What next?

This is been an 'interesting' week with my hoarding mother.  And by interesting, I mean the same old crap at an increased intensity.  I am simply running out of band width to deal with her attention seeking behavior.

I had a funder meeting that took me out of the office for 2 1/2 days with subcommittees and the like, and things are really busy and stressful at the office.  Elderly kitty that had the stroke 2 weeks ago is hanging in there, but requires medication, medical management, and a more constant surveillance of her behavior and health than even before.  And she is very clingy, and the other cat's behavior is impacted too.  Each time I think that I am done with the impact of an elbow injury in mid February, it wants to flare again.  Life is life, but my hoarding mother knows that things are really, really challenging, including my insomnia is back with a vengeance.  What does she do?  Hype EVERYTHING into high drama.  

The final day of the meetings, she called.  Now, since I have been doing extremely low contact and 'grey rocking' her, she is calling about mundane things that she considers an emergency or needs an immediate response.  And she will blow up my cell phone (which I use for business and I am on call 24/7) and if I do not respond, she will call my office or the housing facility that my organization runs that has a 24 hour hotline.  She called Friday, and was ranting that 'someone' needed to take the hated neighbor out, he has been in her house, he has stolen the fuse box out of her detached garage (but the garage door opener and outside lights work) and he has done something in her house so only partial lighting in the central hallway works.  She is also allegedly:

1. Arguing with the cable company, so does not have a box that works so no TV.  If the electrical system is in the house is truly wonky...?
2. Arguing with the paper delivery folks as to how they roll the paper when they put it in her box.  She is cancelling it.
3. She has had to have the gas company out last week to shut off the hot water tank (so no gas in the house if that is true).
4. She had the water company out this week because the tub was leaking and she claims that she now does not have water.
5. She still states she has groundwater leaking in her basement.
6. She is churning, churning, churning the hoard.  She has found papers from 1989, and a computer, etc. from 2005/2006 that she has never used and keeps torturing me with questions about... "Can [this] be used?  What about [this]?  There is a disk for free internet from AOL!" ::Sigh::

So she is really in a Level 5 hoard.  Goat trails, stuff stacked to the ceiling,  no electricity in part of the house, no hot water, and now, no water.  Her furnace is not working, and her AC quit last summer.  She has C Diff, and is wearing adult continence diapers. I am sure she is 'bucket' flushing, but that will not work long term.  Sorry, I keep diverting.  The call on Friday... She was ranting that the neighbor has 'been in her house' and it is only 'a matter of time before he kills her' and he has 'put some listening device in her house so her can monitor her.'

I got off the phone and called Adult Protective Services.  I identified myself, her, gave a succinct background and cause for concern.  My hoarding mother's state is a 'duty to warn' state under Tarasoff, and I retain a social work license in that state.  I have been the petitioner to have clients, adult and child, involuntarily committed when they were a imminent, identifiable risk to self and others, and have the means and the lethality to do it.  They refused to help, even when I spoke to a director and also the Mental Hygiene lawmaster.  I called the police chief in her town, someone I went to high school with and is well acquainted with her.  He could have an officer do a wellness check, but since her property has locks on the gates, etc. he cannot trespass, and he will not put an officer at risk since she has a concealed carry, and several semi automatic weapons with clips and laser sights.  He understood and shared my concern.  

I struck out. Going there will do nothing, especially if she will not let me in, and I left one vulnerable cat that I almost lost in 2010 to deal with her manufactured drama, and I just cannot due to the cat, work, my health, and my mental health.  Her neighbor and the police chief warned the 'hated neighbor' and I have done all I can do.  She called later, and she was on an even keel again.  

This is not going to end well.  My concern is that she will confront and provoke an altercation with the neighbor, and shoot him under the 'stand your ground' law in her state.

I will keep pushing for intervention.  That is all I can do.  Thanks for reading.

Trying to be my own solution... Because my hoarding mother cannot be her own...

Sometimes I cannot catch a break.  And I do not ascribe to luck, a greater plan, or whatnot.  Sometimes things just happen, and sometimes those things are a mix of good, bad or indifferent.  Lately, I have been struggling with a lot of challenges.  I think my hoarding, narcissistic mother was a huge lesson.  I fall, and each time I get up.  I still struggle with letting folks help me in a meaningful way, and sometimes I struggle with asking in a way that is meaningful.  I continue to work on that.  

Last Sunday evening one of my two elderly cats collapsed.  I will spare you the details, but it was late night, I was still up working, and she came to me just as she collapsed.  I grabbed shoes, the carrier, my sweet kitty, and wallet/phone/key fob and flew to the emergency vet.  It is only a couple exits away on the highway, but I had to get downstairs and to my garage that is east facing as opposed to my place that is west facing.  I looked at the time as I put kitty in the carrier, and 7 minutes later I walked into the emergency vet.  A few hours later she came out of it, and I was referred to my regular vet.  The probable diagnosis was a heart issue, possibly a vagus nerve reaction.  I made the appointment, and got really bad news.  It is a heart issue that caused a mild spinal stroke (oversimplification, but just humor me).  With treatment of a transdermal heart medicine and baby aspirin my sweet girl might have a year or more.  Maybe.  She is doing well, she is just a bit more attention seeking than usual, walks a bit slower, and sleeps a lot more.  She now vocalizes in a 'small' voice, and that is not her normal strident and booming meows.  She jumps up, plays, and begs for water out of the faucets.  It has been a hard week, as my last kitty that passed had a heart murmur that threw a clot, and produced a horrific seizure.  I put her down immediately as another one was imminent.  This is a bit different situation, but it will lead the same place, eventually.  I have decided to take it a day at a time, and let my kitty call the shots.  

I made the mistake of telling my hoarding mother.

She demanded to know why I did not put her down, and asked what I was going to do if it happened again and I was not at home, yadda yadda.  Then she proceeded to tell me about all the cats that she had lost over the past 20 or so years (which is a LOT).  I just told her it was not up for discussion, and if she wanted to keep talking about it, I would have to go.  I just cannot.  I am evaluating the situation every day, and I am hoping the pharmacy quits dorking around and gets my credit card information so I can get the medicine started.  I think our time together grows very short.  My other cat is very aware something is happening, and her behavior towards this one is a bit different.  I hope our time is not shorter than I hoped.  My mother also asked if I was going to get another cat, and another special needs elderly cat.  GRRRRR.

Also this week I came out of the office and walked to the parking garage where I park my car.  I immediately saw the rear right tire was flat, and I had left a few moments early as I hoped to stop by a coffee shop and get an iced chai.  I ended up driving several blocks on the rim to an automotive parts store and they tried to use a fix-a-flat product.  (My car does not come with a spare, nearly 70% of newer cars do not have them.)  No dice.  I was in a panic, I was the program speaker on International Women's Day for a celebration for a church about 15 miles away.  Luckily, one of my staff could help me, and she drove me to the event.  A participant drove me back to my car as she drove right by it, and I was able to call the auto service for a tow.  A friend saw my plight on social media as I had asked if anyone local could give me a ride and came the 40 minutes to where I was to wait for the rollback truck and follow it to the dealer and then give me a ride home.  I appreciated it immensely, as the tow truck driver would have transported me to the dealership, but I would have to got a rideshare home.  The next morning, the dealership was able to plug the flat (they hope it will hold) as they know I was hoping to limp my tires along until late spring and replace all of them.  They sent a driver to pick me up, and each person I encountered indicated that it was a huge puncture, and with a strange metal object.  They showed it to me.  

It was a corner of a construction knife/cutter.  It was centered in the center of the tire, between the treads and belts.  It most likely was not an accident.

I have let the area police know, and they will take a look at the camera to see if they see anything, especially since I was in the garage such a short time that day, and knew the time I came in and the time I found it.

I returned my mother's call.  She asked why I sounded funny, and I just said I had a long week, and was exhausted, I did not get home until midnight due to a flat.  I did not go into detail about what was in my tire, but she automatically assumed it was malicious.  She then told me that the hated neighbor in the turn stole her fuse box in the garage, and I asked about external lights and the garage door and she did not change the subject like last time, but weakly said that 'somehow' the automatic garage door still works and some of the external lights still work.  Um... If the 'fuse box' was gone, she would have nothing as it is a separate building from her house.  She said last week that something happened to her hot water tank so the gas company shut it off, and she also alluded that whatever this neighbor had done it impacted the house and only the hallway lights work and a few outlets.

Now, who knows what is true.  She also said that she has not repaired broken windows and just put contact paper over them.  

If this is true, she is firmly in a Stage 5 hoard, and she still has C-Diff.  She is now accusing the dentist of giving it to her, she won't consider that all the antibiotics plus using urgent care as her PCP could put her at risk.

She seemed to gather energy from the fact that life has been rough for me.  I remembered something from one of my undergraduate college professors who said or paraphrased "Misery loves MISERABLE company."  I think that bears true in this case.  Many of my friends are not having easy lives at the moment.  I am saddened by it, and I am clearly puzzled by what mechanism that someone could derive energy or even some sick pleasure from it.  I do not wish hardship on those I do not agree with or like, or dislike me.  

I have continued extreme low contact, and now she is calling me about once a day for an 'emergency question' and it is neither...

I keep 'grey rocking' her, and I will focus on what is important.  My precious kitties, my vocation, continuing to train for the next race/regaining health and stamina, my friends who are my family, and furthering my education... whether through a certification, another Master's Degree, or a PhD.  I think it is time.  

Life has been hard.  I just realized that just in the last year I have put over 17K miles on my car just running back and forth to medical appointments at a nationally renowned teaching hospital.  I have many, many vet bills.  I need to dig out of the debt hole (Mainly medical related expense for me and my cats) I have put myself in, so no big vacations for me, and I will need to postpone buying a condo for a couple of years.  I will do what I have to, and hopefully I can start picking up some consulting work when things slow down a bit... If they do.  Either way, I got this. 

I realize that my mother is continuing to deteriorate.  She refuses to get out of her own way to find any sort of solution.  I refuse to be her.  Onward and upward we go.  

Thanks for reading!



  

Not for the squeamish... It is time for 'From The Mouth Of A Hoarder'!

I wanted to share this with those of you that are interested in the FTMOAH... Maybe a bit in the spirit of, rather childishly, 'if I have to experience this...'

But seriously, I know some of you can relate to my pain of 'hoarder speak', no filter, and the verbal diarrhea that flows constantly.  And on that note...

FTMOAH...

"So I have been having a HORRIBLE time going to the bathroom..."

Mother, we are not talking about this...

"And I pushed and I pushed and it would not come out and it hurt so much and ..."

Mother, I am not listening to this about your shit.  Call you doctor...

"I don't see my Lupus doctor for another 6 weeks now!  And I do not have a primary care doctor, they are all quacks! So I get a mirror to look..."

Mother, final warning.  I am NOT going...

"And there was this great big swelling next to my butthole!  I had that before!  Dr. Whomever lanced it but no doctor wants to do that anymore and..."

<<End Call>>

I drove down the highway shaking my head and laughing maniacally.  

WOW.  

On a separate note, I am scheduled for surgery the first week in August.  I am not telling her until I have to, and maybe not even then.  I just do not need the headache, but her insistent demands to know are tiring as well.  

Have a great night, everyone.  

A momentary bit o'rant

Just passing through to say....

ARGH!  She just called me as I am working offsite at a coffee shop.  She apparently discovered the joys of Miralax... 

Yup.  Despite all my boundaries, she called me during a business day, while I am in a public place... to talk about a laxative.  To talk about her elimination... or lack there of...

GAH!  I just hung up.

Seriously?  What is with this woman's obsession with poo?

<Muttering to myself...>

Wood ticks and other errata...

So, if you have read anything of this blog before now, you know that my hoarding mother is *somewhat* delusional and her insight is nonexistent. 

So- several days in a row she was complaining of finding ticks on her, on her clothing.  Today she found a tick on one of her strictly indoor cats.  She again attributes it to 'being outside' and talks about bugs in a manner that approaches a belief of spontaneous generation.

Now, in March of this year she found... excuse my vernacular... a turd in her hoarded basement, and an area in which her cats can never reach or are permitted.  She first decided it was 'snake poo' then recategorized it as 'skunk poo'.  Under either classification she is convinced that her hated neighbor used a credit card to enter her house and place it there. Late May she found a cockroach in the kitchen, and she decided that some bananas she purchased where the source despite checking them for 'passengers' or roach eggs.  Now, this tick on a cat in her house.  I have speculated more and more often since March that her house is tipping from a dry/'clean' hoard into a wet/'dirty' hoard.  I suspect the ticks may be another step in this evolution.  

Several years back she was keeping birdseed in a plastic trash can on her front porch, and to her surprise, she had 30-40 mice living on her screened in porch.  Now, fancying herself a modern day Cinderella (at least in her 'special' connection to animals) she refused to listen to my concerns/my ex-husband's concerns that there were easily 3-4 times what she saw present, and that they had to be gaining access to the house.  She will assert that she does not have a single spider or gnat in her home, and other such claptrap.  When she saw one of the mice go up her block foundation and disappear under her vinyl siding, she finally got mouse poison and killed all her new little 'pets'.  She found they had chewed through the bottom of the can, but steadfastly refused that any made it into the house.

She also feeds feral cats, and the birds.  She throws bread, cereal, cookies, and all kinds of crap in the yard 'for the birds' and keeps wet and dry food out for the cats, and as a result of the rural area, and the untended yard and the goat/horse field behind her she is feeding skunks, possums, raccoons and other vermin.  And they are SO CUTE!  Blech.  She also has found fleas on herself, and she steadfastly refuses to hear how the vermin coming in on her porch and etc. could be 'promulgating' the fleas and the ticks.  She also refuses to entertain the thought that something, or several somethings, could have gotten in through a few different routes/methods.

I guess this is how it starts... the poo, the wet hoarding.  I am sadly convinced that if I outlive her, and we are not estranged, that I will have a hoard of the highest classification to clean out.  Dear GOD.  

One bit of comic relief... a bird pooped on her head today.  And she is, once again, perplexed as to why the bird was flying overhead in that area since there is no power lines, etc.  

WOW.  That is all I have to say.  

Now I am going to bed.  Goodnight all.

You know you were waiting for it... the unidentified 'poo' object update...

You.  Cannot.  Make. This. Stuff. Up.

A while ago, March 12 of 2013 actually, I shared about my hoarding mother's discovery of a turd in her hoarded home.  If you have not had the... pleasure... you can read it for yourself. 

Click here to read the blog about the discovery of the 'poo' object

Although I had NOT forgotten about our conversation nearly a month ago, I had not mentioned it, asked her about it, etc.  That is my new strategy for my sanity.  Not participating in the crazy.

So- because I am so obviously a masochist, I called her on my way home to check in.  

"I just got back!  [Rambling litany of complaints that launched with 'I am so mad I could KILL!'... her normal precursor.  One would think she ran the Boston Marathon, but it was in actuality about 3 errands/stops... one that includes the library.]  And something really WEIRD happened."

<Crickets chirping>

"Today I just had the word 'snake' come into my mind... it was weird!  So when I went to the library I asked the 'girl' behind the counter [You mean the librarian?  OY!] if she would 'do something disgusting' for me..."

<Inwardly I cringe and add the one-woman-operator of the local library to my 'needs flowers for dealing with her list'.>

"And she said that it depended on what it was!  She acted so weird!  I liked [the previous librarian who was the only employee until her retirement in 2010] so much better, but anyway, I asked her to help me figure out what snake poop looks like [and she begins to ask me if I essentially knew you could look such things up on THE INTERNET and proceeds on with no response forthcoming from me]."

At this point, I simply pull my car over to the side of the road to listen to this.  I know it is going to be off the charts batshit crazy.  If this were an earthquake, it would be a magnitude of approximately 7.5...

For purposes of brevity... I will offer a synopsis of the 'gems' of this conversation... they are:

• Her lengthy and odd descriptions of the poo/discussion of the poo... using words like 'half a prune, consistency...
• Her discussion with the librarian of the birdseed in the poo, and the librarian's advising her that the snake could have eaten a bird or a small rodent that would result in that...
• Her conclusion based on that Google search and resultant discussion that "the [hated] a$$hole [neighbor] in the turn" is responsible... "You KNOW that, THAT SNAKE, did not get into my house naturally.  
• In response to my question of, "How so?" She went off on a rant about she could tell that her door had been opened with a credit card and he would not have to open the door very far... her conclusions also included that the snake could not have gotten under the [large] gap under her kitchen door and so it went downstairs.  
• She mistakes me for a herpetologist and asks me how long snakes can live without food.  I advised her that it is most likely the snake is there because there is a food supply, and remind her of the mouse fiasco a few years ago.
• This causes utter indignation- and she haughtily informs me that there is not even a single bug in her house...
• She was ranting about the [hated neighbor] should go 'visit his mother'.  His mother died of lung cancer several years ago.  She then started her violent ideation which I advised her that she needed to change the subject immediately or our call was over.
• She acidly asked how the snake got in organically then asked about the dryer vent, which has no screen or anything in it now because she has used it to hide things on occasion [don't ask].  Where it is it is approximately 5 inches off the ground, and there is a whole 'hoardy' mess of a box for the feral cats to eat out of directly in front of it, and the cat feeding is drawing all kinds of vermin into the yard.  She then had a freak out that he put the snake down the dryer vent  and he could do something else!  Horrors!  And more comments about how she needed the 'Equalizer' [a horribly schmaltzy 80's US filmed vigilante show that she LOVED]
• She talked about how she would 'be careful' now before she reaches into anything downstairs...

WHAT IN THE BLUE HELL WILL WE FIND IN THAT HOUSE WHEN IT IS TIME TO CLEAN IT OUT?

You can imagine how it went from there.  I pulled back onto the road, informed her I had to go, and ended the call.

She continues to deteriorate.  And there is nothing that I can do.  She will not seek help.  She will not accept help.  And she is not to the level that an intervention can occur without her consent.  

I seldom feel this impotent, this helpless... and this hopeless.  No one wins, and I guarantee this is not going to end well.  For me or for her.  

I know from my work that you can not help someone that does not want it.  You cannot want something more than the person wants it for themselves... And the scariest part?  I am just NUMB.  

I am simply husked out.