November 25, 2019
Mental illness speckles my family tree like leaf mold.
The bipolar uncle who cackled uncomfortably like a cartoon character, his mirth punctuated by random outbursts of rage. The cousin fallen prey to the lure of drugs to quiet his anxiety, lost when the drugs pushed him to suicide instead of helping as he’d hoped. Then his brother couldn’t handle the anger and loss and pain, he was finally diagnosed as bipolar and refused to be treated. Then Mom’s dementia and anxiety and depression, desperately intermingled, trapped her in a dizzying kaleidoscopic world until she passed. My dad was, and remains, a hardcore narcissist. If he doesn’t actually have NPD, his life and choices certainly mimic it very strongly, and he raised a son who was the same.
Mostly this kind of thing is hushed up by the family, as if not talking about it means that it doesn’t exist. That doesn’t work, family. It hasn’t protected any of us.
Some of got lucky. Some of us danced with acute depression and/or anxiety, lasting weeks, or months, admitted it, got help, and finally made it through to the other side. Humbled and a little wiser about the realities, and vagaries, of mental health with some tools to manage that anxiety and depression, we’ve understood the struggle a little better. And some of us who won free still live with the specter, daily.
My brother wasn’t one of “some of us”. He didn’t have a sharp psychotic break. He didn’t step in and out of schizophrenia, managed and not. It was almost a gentle transition. He’d always had delusions of grandeur – he flashed through get rich quick schemes like credit cards. Braggadacio fed his outsize ego which fueled his arrogance in an endless loop.
He never worked harder than when he was trying to dupe me, our parents, or family and friends. He was the first to fall head over heels for the earliest MLM scams of our time, dragging our worried parents and their connections in with him. He managed two quarters at the local state college before dropping out with parking tickets and failing grades trailing in his wake.
He slipped into the warm embrace of true delusions easily, just like he’d done every night when we lay in bed in our shared room, dancing through one imaginary scenario after another. His created world had always been far more desirable than the one we lived in, the one of bills, of hard work, of gritting your teeth and dealing with the daily mundanity that keeps the car running and the water on.
Is it any wonder then, as his delusions deepened, as he swatted away our reality to create a new world for himself where he didn’t have to do any actual work, that it simply wasn’t clear if this wasn’t just another one of his long cons? (more…)
March 7, 2018
It’s done.
The gravy train has left the station.
You joined me on this stressful, ugly, painful path last year and I’m starting to breathe a sigh of relief as I share this: decoupling our finances is finally done.
I’ve stopped paying his rent.
I’ve stopped paying his utilities.
I’ve stopped paying for his gas, groceries, car registration, insurance, and cell phone.
We removed all identification information that I knew of from the old house so he doesn’t have easy access to my SSN and placed security freezes on all three credit reporting agencies so he can’t get to my credit.
He doesn’t know our new address.
He doesn’t have any of PiC or JB’s personal information, and their names are so common anyway that they don’t show up in Google searches.
My name is not common so I routinely request the removal of my personal information from data scrapers. (more…)
February 7, 2018
After I knew he had the signed title in hand, I emailed instructions on completing the process. I’d done everything needed short of signing his name, including filling out the statement of use, verifying that this was a family transfer and therefore should be free, but of course it still took him five days to bother to confirm receipt and, naturally, offer an excuse not to complete it.
The registration was due in a month, which is no impediment to transferring because you don’t have to pay til the due date, duh, he claimed he wouldn’t be allowed to re-title without paying the registration so I’d have to wait for him to scrape up that money.
(more…)
January 15, 2018
Quick recap – It was time to cut off my father who I’ve supported for nearly 20 years. I grieved, then started the process.
For several days, I ignored that manipulative email convincing me to keep helping. After closing my bank account that he had deposit-access to, so that he can’t deposit any cash in an attempt to twist my arm into writing more checks for him, I found calmness in my soul again.
With that protection, I responded to that email with a faux-contrite decline to provide further funds saying that I couldn’t come up with anything extra.
That’s not precisely true, when I have to, I can usually find a way to scrape money together but I’m simply not willing to take a second job to support him again. I phrased that as “I can’t”.
We are truthfully groaning under the weight of our current obligations: a five digit annual bill for property tax, a five digit annual bill for daycare with two increases expected this year, a merely terrifying mortgage, and corresponding insurances but all that aside, he doesn’t need, or get, to know the true state of our finances when he doesn’t care about our well-being. In a world where my Dad loved me, he would have expressed concern for us when I described our faux financial distress even if there was nothing he could do about it. In reality, he didn’t reply for weeks.
(more…)
November 29, 2017
I knew this would be a multi-step process but who knew it’d require a Trello board of its own. I’m assuming there will be more updates after this.
My first step was to tell Dad that the support has to stop. I legitimately tried to call and speak to him like a decent human but when he didn’t pick up, I took that as a sign to just leave him a message and emotionally shift the burden. That night, I also emailed to make sure that if the voicemail wasn’t heard for some reason, he had the email, I know he checks that.
He didn’t respond for a day but I wasn’t waiting around for a confirmation.
On to step two, realizing that the move has turned our lives upside down and this was collateral damage – I can’t find my car title anywhere. ARGH. After several fruitless searches, and annoyingly finding a digital copy of the title but not the physical copy, I sent off to the DMV for a duplicate title. Waiting for it is torture but it’s given me time to strategize. (That thing is going to turn up when the duplicate arrives, I just know it.)
Third step, stop making the same mistakes. (more…)
November 13, 2017
I thought I was rocked back on my heels before.
I had a painful and necessary conversation with a friend last weekend. It was about feelings, which I mostly hate, money, which I love, and family, which I am 100% conflicted about. The conversation itself was tough but what followed was far worse than anything anticipated.
I supported my parents more than half my life because I genuinely believed my parents loved me and I wanted to help them. Turns out, Mom loved me, but Dad? He skated on the strength of her love and sacrifice which was so strong he could mimic both just from the reflected glow.
My theory is that, for Dad, love only mattered so long as my path mirrored his. When I was a dependent child, and when I was an adult covering his expenses, my interests were aligned with his. Mostly. He was never willing to put aside his own pride, and sense of self entitlement, for my sake, though. He may love me but much less than his perceived needs.
In hindsight, it feels like I should have seen the signs earlier. (more…)
April 17, 2017
There really is a good reason I haven’t had my dad move to a cheaper place yet. There aren’t any cheaper places to be had within a 50 mile radius of his current space (and also family support) so it didn’t make sense to force a move that would further isolate the two of them and save maybe about $50, if that, while also racking up moving costs.
He’s earning minor income on his own which is erratic, to supplement his SSI check which is small, but I pay for all his major living expenses – rent and utilities.
This month, a 60-day notice landed stating that they’re raising the rent by 50%.
As a renter, I’m horrified. As a landlord with some experience, I’m not surprised. We’ve been there a really long time and he hasn’t been good at upkeep these last few years. If he had been, I’m pretty sure they would have just kept on with the same rate. But even if we didn’t have huge house-hunting expenses coming up, we aren’t able to just absorb that 50% increase.
I had to have a conversation about what he’s going to do with him. That conversation didn’t go all that well. But this is a process. I’m weaning myself away from financially supporting him since he’s shown me that I’m not a daughter, I’m the Bank of Daughter from which you just keep taking.
That may not have been his intention, that may not even be how he feels. But it’s how I’ve felt since he royally betrayed my trust.
It’s taken me months to reconcile. It’s taken more months, and a bit of a housing crisis, then to figure out that I had to ask for help. Those were huge, unsettling leaps.
***
Facing down this history, and our upcoming expenses, I had to suppress the reaction that it was another problem that I’d have to handle.
I made myself leave it all in his hands to determine the next steps and what to do, with the understanding that I simply cannot shoulder this increase. That was uncomfortable and unfamiliar but it had to be done. We can’t keep going like this since I haven’t miraculously doubled or tripled my income in the last year.
***
At the moment, his plan is shaky at best.
The apartment hunt has come up dry, nothing within a 30-50 mile radius is reasonable, but he’s finally gotten the ball rolling on applying for housing aid which he should have done years ago. He’s also finally wrangled Trainwreck Sibling into getting evaluated for disability and housing aid as well. It’s about dang time. But this is the state of California we’re talking about – it’s going to take weeks or months for them to approve, if they approve, the applications.
In the meantime, he’s getting a job. It doesn’t pay much but he can probably come up with about half of the current rent for a few months. If it works out, he can come up with about 60% of the new rent after then.
While he’s doing that, he also has to keep looking for a new place.
All of this hurts my heart. I hate every bit of it.
For all the mistakes he’s made, he’s also nearly 70 years old. The idea that he’s going back to work kills me, turning on the guilt like a firehose. It also infuriates me to feel that way because I have been doing my level best for ages. These are steps he should have taken years ago, and in fact, it’s highly likely that his poor behavior of late has come out of his inability to gracefully accept my help. Instead of being glad he had a back-up and working toward independence, he’s spent this time trying to justify his acceptance (such as it is) of the help and acting rashly trying to free himself of his dependence.
This conflict sucks. But after sitting quietly with the discomfort, and talking it over with trusted friends, I am coming to an uncertain peace with it. These steps feel painful but they’re necessary. I’ll feel horrible about it, because I’ll always feel my duty to support my family, but there are times the support needs to be direct, and there are times that it has to be from afar. I’ve been doing direct support so many years, waiting for him to fulfill his end of the bargain and as a result, waited a decade longer than I thought it’d take.
I have pushed him to make changes for years, to no avail. That was all I felt that I could do at the time.
Now, though I hate how it’s happening, he’s finally stepping up to at least try to do his part. That he let it go until this late date was his choice.
So now that it’s finally happening, I can’t, I will not allow my guilt, to push me into putting him back on my soon to be seriously strained household budget. I can’t do everything for everyone and it’s a disservice to them that I try. Everyone needs to feel like they can do for themselves, that they are capable for as long as they want and need to be. Taking over for them when they finally show willing would be the opposite of support.
If this does work, if he does start to earn enough to pay his own way, then maybe, just maybe, we’ll able to leave the money resentments in the past and try to rebuild our relationship. I don’t know if it’ll happen, but this way, there’s a shot.
The other way, we weren’t ever going to have a relationship again.
It’s too soon to hope but I am open to the idea that it might be possible.
:: Have you ever had your housing costs skyrocket? How do you handle sudden unexpected increases in expenses?
*Part of Financially Savvy Saturdays on brokeGIRLrich.*