Of course as many here know, I have said that before and I "went on."
Shes been wanting to move to a senior living, so finally in July started renting a unit, even though she was not ready to move by any stretch of the imagination. I think the director kind of cowed her into thinking if she didn't take her turn in line now, it could be many months before there was another opening. So she has spent now 3 months of rent, at 2200 a month, and is now on the hook for at least one more, though she has not only not moved, she is not making any effort to move or get her house ready for sale. She will not pack up stuff, I have tried to do it for her, she gets temper tantrums, once when an out of town brother came we cleaned out all the junk in the basement (and I really mean junk) and we were going to haul it away in my SUV and she caught us and demanded it be returned so she could go through it. It's still sitting there in the garage. I have tried to make a mother son team building exercise out of it, trying to generate lists of things, which will go where, she gets a panic attack and says not now.
She is demanding, unappreciative, critical of me, but I have told you all that before. She is not rich, but can absorb this loss for now, but who wants to see 8K of your family's money squandered away. She is unable to make decisions, which is why she can't pack. Yet she broke her pelvis in April, is healed up now, and the other day started sweeping leaves off a driveway with an incline. I told her she cannot be doing that, she will fall, she needs to pack inside. She says I am not coming over to take care of leaves. I said yes, I am not going to come over every day and dispose of leaves from day before, she has to put up with a few leaves until we do serious raking. I think the leaves is a distraction from what she needs to be doing. I do understand its hard to pack up to leave a house you have been in 60 years, but SHE is the one who wanted to do it. My brothers suggested staying there, and we will help out but SHE wanted to move, yet is paying 2200/month, not living there, nor doing anything to move. My dad died in April of 2018, was such a gem of a guy, (too much, he put up with her nutty behavior rather than confronting it years ago, my one brother says he did not have ALZ, he said anyones system would fry after 63 years with my mom. I laughed, and in his mind he is not joking, who could put up with it?). So after a few months, about a year ago I suggested she pack up one box of goods and one garbage bag of junk every week, thus in a year it would all be done while not having to do a lot at one time. But she has done NOTHING.
We finally got her to go to a pscyh PA who prescribed Gabapentin, don't know if that's a good choice but my mom wont take that or any other psych drug anyway, and a therapist who sort of blamed it on me as she saw my exasperated nature with my mom, saying how that increases my mom's anxiety. If only that was the problem.
I set up her pill boxes every week, then come there and note say the day befores is still in there. She said she took from another day. I said the other days are full too, but even so, take it from the RIGHT day.
My out of town brother emailed the senior apartment today and said we will be issuing our 30 day cancellation notice by the end of this month if she is not moved in. This to stop the bleeding, she will have spent 9 grand or so and never lived there. Don't know what to do anymore, and my own health is suffering as result.
I was researching gabapentin this morning re my mom's dosage and don't remember seeing it being used for psych reasons. Maybe I missed it but seems like an odd choice. It's more normally used for controlling seizures and for nerve pain but has many off label uses.
Anyhow, if you want her to move, maybe just move her in with minimal stuff from her house? Does she drive, as in would she be able to get back to her home on her own? Is she at a point where someone needs to have a POA kick in to have a little more control over the situation?
She would go nuts if she said we had to go to AL, but so what. The campus where the independent living is also has an AL facility. Our strategy had been to get her into IL, sort of to get her into the system, then if the staff eventually sees it is not working they can recommend to us she move to AL.
Don't connect clearing out of her home with her moving.
Have you considered, seriously, walking away and letting her get along on her own?
She is not going to get better, this is the best it's going to get. We moved my brothers father and his wife into AL, then we cleaned out the house and put it up for sale, of coarse Pops agreed to everything, his wife was upset but in a few days she forgot all about it, couldn't even remember what was in the house.
We always thought of my parents' money as being there for their care. We never considered it "wasted" if it was providing care.
We did not consider what my dad would have thought about anything. He always told my mom never to move out of the house, but that was bad advice.
He was dead, we were taking good care of mom, basing our decisions on mom's financial situation and legal advice.
We had better information than he had. And he was dead; dead folks don't get a vote in my family.
If you are asking why your mom doesn't behave like a rational person, one who connects actions with consequences, one who refuses to do what is in her own best interest, then you need to be seeing someone who can explain mental illness to you more effectively than we can.
In my worldview, therapy is what us sane folks need to be able to cope with the insane people in our lives. Welcome to the club. ((((Hugs))))))
Why would someone who broke their pelvis by a fall be in a steep driveway trying to sweep up leaves when the leaves DONT MATTER. She could fall again, then what? Why doesn't she take her pills on the right day?
If we had asked mom to pack, she would have become overwhelmed and nothing would have happened. We were businesslike and cheerful and simply took mom to the new place with a weeks worth of clothes and toiletries. Brother did a grocery run and that was it.
If this cant be managed with your mom "Hi mom, this is Karsten. I'm taking you over to Farmville at 11 am today. ". Just show up and get her in the car.
If this can't be managed, just leave her to her own devices.
I appreciate all the answers. My mom is a hoarder, yes, but also OCD, and when I have described her here before a narcissist. Though I have never considered her very flamboyant, though people say there are over and covert narcissists. THough I think that is the diagnosid du jour these days.
I will say I am sick with a cold, and she called me to come over and do something for her. I was hacking away coughing (not an act, really had to cough) and it did not occur to her that maybe today was not a good day to ask for help. Its ALL about her, she doesn't seem to consider others. Wait, she does with her other friends and relative, but not with me. I am like her pu nching bag, whipping post, whatever you want to call it, even though I do more for her than anyone.
Today she told me she could stay overnight there sometimes then home the other times. I am not going to go shuttle her back and forth all the time. She asks how she will pack after she moves? I said she will not, another brother and I will do that and we will not do that if she is looking over our shoulders all the time, in which event nothing would get done.
Maybe I should not be worrying about the money being wasted in meanwhile, it is her money and it doesn't effect me direct, but how long could this go on? My dad would be spinning in his grave realizing how much money is being wasted, and I always sort of have an allegiance to my dad, even though his passiveness with my mom helped create her.
Does this place provide meals?
Karsten, your mother is mentally ill. She needs, minimally, an Assisted Living place that does medication management and that has a psych doctor who comes in once a week to visit.
If you can't get your mother moved into this new place with her clothes and toiletries by week's end, take a big step back and let your mother manage her own life.
You are simply going to have to wait for the event that puts her in a nursing home. This is HER CHOICE. Stop enabling her craziness.
How about if you and your mom go to the new place and have a sleepover...for fun? With just basic stuff, which you will leave there.
It would be an added bonus if she could make a friend at the new place while you’re visiting. After all, that’s all new and foreign to her, while her stuff and her house give her comfort.
Since you said it was her idea in the first place, it may be that she really does want to go but she is torn by the attachment to her stuff.
All that stuff represents her old life, her old self, she may even fear getting rid of it.
If you could particularly find a way of preserving her memories, she may be more agreeable to letting loose of the junk, and may even appreciate taking the weight of that load off her shoulders.
Good luck to you all, keep smiling if you possibly can...
Charlotte
Katie is right....your mom is a hoarder and not likely to get rid of ANYTHING in her home. She's not likely to move out, either, because she'll have to leave the majority of Her Stuff and it's that Stuff which brings her comfort and helps reduce her anxiety. Hoarding is an anxiety disorder. She can't make decisions about what to take and what to get rid of or save, because it's ALL treasure, it's ALL important, and she can't part with, or live without, ANY of it. The very thought of dealing with it paralyzes her and puts her anxiety thru the
Barb is right, in that your mom doesn't need to do anything except move into her new apartment with some clothing and toiletries, but see above to explain why she probably won't do so.
Sigh.
What a mess.
Step back and leave her alone in the hoard of her house until and unless she's truly ready to accept lots of help to tackle it. AFTER she's sorted thru all the junk and gotten rid of the vast majority, THEN you can think about getting her house sold and her into a senior apartment. Until and unless that happens, I think it's just a pipe dream.
Best of luck.
your mom is a hoarder, and until she hit bottom, she will not change. You need to accept this and leave her to her piles of junk.
Have her cancel the senior living apartment...she isn't going to move.
Time to move on with your life, and wait till the day that the life altering event happens to her. Otherwise, you are stuck in this same ole routine, round and round with nothing changing.
Why does anyone think mom needs to do anything other than simply move onto her new unit with her clothes and toiletries?
All else is commentary and can wait.