My mother is now to the point where she needs...supervision. She's only 55 and her mental state has deteriorated to the point that she is incapable of carrying on a rational conversation. We haven't had a "conversation" in years, but she is now filled with depression to the point of being incoherent.
My sister and I talk a lot now about mom. We try to plan for her health care but the problem is that mom is not a threat to herself (actively anyway...it's her inactivity that's damaging her) or others so she can't be commited or have a case worker designated to her. She is unwilling to care for herself but is unhealthy and unhappy.
So I am attempting to strong-arm her into getting medical care. At this point I'm all bully bluff...I am after all 2,500 miles away from her. But I can go along way on tough words and detective/stalker type follow-up. I know the system well and can't be tricked. But mom is determined to pretend she's fine, so we'll see how this goes.
I'm going to call her at work tomorrow to see if she's made an appointment. I know she's going to say yes and I know it will be a lie. So tomorrow will simply be a day of me catching her in (yet another) lie, punishing her verbally, and then making an appointment for her myself. The purpose of this is to reinforce with her my ability to bust her lying ass, so hopefully my threats will carry more weight with her and I can more effectively bully her from a distance.
This is going to be a fight every step of the way until she's dead. But I'm hoping atleast to make some progress now so she'll suffer less later. Tough love is a harsh mistress.
My sister and I talk a lot now about mom. We try to plan for her health care but the problem is that mom is not a threat to herself (actively anyway...it's her inactivity that's damaging her) or others so she can't be commited or have a case worker designated to her. She is unwilling to care for herself but is unhealthy and unhappy.
So I am attempting to strong-arm her into getting medical care. At this point I'm all bully bluff...I am after all 2,500 miles away from her. But I can go along way on tough words and detective/stalker type follow-up. I know the system well and can't be tricked. But mom is determined to pretend she's fine, so we'll see how this goes.
I'm going to call her at work tomorrow to see if she's made an appointment. I know she's going to say yes and I know it will be a lie. So tomorrow will simply be a day of me catching her in (yet another) lie, punishing her verbally, and then making an appointment for her myself. The purpose of this is to reinforce with her my ability to bust her lying ass, so hopefully my threats will carry more weight with her and I can more effectively bully her from a distance.
This is going to be a fight every step of the way until she's dead. But I'm hoping atleast to make some progress now so she'll suffer less later. Tough love is a harsh mistress.
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The entry above about your mother sounds quite sad. A lot of the time this sort of thing happening in real life seems to escape so much verbal detail. It sounds like a short story by Dorothy Parker. She (your mother) seems awful young for such unconditional stress, too, but still old enough for this to be a spiraling problem a little tougher than if it were happening to a younger person. Hopefully she'll keep her appointments?