Hey homies. Normally I keep my personal shit far off the internet, and I may regret sharing all of this, but I am stressed out and deeply concerned about the wellbeing of my family, primarily my father, due to a lot of problems my mother causes. I believe these may be related to her brain going, so I am concerned it's dementia.
First, I should explain my case. As of Tuesday, my mother was admitted to the hospital as she had a severe case of sepsis, which coupled with her diabetes, has cost her to lose two toes, with one more planned to be removed next Tuesday. There are two problems here: the first here is this is the second time she's had to be amputated, and in both cases, the doctors and staff have done tests to see her sugar levels over prolonged periods of time, showing with evidence that she doesn't take her medication. Despite this, she yells and fights with staff any time this is mentioned, by saying she absolutely takes her medication. We have records that even pills for her have not been picked up since May of this year; she claims she hasn't picked up any because "she has extra."
I would have assumed this is a pathological lying, until I went through mail at home. Hoarding letters, never opening them, often being letters of notices of late fees. We found out she's months behind on a mortgage -- there's literally money there, and the first thing that is to be paid via my dad's pension is the mortgage -- and she's at least three payments behind. And yet she said she's up to date. We found out she hasn't been paying my dad's life insurance for seven years but she says she has. I think her brain might be showing signs of forgetfulness, as looking at payments shows she's quite literally paying things the day of some of the letters she opens. This is especially bad as she's a fuckin' control freak, acting like a know-it-all-know-nothing, and this is becoming very harmful. She has changed all of the password's on my dad's accounts, so he can't even go in and check himself. This more or less means many of the payments, and their assumptions of their payments, only come from her words, which increasingly are untruths, but she presents them as if they're the truth. It's as if when she's confronted, her mind freezes for a moment, and then refuses it. I'm also reminded of this checklist, and while I don't want to be an armchair doctor, I'm easily able to check off signs like forgetfulness, depression, failure to have proper hygiene, poor coordination when walking, and apathy.
This leaves me a bit lost as to what to do. The first thing I plan on is helping my dad set up automatic payments for things: there is literally zero reason for half of the things that have late fees or are being paid late to actually be paid, for he's allocating the first check of every month to cover nearly all of the major bills. They're simply being paid late or worse not at all because my mother isn't doing anything about it. The second, and hence the reason I am asking for help here, is how can I help someone who is looking like she is increasingly entering another world? Wouldn't she refuse help like she's refused simple medicine? Wouldn't she deny this, much like how she says her lost toes aren't because of negligence, but "freak accidents?" How would I be able to even approach a doctor to test her? Say "my mom's bad with finances and lies to doctors about nonsense?" She's caused a significant level of financial negligence to my dad, but she oftentimes seems to have no sorrow or even awareness of the problems. It's gotten to a breaking point this week, and I feel absolutely clueless on how to make sure all of this is solved in a meaningful manner. The scale of some of these problems is more or less caused by her alone, with her wanting to control things yet often times forgetting to do things.
Sorry for the rambling and tl;dr personal shit fam. I'm kind of up a wall, panicking if the home is going to be foreclosed upon because she controls the finances and she very clearly can't even control herself to take three pills a day. Something is just ready to burst here, and I imagine if it gets to my point, it would quite literally kill my dad. I'm quite lost on how to actually arrange these issues in a way that's ultimately productive for the depth of the problems in question.
First, I should explain my case. As of Tuesday, my mother was admitted to the hospital as she had a severe case of sepsis, which coupled with her diabetes, has cost her to lose two toes, with one more planned to be removed next Tuesday. There are two problems here: the first here is this is the second time she's had to be amputated, and in both cases, the doctors and staff have done tests to see her sugar levels over prolonged periods of time, showing with evidence that she doesn't take her medication. Despite this, she yells and fights with staff any time this is mentioned, by saying she absolutely takes her medication. We have records that even pills for her have not been picked up since May of this year; she claims she hasn't picked up any because "she has extra."
I would have assumed this is a pathological lying, until I went through mail at home. Hoarding letters, never opening them, often being letters of notices of late fees. We found out she's months behind on a mortgage -- there's literally money there, and the first thing that is to be paid via my dad's pension is the mortgage -- and she's at least three payments behind. And yet she said she's up to date. We found out she hasn't been paying my dad's life insurance for seven years but she says she has. I think her brain might be showing signs of forgetfulness, as looking at payments shows she's quite literally paying things the day of some of the letters she opens. This is especially bad as she's a fuckin' control freak, acting like a know-it-all-know-nothing, and this is becoming very harmful. She has changed all of the password's on my dad's accounts, so he can't even go in and check himself. This more or less means many of the payments, and their assumptions of their payments, only come from her words, which increasingly are untruths, but she presents them as if they're the truth. It's as if when she's confronted, her mind freezes for a moment, and then refuses it. I'm also reminded of this checklist, and while I don't want to be an armchair doctor, I'm easily able to check off signs like forgetfulness, depression, failure to have proper hygiene, poor coordination when walking, and apathy.
This leaves me a bit lost as to what to do. The first thing I plan on is helping my dad set up automatic payments for things: there is literally zero reason for half of the things that have late fees or are being paid late to actually be paid, for he's allocating the first check of every month to cover nearly all of the major bills. They're simply being paid late or worse not at all because my mother isn't doing anything about it. The second, and hence the reason I am asking for help here, is how can I help someone who is looking like she is increasingly entering another world? Wouldn't she refuse help like she's refused simple medicine? Wouldn't she deny this, much like how she says her lost toes aren't because of negligence, but "freak accidents?" How would I be able to even approach a doctor to test her? Say "my mom's bad with finances and lies to doctors about nonsense?" She's caused a significant level of financial negligence to my dad, but she oftentimes seems to have no sorrow or even awareness of the problems. It's gotten to a breaking point this week, and I feel absolutely clueless on how to make sure all of this is solved in a meaningful manner. The scale of some of these problems is more or less caused by her alone, with her wanting to control things yet often times forgetting to do things.
Sorry for the rambling and tl;dr personal shit fam. I'm kind of up a wall, panicking if the home is going to be foreclosed upon because she controls the finances and she very clearly can't even control herself to take three pills a day. Something is just ready to burst here, and I imagine if it gets to my point, it would quite literally kill my dad. I'm quite lost on how to actually arrange these issues in a way that's ultimately productive for the depth of the problems in question.
