89 y.o. mother has paranoid delusions. She has had a delusional fantasy life for 40+ years, though no one knew. She worked as a public school teacher 25 years, and appeared to function normally.
But now she is isolated at home because of retirement, and esp now Covid. She has alienated all friends & family; her only relationships are occasional Hallmark cards from old friends, far away.
When she misplaces something--TV remote, reading glasses--she immediately assumes someone stole it. She is now angrily confronting neighbors.
The co-op mgmt is trying to help me get help for her: at a minimum, for instance, home health aide to keep her company, keep her distracted.
Obstacle is that one of the characteristics of her mental illness is the strong belief she needs no help--everyone else is sick. So to keep her from being evicted, she has to be forced to accept help.
The co-op mgmt sent me an email describing her latest confrontation of a neighbor, and suggested attorney Lorraine Coyle.
Does anyone have experience working with this attorney?
Can anyone recommend a skilled expert in Elder Law in the NYC area?
Is this area close to you? If not, call them up and they will refer you.
NAMI NYC
505 Eighth Avenue, Suite 1103
New York, NY 10018-4541
Administration: 212-684-3365
Our Helpline: 212-684-3264
There are peer 'volunteers' paid a stipend to spend some time doing healthy things with a person experiencing an exacerbation of mental illness. These visits helped my neighbor (with a chronic mental illness), so she was not alone.
She was additionally challenged by a husband who "went off" on people, threatened to kill authorities in high political places, would rant bizzare things.
My neighbor had family come and remover her from her home when and if things got more volatile. She would feel better after a 2 week respite at her family's home. The couple has remained in the community for over ten years, never caused harm to anyone. These issues can be managed, although scary for her family.
If an attorney is needed, (maybe to write a letter to management) to secure her rights as a tenant, Nami can refer you.
You need to, as an advocate for your Mom, be on her side, keeping things confidential from management and the neighbors. Not too much discussion about "Mom". During Covid, evictions have been up for a lot of discussions and have been put on hold by city/county governments.
Your Mom's behavior sounds a lot like a dementia, when you mention she thinks people are stealing from her. My dH has a mother who has been talking like this for many years. Has home help. Then fires them, thinking they have stolen from her. It may come to the time she needs to be institutionalized and receive more care. But she has many cats, a clean home, and home care aid visits.
My advice:
1) Take Mom out on many small vacations, maybe over night.
2) Get her to see her doctor, giving him the information. She has a Geriatric Psychiatrist?
3) Keep a low profile as you document the situation. Be Mom's advocate.
4) Educate yourself more by calling NAMI, family classes online is where you will be able to disclose what you are dealing with.
5) If you must bow out to protect yourself, do that. (We did, and the patient is living well with a mental illness, dementia, and the proper helps.) If we had intervened at that time, she would have been committed. Strangers were better able to help her.
Sorry that you are going through this. There is hope that your Mom will cooperate at a later time.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.avvo.com/amp/attorneys/238546.html
I live in a NYC coop.
NYC coop boards can cancel proprietary leases because of undesirable behaviors, hoarding, disturbances and the like.
While it is unlikely that any lawyer can magically make it fine for your mom to stay where she is, I would at least get a consult from an experinced elder care attorney to see what the possibilities are.
"Compartmentalized" behavior is also known in the dementia world as 'showtiming'...........being able to display perfectly normal behaviors to 'outsiders' and especially doctors when the situation calls for it, then acting totally unhinged at other times. Hoarding & poor hygiene are two more common issues associated with dementia. The hygiene issues can stem from fear of water or in my mother's case, fear of the 'slippery' condition she claimed was present in the shower. After a whole year of constant dealing with the 'slippery' conditions in the fortress like shower that had a slip-proof floor, one day I had a light-bulb moment (from God, I think) and said WATER SHOES. Ordered them from Amazon and voila, they WORKED. She's agreed to shower 2x a week ever since. Others have found success with using a hand held shower nozzle that could be directed at the elder's will.
That said, an elder care attorney is unlikely to keep your mother in her co-op bldg in NYC unless there is some sort of provision in the bylaws that allow for dementia/Alzheimer's residents to be allowed to live there, regardless of their behavioral issues. I have no experience with or knowledge of "Lorraine Coyle" or referrals for any other EC lawyers in your area.
If she's willing to accept help, you may want to call a Senior Care Agency like Home Instead to hire a caregiver to come in for 4 hr shifts to sit with your mother or to do light housekeeping or run errands, etc. You can also hire a companion to just sit with her and keep her company and watch tv, if that's what she would prefer to do. I used to work for Home Instead years ago and was a companion for a few older women as well as a caregiver and errand runner, shopper, cook, etc for others. I did whatever was asked of me within certain parameters.
You may want to read up about dementia and see what to expect as it progresses. Living alone becomes more & more difficult as the condition moves along, and wandering also becomes a distinct possibility. One gentleman I cared for would leave the house in the wee hrs of the morning insisting he lived across the street. He wound up falling and hurting himself badly one night, and dying the next day in the hospital. Whether your mother is suffering from 'mental illness', dementia, or a combination of both, you may want to have Plan B on the back burner for if/when living alone is no longer possible.
I bring up the similarities between dementia & mental illness & the combination of BOTH b/c I go thru all of this with my own mother, and have BEEN going thru them for years now, and wanted to share my experience with you. If you are going for guardianship of her, it can be a tricky thing b/c you'd have to get her assessed & tested by a doctor/neurologist & she'd have to be proved to be incompetent first, before guardianship would be granted.
Anyway, wishing you the very best of luck with a very difficult situation you face.
Because also of the uniqueness of your mother's illness she will WIN in ANY guardianship case in any state in my opinion. And if she does not, you will not find any institution that can and will care for her.
IMHO an attorney is going to be of little help for you. Some people fight for guardianship to the tune of 10,000. In all these last 15 years I am sure you have tried everything you can think of. I hope that others have advice for you but I suspect your Mom will end up convicted and I worry she will end up on the streets still refusing care.
I am so incredibly sorry. If you find someone I hope they can help. That someone would be on forum who has direct experience with anyone intervening in mental health intervention in your area I would be surprised. I feel so helpless and hopeless telling you this, but I do know that with the best insurance, the most money and the best interventions in the world this is often a hopeless and dreadful situation.
If you find any answers at all I hope you will let us know.
I will also tell the coop person that if they hope to evict anywhere where there are strong tenant laws they may be up the creek as well.