members. I tried having her at my house for Sunday lunch and she said inappropriate things to my grandchildren because they were getting more attention than she was. She made one of them cry uncontrollably by squeezing his arm and telling him under her breath he was a naughty boy. I just caught the tail end of that one. That was the last Sunday lunch at my house for mother.
She lies without pause, she manipulates so well that I feel the need to be hyper-vigilant, and she changes the past to suit her purposes. And today is Wednesday again and I feel like a really big ***** because I hate Wednesday visitation. Help..........
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