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elaine1962 Asked June 2020

How do you handle a LO who is living at home alone during this pandemic? Also, I’m still waiting for a crisis to happen.

I’ve been on this site since last September and I’m still waiting for a crisis to happen so she can go into a facility. My mother is almost 96 years old, lives alone in her house. She is a hoarder, and also a gambling addict. She spent all of my fathers retirement money. She lives in a hoarder mess. She sleeps in a folding chair in the bathroom. I have called APS a few times. I have called her doctor. I have talked to social workers at the hospital. They all told me the same thing. As long as she is competent there is nothing that can be done. She won’t bathe or wash her hair. She has been in the same clothes for as long as I can remember. She looks like a homeless person. She won’t let me or anybody help her. She has undiagnosed mental illness. Now she really won’t go to a facility with this pandemic. How do you cope? I only go once a week and my son sees her 3 times a week to bring in the mail, take out garbage and go grocery shopping. I don’t call her anymore because it’s always an argument. She’s sweet as pie to my husband and her grandsons. Her feet look awful. She won’t go to the podiatrist. Since the end of March she hasn’t been to the hospital at all. Before March she was a regular at the ER once or twice a week. She mainly was there for anxiety or panic attacks. Funny how she hasn’t called 911 at all since March. I would be she has some type of undiagnosed borderline personality disorder. I have been talking to a therapist which has helped. I just wondered what other people do about coping and waiting for a “crisis” to happen. The last time I spoke to APS they told me to call them back if she was still competent but unable to walk and wheelchair bound.

elaine1962 Jun 2020
Nydaughternlaw, you are so right. There is no sense worrying about this. I can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped. I asked her yesterday before we got into an argument if she knew who wrote the star spangled banner? She said of course, Francis Scott Key! Good grief, is there anything she doesn’t remember??

NYDaughterInLaw Jun 2020
You need to be patient. The trick to waiting for a crisis is to live your life while you are waiting and not to be wringing your hands over your mother's living conditions and her decisions to live that way. She is who she is and at 96, she's certainly not going to change now.

Also, worrying is useless and wasted energy on your part. Dalai Lama says that there is no need to worry about a problem that has a solution and if a problem does not have a solution there is no help in worrying. Basically there is absolutely no benefit to worrying.

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elaine1962 Jun 2020
Thank you. I guess I just needed to hear it. I was at my mothers yesterday and she refused to give me her coat to take to the tailor to have a button put on. She had been complaining that she needed to take her coat to the tailer to have a button sewed on and in the same breath wasn’t going out because of the pandemic. When I went to her house Sunday she said ok when I offered to take her coat to the tailer. I figured do it now while it’s 90 degrees and she doesn’t need her coat. It just escalated so I left. She told me “don’t come over anymore “ as I was walking out the door.

JoAnn29 Jun 2020
Not sure if APS is doing anything wrong. I have a friend who worked for the Health dept. She has seen some awful stuff but the bottom line is, if they are competent to make their own decisions, there is food in the house and utilities are being paid, then they can live the way they want.

The one thing that will usually have APS do anything, is no running water. A person cannot live in a home/apt without water. It now becomes a health issue.

Daughterof1930 Jun 2020
Elaine, I’ve followed your situation with your mom, what a heartache! IMO, APS has failed her badly, your mom is already in crisis, and for an agency designed to protect people to deny that is just unreal. I think you’re coping very well, it likely may not feel like it while you’re watching nothing get better for your mom and feeling the frustration of that, but you’ve done all the right steps. You’ve put needed distance, you’ve reported to everyone possible seeking help, and you’ve sought help for yourself. My dad isn’t mentally ill or a hoarder, but he’s chosen to live alone far beyond when it was a good idea. He’s been given the illusion of independence though he knows he couldn’t be there without help. And now he’s in at home hospice, a whole new world where care decisions are constant. I wish us both peace in this. But really, you’re doing well in an impossible mess

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