My mother again

I'm venting today. 

She's at it again.  This time it's been going on for two days almost non-stop.  Day and night phone calls.  The stress she creates is almost unbearable sometimes.  I can't think, I can't work, and I can't hold a normal conversation with anyone.   My mind seems to just shut down.  I want to run away and hide from everything.  For each one phone call I get from her, it takes me a week to recover my own balance and peace of mind. 

It's just terribly wrong for me to keep letting her do this to me over and over again.  Actually, I can't figure out WHY I let it happen to me so much.  I'm just as guilty of letting her stress me out as she is guilty for doing it.  Each time I answer the phone I'm really hoping it will be a normal mother daughter conversation instead of a shouting match.  When a nurse at the nursing home calls, and without asking me if it's ok, puts my mother on the phone, they are putting me on the spot.  Not giving me an option to NOT answer the phone if it's my mother.  Each time the phone rings there is a one in ten chance that I will get the normal instead of the abusive conversation.  I have better luck playing the lottery. 

I can't get my mother to understand she's not able to take care of herself anymore.  Her response is always.... "Why can't I take care of myself?"  In her mind she is still 30 years old and can do whatever she wants.  All the years of drug abuse has seriously taken it's toll.  One fourth of the time she's ok and the other three quarters of the time it's as if she's tweeking and searching for the next fix.  I get the blame when she can't get her fix the same as if I were the abused child again. 

When she tells me that I'm the one who put her "in that prison" I want to tell the nursing home to open the doors and let her go.  Whatever happens to her happens.  I don't want to know about it!

Did I ever say that my mother has been a drug addict and a mental patient for over 60 years?  Yup, all those years.  I have been her guardian since I was 6 years old.  Not officially, of course.  I didn't become an official guardian until I was 18.  At 6 years old I learned to change diapers and mix formula for my 2 week old sister.  I learned to cook oatmeal for my bother and myself and how to wash diapers.  The only time I got relief from the abuse was when I was lucky enough to get placed into an orphanage or go stay with a relative for a few weeks.  Each time my mother was placed in a mental facility "to even out" as they called it, we got placed somewhere.  When she got better we were given back to her. 

In those days it was much easier for parents to get children out of foster care than it is today.  My happiest memories were when I stayed with my grandparents where I learned to work hard and have fun while doing it.  There were no worries about abuse at their house.

I fall victim to my mother's abuse even after all these years and all the determination to NOT be a victim anymore.  She knows exactly how to sneak up on me as sweet and nice as I always hoped she would be.... then WHAM!  she gets me every time. 

I've bought a new answering machine again and instructed the nursing home staff that I won't take any more calls.  If there is an emergency, I'll have to call them back.  They are NOT to call me to try to calm her down.  They are the professionals, not me.  If they can't handle her then they should send her someplace that can!

I don't want to take the abuse anymore.... period!  I think I can get back to work now.

Hmm.... I wonder how many restful days I'll actually get before she sneaks up on me again?  It will happen you know?  I'll get relaxed and moving in my grove when she'll sneak in again.

Still working on it....


This quilt should have been done. I would have finished it. I already had the next one sewn to the leaders and ready to put on the machine. What happened?

A short time ago I posted about my mother being evicted by the nursing home. I got all upset because I was told by the nursing home social worker that my mother needed to be moved to a specialized facility. A place that can handle geriatric schizophrenic patients with special medical needs.

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I was told the only nursing facilities who can handle her special problems are out of state. One in northeast Ohio and another in southern Tennessee. Kentucky doesn't have any of these specialized nursing homes. It was like telling me I would never see my mother alive again because these facilities are so far away. I wondered... how can I be sure the nursing home staff are being honest about the limited number of places she can be sent? They run their facility.... but are they trained to know about all available facilities?

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I made several phone calls trying to find someone to help me understand the legal stuff and become a sort of friend to help me with the process. I was even ready to turn guardianship over to a state guardian because I don't think I'll have the mental strength to send her away. I don't think I can handle Mom's pleading with me to bring her home with me instead of sending her to another state. One phone call I made was to the Kentucky nursing home ombudsman. Evidently the ombudsman called the nursing home. The next thing I get a phone call from the nursing home administrator.

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I was told by the administrator that I shouldn't worry about what I was told by the social worker. The person who told me that wasn't authorized and was no longer working there. The administrator said that unless I got a 30 day notice "from her" I shouldn't even think about it. I didn't need anyone to help me. I didn't need a state guardian. When the time came she would help me find a local place for my mother. She called me three times to be sure I understood and insisted I stop stressing about it. So I did. I went back to my routines believing things were ok.

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BIG MISTAKE! I should have kept looking for someone to help me. Yesterday I got a phone call from the administrator that she was mailing me a 30 day eviction notice for my mother. She says she will send me information on the out of state facilities. It was like someone kicked me in the stomach. I couldn't quilt. I decided to lay down. I got up. I lay down. I got up again.... several times.

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I got on the computer to read some blogs. I read several. I got to Bethany's blog. (quilted with love) I was wishing really hard that I had the quilt frame and a couple of other things she doesn't use. I kept going further back to her older posts when I came across her post about a tv show on how mental patients are sent to prison because there are no facilities to handle them. I wish I had seen that show.

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My mother tells me all the time that she feels like she is in prison. Mom tells me she would rather be in prison because at least there she could serve her time and be released. My mother is very adept at saying just the right thing to make other people pause and think. She's had about 55 years of practice to know exactly how to say or do things and work her way around the mental health "rules" because she's been in the Kentucky mental health system for that long or longer. As she tells it....."I know my rights." She especially knows just how to manipulate me too.

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So today I will get back to the quilting as best I can. I will try to squeeze plenty of phone call time into an already full day of catching up. There has to be someone.... some place.... that knows about these type situations and all the legal stuff. Surely there are social workers trained to help families deal with transferring patients to out of state facilities and the mental pain it causes.

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Surely there is a list of nursing home facilities that I can get and make some informed decisions.

Does anyone reading my blog have any suggestions for where I can call to get a nursing home list? Or who to call that will assign me someone to help me understand it all? A website maybe?