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I always took care of my parents with very little help from my brother. They both had Alzheimer's and needed more help so I retired from my nursing career to take care of them. I was going to have their house cleaned up and remodeled to make it more handicap accessible and have a care giver come help me a few days a week since I was taking care of both of them. My brother didn't like this and said I was spending his inheritance. My parents were staying with me at my house while the construction was going on and my Father got sick and had to be hospitalized. I had to stay with him 24/7 and my Mother had to go stay with my brother and he was mad about that. He told my Mother, with Alzheimers (at this time she would believe anything and was very paranoid) that I was trying to kill them and take all their money. Mother was very upset at me because the hospital wouldn't let her stay with me and Daddy because she was too disruptive to Daddy, patients in the hospital and the nurses, following them around screaming please don't let my husband die.


My brother and sister-in-law tricked her into believing that, so when it was time to discharge Daddy, Mother was scared of me and wouldn't go back home with me. My brother wouldn't let me come over and see them. He called the police 911, when I went over to see them, telling the operator someone broke into their house and to send help right away. I left because I didn't want to upset Mother & Daddy. It has been like that ever since. Will not allow me to see them. In about 1 week my brother put my Father in hospice and didn't tell me. When I found out, I went to the hospice facility and the nurses told me I was not allowed to see my Father because I was crazy and my brother was scared. My Father passed In November and he texted me and my 2 children that Vergil Stephens had passed with his loving son and wife by his side. We were in shock and have been ever since. In December I went over to my brother's house to give my Mother a Christmas present and she wasn't there. So I said I would just wait and my brother said no. He didn't want me to tell Mother what was really going on. He called the police 911 and told them he wanted me to leave and I wouldn't and he kept on til they sent a police officer out. I was stupid and left and he told the police officer I put him in a head lock which I did not do, am not even able to do something like that. He was trained in karate and taekwondo.


He filed a claim, took me to court, lied on the stand and had a protective order placed against me so I couldn't go over to his house, I could still visit with my brother and Mother and still talk to her on the phone but my brother wouldn't let me. My brother took all my Mother's money, sold her home, lied about how much money she had and put her in a home and I have no idea where she is and he won't tell me. I called APS and they checked on her and said she is ok but they cannot tell me where she is, which I don't understand that. Lawyers said I could try for guardianship but it would cost tens of thousands of dollars and I probably wouldn't win with that protective still on my record that the judge told me after a year would be removed but it has not been. My parents did not have a will or POA. In November it will be 3 years and I am still so depressed and worried about my Mother because I know my brother is not going to see and check on her. She will be 89 years young on May 14 and I would love to go see her but he does not answer my phone calls or texts.

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If there is a protective order against you, then something serious had to have to happened. Judges don’t just issue them, they are actually hard to get. Your brother didn’t just walk in to court and make a bunch of claims without any proof and get an order of protection against you. The only thing you can do is try to get the protective order removed and pursue guardianship.
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I'm terribly sorry to read your very sad story.

To me, just hearing all this for the first time, it sounds as though at the very deepest root of this is your mother's Alzheimer's Disease. It made her distressed, and it made her tell your brother nasty stories, and not knowing any better he believed her. It sounds as though all the hostility between you since grew out of that. I'm sure you won't be the only family this has happened to.

I think you should go back to the court, the one that informed you that the order would finish at the end of one year, and ask them "what happens now?"

APS did their duty: they made sure that your mother was safe and well. But your mother's wellbeing goes beyond that, she has a right to contact with you if she is able to benefit from it, only APS can't possibly deal with everything. See if those lawyers can do anything about arranging supervised contact with your mother. It doesn't have to be all or nothing through a guardianship application. Start smaller and see what can be negotiated.

Good luck, I hope you at least get to know that your mother has a happy birthday.
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cindypattillo, regarding your brother selling your parent's house and taking all of her money [equity in the house minus any mortgage/line of credit], chances are that money is being used to pay the monthly fee that it cost to be in Assisted Living/Memory Care, etc. If your Mom has been there for 3 years, chances are the cost has been between $100,000 and $375,000 [cost vary from area to area].

You mentioned that your Mom thought you were going to kill them and take all of their money. Who told your that? If it was your Mother, then that was the paranoid part of Alzheimer's talking, not anything your brother had said. If by chance you really believe your brother said that to your Mom, Mom would have forgotten it an hour or a day later. Paranoid thoughts on the other hand will continue to be part of your Mom's thinking until she is in the next phase of Alzheimer's.

Sounds like a lot of miscommunication between you and your brother. It could be that your Mom's paranoid was too disruptive whenever she saw you. Remember, with Alzheimer's, the brain in broken. There will be no rhyme or reason why your Mom was thinking that way. Your brother should have told you that. Or the back story could be more complex then this.
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