June 1, 2010
“Fine then, I won’t be in your way much longer, I’m moving out!”
As threats go, this classic gem from child to parent resonates with unbridled resentment, rings of freedom untasted, hardships unendured. Heartache follows, “how did we get to this place in our relationship?” Remorse to some degree on either side, and sometimes the threat is carried out to the ultimate grief or relief of the parties involved.
As a stratagem, my brother fails to recognize that the construct relies on the premise that you’re holding the power to do that which your antagonist least desires.
This? Is not that.
I can only hope that it’s not an empty threat that, like the overgrown child he is, he will find a new abode and throw his knapsack over his shoulder and huff off.
My only regret, after these twelve years of his nonsense, abuse, manipulation, the recent 3-year-block of which seemed like to end in some tragic circumstance, is that I’ll not see his dog again. I can’t part dog from owner nor could I keep one of his breed at my new home. He’s one of the smartest, most well behaved dogs I’ve ever met. Ironically, I can’t worry about my brother’s welfare anymore, but I do worry about the dog ending up homeless. Our last fight shows he’s still got no clue about taking care of anyone, including his own dog.
Cold, yes, but his latest extended chance in a string of hundreds has led only to abuse: heated accusations that Mom is faking her illness, her falls, the depths of her mental decline, abusive language towards Dad, lying to me, his unrestrained use of resources he’s not contributed to in years. I simply cannot afford financially or emotionally to keep caring or enabling.
As reported by my dad, the latest hissy fit was catalyzed by my dad’s objection to Brat’s definition of cleaning: “moving everyone else’s furniture around” and “throwing away other people’s belongings.” Not throwing away your own trash, folding your own laundry, washing your own dishes, picking up after your own, oh no. None of those.
*smh* Good, then. For the first time, my parents have finally agreed that my life has been on hold because of their refusal to support my decision to cut him out and agree that it’s time for him to go. Perhaps, though it hurts to say it, I’ll soon have the good fortune to see my brother voluntarily exit from my life and, away from the constant shelter I had to provide, he’ll finally grow up.
April 19, 2010
On the heels of one issue comes another: Mom’s in the hospital with pneumonia.
Dad tells me not to worry too much. What’s too much? Because it’s entirely possible I’m already there.
April 18, 2010
I miss having (the illusion of) a functional family.
My sibling brought home a puppy because he thought he could emotionally manipulate me into letting him keep it when I got back. You know, the sibling with the other dog we have to feed half the time because he can’t afford to. After a few days of romping, the dog gets sick and surprise, she has parvo! I think we know what that means by now.
After two days of sick puppy, he tries to get my dad to call me to help him. And then he calls me himself because my dad won’t do it.
His own dog isn’t vaccinated against parvo! And my dog is old enough that though she’s always been vaccinated, she could be susceptible if it’s truly virulent. There’s no way of knowing. I wanted to reach through the phone and strangle him. He’s an idiot. Now that poor sick puppy has been all over my house shedding parvovirus and he wants me to tell him what to do. And she’s in *really* bad shape.
To recap: he brings home a puppy he is incapable to caring for, like a child, and runs to me to fix it after he’s screwed up.
I just wanted to scream.
I did rip his head off. He and his little friends decided to bring her home, so it’s their responsibility. It broke my heart to say it, but I made it clear that if they can’t (he can’t) afford to take proper care of her knowing that there’s no guarantee she’ll recover, then the only humane thing to do is to put her down because she’s just going to keep getting worse. I think one of them is willing to take financial responsibility whether or not she’s really able to afford it so I hope for the best for the pup.
This won’t be the last time this happens. Obviously the threat of my coming home isn’t enough and I can’t keep dealing with this idiocy cropping up because I’m not there, so I’ve got to start making plans to bring my dog up here with me, and finding a good small place for my parents to live. It’s not going to be easy, it will be expensive, but it has to be done.
March 23, 2010
Subtitled: So this is what it’s like, parenting.
Be forewarned, this here’s a rant.
The codependent sibling has struck again. This time, he’s proposing that he move the family to cheaper housing [don’t ask me how he thinks it’s going to be a) attainable, b) affordable, or c) tolerable as I have done my research on this front already], while he stays at the house with the dogs who wouldn’t be allowed in apartment housing, and renovate so that he can sublet to his prospective coworkers.
Leaving aside the costs of moving and maintaining a whole new household, the insanity of depending on him to renovate the house, and the utter lunacy of trusting him with my dog’s life and health, it’s like he’s a newborn babe innocent to all the ways of the world. [A thirty year old newborn.]
He really thinks it’s as simple as that summed up statement there. If I were crazy, foolish, or suicidally inclined, I might be tempted to say, why not? Let HIM take some responsibility for once. Except I’m not any of those and the second everything fell apart, I’d be asked to take over. Aw heck no!
This is the guy who hasn’t managed to pay $200 in rent once a month on time for more than 6 months. This is the guy who couldn’t keep up with his car payments more than halfway through the term, before abandoning the payments to me. This is the guy who evidently thinks I’m a moron and will cede to his Big Plan. Based on what? The essence of fairy dust?
Instead of smacking him upside the head Gibbs-style (ask Mrs. Micah or DebtHater what I mean 😉 by that), I listed just a few responsibilities “taking over the house” entailed, off the top of my head:
1. Are you prepared to feed and care for the dogs? Can you feed them on time every day, no excuses? Can you clean their ears, clip their toenails? Can you bathe them twice a month? Can you get your dog fixed? Can you pick up after them every single day?
2. What are you going to do when one of them gets sick?
3. Can you keep every public room in the house clean, vacuuming everything once a week, cleaning the windows once a quarter, washing the floors once a week?
4. Can you wash the dishes after every meal and wash down the kitchen once a week?
5. Can you turn off every unnecessary light in every room?
6. Can you make sure that no faucet, sink or tub in the house or the garage leaks?
7. Can you make sure that the windows are airtight?
8. Can you live without running the heat or the a/c?
9. Can you pay rent in full, every month, on time?
10. Can you pay the water/trash payments in full, every month, on time?
11. Can you pay the gas payments in full, every month, on time?
12. Can you pay the electric payments in full, every month, on time?
13. Can you pay the insurance payments in full, every month, on time?
14. Can you pay for groceries and gas after paying all those expenses without resorting to credit cards, borrowing money, or otherwise using money you haven’t already earned and received?
15. Can you live on what’s left after paying all those expenses without resorting to credit cards, borrowing money, or otherwise using money you haven’t already earned and received?
16. Can you make sure that the subletters pay their rent money to you on time to cover all of the above bills that you cannot handle on your own?
17. Can you make up the difference between $2500-3000 a month if your renters don’t pay you without resorting to credit cards or borrowing money?
18. How long can you subsidize your friends when someone doesn’t pay? You do know that just your living here doesn’t force them to pay?
19. Unless you have a legal written and signed document, you have very little power as a landlord. But the converse is that evicting someone for non-payment is extremely difficult in the state of California. You have to be unpaid for between three to six months before you’re allowed to evict them.
20. Who will be responsible if there’s an emergency?
21. Who is going to be responsible for a lawsuit if one of them or one of their friends gets injured on the property? You will. As the “landlord” you are legally responsible for injuries that occur on the property whether or not you were there to witness it.
22. How are you going to make time to renovate the house while going to school, working and managing finances for renters when you’ve never done the first two while managing your own finances responsibly consistently?
Now I think I’m going to go smack him upside the head. Honestly!! I have so many more things on my plate to deal with, I don’t have time to raise a 30-year-idiot.
*sigh*
Alright, fine. I’m a liar. I’m still in parenting mode. Because instead of just dismissing him and walking away, I’m giving him rules to abide by if he really wants to prove he’s serious about making things right. I am not sticking around to make him toe the line. Either he does it or he doesn’t, I’m not ceding any rights
School:
1. You lay out what your classes are from now until you graduate on a calendar.
2. You calendar when you will be looking for work that’s related to your degree or what comes next after graduation and how you’re going to make it happen.
3. You list out on a spreadsheet what the cost of school is, how much is covered by the government and what you will pay out of pocket for tuition, fees and books.
4. AND you show on a calendar your registration dates and the tuition due dates.
Rent:
1. You continue to work and earn at least $1000 a month.
2. You set out a budget that I approve in which you lay out how much money you’re earning against how much and what you’re spending. That will include a line item for rent, amount and due date set for the same time every month. It is your responsibility to make sure that I receive payment in full, on time.
3. You note your cash and every single item you spend on in the spreadsheet.
4. At the beginning of each month, your first payment is rent, at the end of every month, you post your spreadsheet with receipts.
House:
1. Whatever you think needs work needs to be scheduled to let everyone know what and when you’re doing a project and how long it will take. Renovations inconvenience everyone and you need to reduce that inconvenience as much as possible.
Does anyone want to start laying bets what kind of response my counter-proposal will get?
January 31, 2010
She changes by the hour. When she’s industrious, bustling around the kitchen, it might be in the guise of a young housewife eager to learn. Sometimes she’s the seasoned veteran barking at my dad for hovering nearby anxiously in case she should slip, trip or burn herself. Then she turns around and she’s confused and angry. Why has he been keeping her at home? She needs to go grocery shopping. She needs to buy things, anything, right now. Why won’t he take her? They didn’t just go that morning, she would remember if they had! He’s just trying to keep her prisoner. He’s just trying to hide money from her. Fine. Fine! Don’t take me, I hate you!
She sulks.
Then, slyly, she sneaks out the front door, racing for freedom. *pat pat pat pat* Her slippers slap the concrete and she makes good the escape and exults in tricking her captor. She stops to talk to the neighbor. Nonsense and gibberish pour out, the neighbor nods understandingly and pats her shoulder. As soon as Mom heads to exit the cul-de-sac, the neighbor knocks on the door: “She’s out again!”
Another weary race to hunt her down. This time she’s in a grocery store trying to sneak a toy past the cashier, that time she wandered into a strange neighborhood and couldn’t remember where she wanted to go. Still others she’s trying to find a park where she can play with the other kids.
“She’s getting worse,” my dad admits. “I’m struggling to keep track of her, I’m hardly sleeping, she can’t be left alone and everything causes a fight. Your mom’s getting worse.”
Her personality has morphed from a no-nonsense, hard-working go-getter to a fractured, broken soul. The fire that once burned in her, driving her from a dirt-poor childhood to leave her country, build a life from the ground up, raising two children and supporting an entrepreneurial husband’s morale and carrying more burdens than any single right-hand woman should have to … that fire’s still there. But it flares and sputters through a shattered prism of reality.
For the past three years, my family’s been struggling with the reality of living with a family member developing dementia. It’s the latest in a series of health problems, beginning with diabetes that went undiagnosed for years which led to a number of complications including high blood pressure, strokes, damaged eyesight, impaired nerve function. She also developed kidney problems, an inability to sleep, and neurological problems (constant vertigo, impaired judgment, short and long term memory loss). Congruent with my dad’s inability to hold a job and her guilt over my supporting the family, we added anxiety and depression to an already volatile mix.
Every day is a new struggle. It’s not just Sisyphean, trying to keep the boulder moving forward from day to day without letting it slip and crush us all; it’s also a Promethean epic of facing a rotating set of behaviors that range from destructive, to adolescent, to vehement worrying. She’s still a mother at heart, that instinct still lives but it lashes out destructively, pathetically, wishfully.
The woman I live with is my mom, but not really. This isn’t the person who raised me. But she’ll always be my mother so I’ll always provide for her.
__________________________________
My dad’s suffering just as much from the depression and anxieties of being a full time caretaker as she is from being the patient.
He’s had to turn down job offers with a decent salary but no benefits because according to the Social Security folks, if he earns as much as $600 a month, she will lose all her disability benefits AND her medical care. The latter is critical because as much as I would prefer to purchase independent health insurance for her, no insurance company will touch her. Even if I could afford upwards of $1500/month, which I can’t right now, she wouldn’t be covered for any of her existing conditions.
Family members have counseled him to consider divorcing her so that he can separate his finances from hers and maybe start to dig himself out of this hole without causing her to lose all her care. He can’t wrap his mind around the thought; I can’t believe that my family has come to that.
Until I find a job that pays enough to make more permanent arrangements, it’s inevitable she’ll eventually need more than my dad’s care, I’m researching respite care options to give him a break.
Through the California Caregivers Resource Centers, I’m looking for respite care options. I’m willing to pay reasonable rates for the assistance – I don’t expect a free ride – but given how cash-strapped California is, I’m not sure that they’re even still offering services at any price.
For those in the Los Angeles area, the Los Angeles Caregiver Resource Center came very highly recommended by a local psychologist. They provide some excellent free services to caregivers of “adults with brain impairing conditions, such as Alzheimer’s disease, stroke, Parkinson’s and traumatic brain injury.”
Karen was kind enough to send me this link to this Help Guide for Understanding Respite Care. From there I found the Family Caregiver Alliance (FCA): National Center on Caregiving.
The FCA page provides links to the Area Agencies on Aging (AAA) which service the state on a county level. They’ve also got links to a number of other resources:
General Information & Assistance
Services for Family Caregivers
Services for Care Receivers Living at Home
Resources on Living Arrangements for Care Recipients
Government Health & Disability Programs
Legal Help & Advocacy
Disease-Specific Organizations
Family Caregiver Organizations
I’ve got the phone numbers for our local county, and will call to see what services are provided in this area.
As riddled with error, delay and obfuscation the county health system has been, I’m foolish to hope for better from the caregiving resources that are also state-funded, but that’s all I’ve got left right now. Just a little bit of hope.
That’s all I can do on this front for now, wish me luck tomorrow.
October 4, 2009
The funeral was this weekend.
I managed to keep it together for the most part but it was difficult. Everywhere I went, I was introduced as an adopted daughter. That made me smile because, let’s be honest, it’s been a long time since I felt like a part of my own family. Or even since I wanted to be part of my family, the way things have been.
I can’t have been the only one who heard echoes of their father’s voice as we organized the family, completed chores, cooked, ate, and rested together. At first, it was oddly comforting to “hear” him as the days went by. But it was upsetting too. He should BE here, this shouldn’t be happening, it’s not right that he’s not here for this! *”This” is the moving. The family was scheduled to move into another house and nothing is going the way it would have if he were still here. Everything would have been like clockwork.
The resounding sense of wrongness grew louder as I watched the family dynamics shifting. The teenage daughter, already struggling with her relationship with her father, now struggling with the lost authority figure. The brothers quietly trying to find the right place and pace for their new responsibilities. We’re all busy with necessary chores, but we’re also driven by a need to fill the hours with work, to keep moving.
We worked on the house yesterday, after recovering from the funeral. Locks were changed, outlets taped off, walls washed. Painters and carpet cleaners were scheduled, and I’ve been asked to help out again when they arrive next weekend.
That’s where I’ve been, mostly. And that’s where I’ll be, mostly, until we get adoptive mom moved in and settled safely and securely. And after that? I’ll be a consultant as my friend learns the financial ropes his father always kept safely tucked away. Yet another reason to hit the books even harder and make sure I’m up on my money knowledge.
August 10, 2009
Fast on the heels of my declaration of independence from one kind of family tie, I face another.
What does one do, when simply listening to the cadence of another’s speech, the emotion, knowing that the little tears in the corners of the eye, the breaking voice, were all just cues built in meant specifically for manipulation [to my ears], drives you into a hands-shaking rage?
No, that’s not healthy. But that IS family.
I’ll be honest. I’ve been avoiding my brother via the cold shoulder and various other defensive-shunting techniques for the past few months because every time I even consider having a sit-down with him, I get angry. It took two months to pen a response to his most recent outrageously audacious “I’m trying ever so hard, and btw, can I get a little more free rein around here if I help out some more?” missive. Are you kidding me? Because I’m pretty sure that was followed up by a distinct period of doing less. I never sent it because I wanted to be sure this was a battle worth engaging in.
Frankly, I just didn’t want to hear it. Not the excuses, not the whining, not the plaints that he’s trying soooo hard. None of it. Don’t care. Haven’t seen it, and don’t care. Patience hath boiled over and boiled off in this little pot, and the last thing we needed was steam in this already sweltering heat. Yet, how long can you ignore a family member who lives feet away from you? [At last count … three and a half months. We’re restarting the clock.]
Seriously, though. He actually came and apologized for being too loud, which he was, but really, it was an apology because he’d gotten caught. And for what? For the dumbest thing — I wasn’t out to catch him! I’d just remembered to take out the trash! [Serious. Check my Twitter. I’d just gone out to get the trash and ran into him outside.]
Jeepers. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear I was living in a trailer park, about to get shipped out to Jerry Springer.
So now I feel obligated to give the real verbal thrashing for the real issues I’m angry about – of which there are many, and of those many, all are justified – since I had to listen to his idiotic sob stories despite doing my darndest to avoid them and the angry rant I’ve got to deliver. It’s only fair. If he’d just left me alone, I wouldn’t have to play the parent role again. Jerk. *scowl*