Elderly uBPD mom, driver's medical, and subsequent dysregulation

[Turkish]

It's interesting that you have no signs of caring from your mother. I don't either but I no longer believe she cares either. I respect that she is my mother, and that ethically that relationship is significant, but I don't have any expectations that she feels a connection with me. I don't wish any harm to her, I hope she stays well, and I will do what I can for her, but she's in charge of her decisions.

This sums up where I ended up.

Many months, maybe a year, before I took her to live with us, I traveled up to her county to see how she was doing. I stopped at the local General store and she pulled up. She cried, "I thought that you had abandoned me! Everyone else did." I felt compassion, but also obligation. Some of her friends did take advantage of her. Like the ones that "borrowed" her shotgun (illegal) but she bought it at a garage sale (illegal), so I didn't pursue it.  

I almost cut off from her when I was 18 and she was in the midst of a major breakdown, but thought "this is my mother, I have no one else and neither does she." That was when she was 50 and still tough, physically. She screwed up any financial aid I could have gotten because she kept claiming me on her taxes even though her support was only $1200/ year around 1990. That's not me as a dependant. But... obligation.

[GaGrl]

My mother was disinherited by her stepmother. So (step grandmother) had married my grandfather at age 18 -- grandad was 32, my mother was 6. SM had been in an abusive household and had already had an earlier marriage annulled when she was 16 -- I do empathize with her difficult family roots.

But she took on my mother 's parenting and then did an abysmal job of it.

My mother tried to support her after Grandad's death, but she was not allowed -- even though my mom was sure there was no assets to be left to her. SGM had never legally adopted my mom, so Mom had no legal standing. No one else in her blood family was willing to take on legal responsibility for end of life decisions.

In the end, SGM lingered in hospital for 5-6 weeks on life support because no one had a clear ability to make a decision. It was horrible.

I first disliked her, then actively hated her. It has been a difficult relationship to overcome. The damage to my mother was unspeakable.

[Methuen]

I am so so tired.  

We suggested to mom she invite her friends to come pick her plums.
M: "no need.  I swept them up yesterday.  They are toast. Last night my heart gave me a bad time".
Us: "Do you need to see Dr?  What do you want to do?"
M: "NO (all caps) I don't.  After 15 min I was ok.

Yesterday:
M: "The plums are laying all over the ground under the tree".
Me: "I think they are going to have to stay there and turn to compost. We are busy with work and our renovation."
M: "I'll have to sweep them up".
Me: change of topic

Today (after delivering groceries to her):

Me: "How was your lunch with your friends today?"
M: "Not that great.  We got to talking, and we all agreed we would rather die than go into care".
Me: "Everybody gets to choose their own path.  H and I have talked about it, and agree that when our time comes, we will be OK to move into an assisted living suite where we can live independently, but with supports if we need them, so that we won't be lonely".  But everyone is different, and gets to make their own decisions.  
M: "they beat people in there".
Me: "I should go as I have to get my groceries home".

So tired.  It just never stops.  

[zachira]

So frustrating and so sad the conversations with your mother. In the last years of my mother's life, I let her initiate the conversations and I didn't reveal much about me, as I had pretty much accepted she really wasn't interested in me. It seems you are still trying to have back and forth conversations with your mother. I realize your situation is very different from mine, as your are in charge of your mother's care.

[Methuen]

So frustrating and so sad the conversations with your mother. In the last years of my mother's life, I let her initiate the conversations and I didn't reveal much about me, as I had pretty much accepted she really wasn't interested in me. It seems you are still trying to have back and forth conversations with your mother. I realize your situation is very different from mine, as your are in charge of your mother's care.

Yes the conversations with mom are all negative, and do make me very sad, frustrated, and despairing.  Like you, I also let mom initiate the conversations, which are always about her needs.  i.e. the plums.  It's making her crazy that we haven't come to pick them, because she can't stand seeing them on the ground, and, I suspect, also because she wasn't able to "control us" by "making" us come pick them this year.  One year we picked them, we had to store 1 case in her fridge, because our 3 "fruit tree fridges" were full (also with apples and pears), and when we had finished dehydrating the plums in our fridge, we went to her house to pick up the last case, and she had thrown them in the garbage (that's after nagging and nagging us to come pick them).

I would love to not have to be responsible for my mother's care when it's like this.  She hijacks my life.

[zachira]

This you have probably considered: Is there any way to hire a case manager to be totally in charge of your mother's care with the case manager directly interacting with your mother and the case manager letting you know what is relevant? I realize this is a shot in the dark, and not likely to be realistic. What would happen if suddenly you and your husband were literally unable to be responsible for your mother's care?

[Notwendy]

I agree with Zachira about getting someone like a case manager involved. Fortunately my BPD mother seems to like having other people help her, and really it's got to be that way. She treats them better than she treats me and sometimes she isn't nice to them either, but it doesn't hurt their feelings as much as they are not related to her.

Part of the hurt I think is that you are emotionally attached and wish things were different. I understand this but also have come to accept that there's no hope for the kind of relationship I wish things were, she is what she is.

It's almost as if she can't help herself. Even though I had not seen her in a long time due to Covid, it's as if no time had gone by and the visit didn't even seem to matter to her. I left thinking what's the point, but then I keep in mind - it mattered to me- as I would have felt bad about myself if I didn't see her. But also, I don't want to get into these interactions with her too frequently- they do hurt my feelings. I am not sure she cares or is even aware.

I have also stopped making any suggestions. She won't hear them and she won't do them. So for instance, your comment about how you might consider assisted living, this doesn't register with her. She's not going to consider it. My mother doesn't follow her doctor's advice sometimes. I have tried to reinforce it and say it's a good idea to follow his advice but it's useless, she won't hear it and won't do it. She'll then tell me the medicine he gave her doesn't work and then complain about him, but she doesn't take the medicine. I've learned to just say OK, and not say anything otherwise. She is critical of her helpers too. There's a pattern here. People can only help her if she lets them. All we can do is try the best we can.

[Methuen]

This you have probably considered: Is there any way to hire a case manager to be totally in charge of your mother's care with the case manager directly interacting with your mother and the case manager letting you know what is relevant? I realize this is a shot in the dark, and not likely to be realistic. What would happen if suddenly you and your husband were literally unable to be responsible for your mother's care?

I would love to hire a case manager.  Where I live, we have national health care.  Because my mom has had past falls, and I have stated to the emergency room doctor that I am not able to provide the level of care she needs after a fall, the doctors release her from hospital to publicly funded home care.  This was a difficult step for me to have to take.  Long nasty story.  But because she has had home care multiple times, she is "in the system" and has a "case manager".  But the case manager works with mom, not with me, although I have completely disclosed the situation to her confidentially.  They have sympathy, but mom would have to sign away control of her care.  She refuses to do that.  The case manager told me this is not unusual for some elderly people.  Generally, there has to be a catastrophic fall (with no recovery prognosis) and then they are released from hospital to a care facility instead of to her home.  After her second fall (under her plum tree) two years ago, there were discussions with the case worker and I and mom, around planning for the future.  Mom went nuclear.  The rest is history.     

Hence the comments "I would rather die than go to ______ (assisted living and/or care facility).

As to what would happen if H and I were suddenly unable to care for mom, she would then become a ward of the public health care system, and undoubtedly be assigned to assisted living, as she is completely unable to care for herself, with the exception of personal care (although I now also find I have to clean the toilet seat before I use it when at her house). 

I suspect even she can see what is coming.  Her mobility is terrible, her neurological symptoms are getting worse (Parkinson's), and her memory is declining.  I believe this is why failing her driver's medical was such an emotional trigger.  It was someone else giving her the objective facts that she can no longer deny.

[Turkish]

My mom said similar things, that she wanted to "die on the hill." She had 5 acres in the forest, a beautiful property aside from her hoard. She almost did die, but calling EMS for rescue after a fall finally resulted in her removal, legally. Then her brain partitioned, in a way, after she couldn't live in the long term residency motel and off to skilled care she went. After some adjustment of meds, she came to like it there.

[Methuen]

Then her brain partitioned, in a way, after she couldn't live in the long term residency motel and off to skilled care she went. After some adjustment of meds, she came to like it there.

Thank you Turkish.  This gives me some hope. 

[Notwendy]

I think losing control and accepting assistance is hard to deal with no matter what. I know it is common for elderly people to act out sometimes. The difference for me is that this isn't a new thing for my mother- the acting out may be over age related issues rather than other ones, and a long history of emotional and verbal abuse that continues. Being available to her becomes a cat and mouse game to her, that she is determined to win. I don't know if she realizes how she acts, because sometimes I think she is well aware of what she is doing playing on my own vulnerability. When you help her, she insults you. If you show any weakness, she makes fun of you. She's cruel. She's always been that way.

One reason I don't think my mother would do well in assisted living is that she does these things with her helpers, to a lesser degree, but insults them and acts out. She also doesn't cooperate with them or her medical team. She needs to be in charge, so suggesting things to her results in her not doing them to maintain control. She also lies a lot so we can't tell if what she tells us is true or not. She's hidden all her assets and any bills/debts from us so if we ever needed them to help her - to assist with bills or anything- we don't really know what she has or not so we could not assist with a budget. We know the approximate costs of assisted living but don't know what her coverage is. I have suggested she speak to a financial adviser but I don't know if she will or not, or if she has.

I can't help her, because helping her becomes a game to her. How can anyone have a discussion when she won't tell us or she lies and then insults us. When we visited, I arranged a nice meal with some of her family and she decided to pretend she wasn't coming and when I asked her to reconsider,  she then insulted me. At the last minute she decided to come. She didn't consider not coming in the first place. She was angry at me and so decided to be hurtful.

I think the sum of the difficulty is that good intentions get twisted and thwarted. We, her kids, don't visit with any bad intentions, or expectations of anything from her. But when our good intentions are perceived by her as bad ones, and she resists them and then gets verbally abusive, we don't know what to do. Another reason why I don't have hope for the relationship is that, as humans, we want to be "seen" for who we are. I don't know what sad trauma she is experiencing with us, but it's not us. We aren't doing that to her but I don't think she can see that. That's very sad for her and for us, but we can't change that for her. We do what we can but we are not effective help to her.

[zachira]

Methuen,
Would it possibly provide some relief if you had the right kind of person actually witness how your mother mistreats you and was there to help you then and immediately after she mistreats you? I don't think we can underestimate how much we our hurt by the cumulative emotional damage done by lifelong mistreatment by a BPD mother. You have said in the past that you could not find anybody to be with you most of the time when you are with your mother and your husband is finally more understanding of just how badly your mother treats you. You did say you had a therapist. Would it possibly make sense to make part of your therapy having your therapist accompany you to your mother's house and actually witness her behaviors and how you interact? I say this because I have noticed how having a witness that has empathy for how the victims of the abuse of my family members are affected has been extremely helpful for me in healing and moving forward. When I was a child and teenager, I noticed the sad expressions on other adults faces when I was abused by my mother. As an adult, distant cousins and family friends have been present when other family members abuse others, and have shown empathy for the victims. If none of this helpful, I am not offended and I hope I have not been disrespectful with my suggestions. I know the lifelong pain of dealing with the behaviors of a mother with BPD and trying to think what might help you. Every time, I read your posts all I can think of, is I hope it is not much longer that your mother is in her home, and you are stuck having so much contact with her. If your mother were in an assisted living or nursing home, there would be many witnesses to see how she interacts with you, and you could choose when to go see her, and have more ways to limit the types of contact with her that now are so distressing and exhausting. I realize your mother refuses to go to assisted living and there is little you can do about that right now, though she will likely be in assisted living or a nursing home soon because she is now unable to take care of herself without the help of you and your husband.

[GaGrl]

I read that your mother will go into assisted living only after mother call episode and only when a doctor tells her that you and your husband are physically incapable of providing the care she needs.

In fact, she may skip assisted living and end up needing skilled nursing care.

[pursuingJoy]

and then deal with the crash.

These six little words give me anxiety. I expect the same here. And because of their relationship, MIL and H will blame me for the entire crash because I 'didn't want MIL to live with us.'

It's got to be ok to still have boundaries, even after the crash, right? It is, after all, self induced. They make choices along the way that result in consequences. We love them, we wish them well, like NW said. But do we have to deal with the crash? Isn't it ok to allow some natural consequences to take place?

[GaGrl]

Yes -- the "crash." I think that even mentally stable older people have a negative reaction to the loss of control as they age. My mother, with a few BPD traits, keenly felt and resented her loss of independence and control. This was the root of our disagreements and her frustrations in the past 2-1/2 years of her life when she lived with us.

For pwBPD, who hang onto the control as strongly as they can, it sometimes takes a severe crisis for them to relinquish control in order to have the very minimum of their needs met.

Had my mother been fully BPD, I could not have had her life with us. It would have been impossible. It was hard enough as it was.

[Methuen]

When you help her, she insults you. If you show any weakness, she makes fun of you.

This jumped off the page at me.  It's really really disturbing.  

My mom shows flashes of that, but it's not a routine pattern of hers.

However, for years (since I was a child) my mom would tell everyone (friends or family or neighbours - it didn't matter) a story about how I bit into a glass ball decoration on the bottom of the Christmas tree as a baby.  She told it as if I was a stupid child to do that.  She thought it was a funny story.  She was making fun of me.  A few years ago, I had enough, and finally spoke up and said "well why did you hang it on the bottom of a tree where a crawling baby could find it?"  Since she told the story in front of visitors, I asked this question in front of the same group.   She couldn't blow up at me since there were people there.  She hasn't told the story since, so it seems like bouncing the ball back to her court may have been the thing that put the brakes on that particular story.  The thrill of humiliating me, lost its lustre when it boomeranged back at her.  As long as I politely stayed quiet and let her enjoy her story, she kept telling it - for over 50 years.  

[Methuen]

" and then deal with the crash."
These six little words give me anxiety. I expect the same here. And because of their relationship, MIL and H will blame me for the entire crash because I 'didn't want MIL to live with us.'

Yes, odds are good for that PJ.  Anxiety yes. All we can do are the things we are already doing.  But it's really really wearing and taxing.

Your H is super lucky to have you.

[Methuen]

In fact, she may skip assisted living and end up needing skilled nursing care.

Agreed.  So sad - and unnecessary.  The assisted living facility here is a nice facility, has amazing people who work there, and my mom even knows one, and years ago used to say what a "special" person she was.  All that seems forgotten now.  It's not rational, which is what makes it so frustrating.  My mom is a social person - and loves having people around.  I know she's lonely in her house alone.  The decision is hers.  So are the consequences.  If she falls or has a stroke, it will be some time until someone finds her, whereas if she would wear her lifeline, she could push a button and get help.  So as you said PJ, it is OK for them to live with the natural consequences because the choices were theirs. Unfortunately though, the consequences for all of us on this forum also filter to the children/siblings (or children/siblings in-law) thanks to the toxic behavior that affects their closest relationships. Navigating that is like crisis management flying by the seat of your pants.

[Notwendy]

My mother tells a story about how, as a small child, I wouldn't share my cookie with a sibling. I guess, implying that I was so selfish. I was a little kid!

She seems to recount these childhood stories of things I did wrong, or didn't do- when they were decades ago.

She did says something to me that I never heard before. Once she was angry that I made something from her last cake mix and burned it, so I made another one from scratch. She said recently that it impressed her I could bake from scratch. She has not ever said this to me- it was decades ago. Strange, because she was angry at me at the time for "burning the cake on purpose".  I don't think this came from her. I think maybe a friend said something to her about how I could cook because it was totally out of character for her to say something like that. My mother doesn't bake, but I learned how to do that as a teen.

PJ - good question- why not let her deal with the consequences of a crash? I agree that natural consequences are the best way to learn and we let them happen as much as possible unless they are harmful. If a child forgets their homework, we don't bring it to them- we let them face the teacher, so they remember to bring it next time. But we still keep them from harmful things. We are not responsible for our BPD mothers' choices, but also at their age, it also would involve how much we could manage, ethically. It's a fine line between enabling, leaving them to their own choices, or neglect at their age. We also can't watch them all the time- and if they decide to try to do something like pick plums, we can't avoid that, but we hope they don't take that risk.

[Methuen]

It's a fine line between enabling, leaving them to their own choices, or neglect at their age. We also can't watch them all the time- and if they decide to try to do something like pick plums, we can't avoid that, but we hope they don't take that risk.

The word "neglect" has tripped me up.  I'm very familiar with what neglect means in the legal sense.  But is the "fine line" you are referring to this:

On one side of the line is their autonomy and independent choices as adults with the natural consequences which follow (such as choosing to take the risk to pick up plums from under the same tree where you fell previously which resulted in 4 fractures, home care, and 3 months in a wheelchair, but you choose to take this risk anyway with the full knowledge that you have been assessed by experts to have a high risk of falling).

On the other side of the line is the right of other people to take away your autonomy as an adult, and commit you to an institution for safety reasons, against your will, because your choices and behavior could be deemed to be a risk to yourself.  Could failing to commit someone in this way be considered "neglect"? Or could the "system" be neglecting her?

Or are you referring to some other line, that I'm perhaps not thinking about yet?

I must admit I am struggling with this word neglect in this context, and what it could mean.

My mom has been assessed by our health care system, and been deemed to have the mental capacity to make her own choices, including where she lives.

I see and know things that the people doing those 1 hr assessments don't have a clue about.  I have enlightened them confidentially, and shared the situation as I see it.  They have been empathetic in most cases, but until her situation worsens, or the assessment tool changes and she is deemed to not have capacity, there is little anyone can do to "keep her safe from herself", as long as she chooses to live independently.  In fact one of the people I spoke to confidentially (an elderly services consultant who works for our local public health)  suggested I have suffered emotional abuse, and could even have PTSD.  So I'm confident she got an accurate picture of the dynamic.

As GaGrl suggested, mom has very likely been manipulating and maneuvering to FOG and ply me with guilt, with the goal of coming to live with us.  Our firm boundary is "no" on that issue.  Our life as a married couple would be over.  We would become her servants.  There would be 24/7 chaos.  Our freedom would come to an end.  Few people outside of this community can empathize with what would result. There would be an implosion.

So if she chooses to decline the opportunity offered by our health care system to go into assisted living, and continues to make her own autonomous choices including putting herself into risky positions such as raking up her plums from under her plum tree, and I am aware she is making risky choices, am I neglecting her?

Because that possibility terrifies me...

Somebody please clarify.

[Woolspinner2000]

Hi Methuen,

I don't think It's considered neglect at all when a person has been determined to be mentally and physically competent to live independently and take care of themselves. Typically I think neglect is when you live with someone and don't provide for their physical needs and care which can be seen in elder abuse. Be at ease that you are not neglecting your mom just because of limiting your connection with her. Hopefully others will chime in as well. I know that Turkish went through quite a lot with his mom.

 
Wools

[GaGrl]

NotWendy had a point a while back that I have always temembered. Her mother had been assessed, and she was told, " Your mother is mentally capable of making her own poor decisions."

You are not neglecting your mother. You are, right now, going over and above.

I hear what you say about the results of your mother living with you. My mother was in her 90s when I retired, and the next 2-1/2 years were difficult on our marriage. My husband is a saint. So...that isn't an option.

You certainly can clearly and bluntly express your opinion, your concerns, and your preferences to your mother regarding her ongoing care -- both to your mother and to her medical team. Once you've done that, remember...

She is mentally capable of making her own poor decisions.

[Turkish]

The APS social worker told me that my mother was an independent entity, free to live as she chose, no matter how poorly we all thought that was. "We can't just go grab her from her property she has rights."

My therapist told me, "you have a home. You're not a hospital and that's what she needs." Supervision not to wander off, medical care including medication to stabilize her hostility.

She threatened me with a lawyer (getting into my face as I was making lunch), told my neighbors that I was holding her against her will and that I and my little kids were stealing from her (the latter two things accusations of criminal elder abuse). She told both of those last things to cops from two different jurisdictions.  

I took her into my home in the dead of winter (she had no heat), likely saving her life.

It was so stressful to me that I broke down in the Chem lab at work and cried one day. Wolves don't cry. The hopelessness and guilt were overwhelming as well as FOG from a stranger who gave my mom a ride home one day after she lost her license, and my mom's former neighbor "frenemy" who berated me on the phone: "you need to DO something, she's your mom!"
The same lady also  at me.

It took me a while, but I finally realized that I can't control what I am unable to control. Who can do that? No one. It's not possible.

[Methuen]

Thank you for the responses, your points,  and reassurance.

I shared recent events  with my T yesterday.  Before I had even finished the story a laugh escaped her at one point, and she said “where’s the popcorn? This is more entertaining  than the movie I watched last night.”  I asked her too about neglect, and she promptly responded by listing everything I do for her, and adamantly confirmed it was not neglect.

Of course society may see it differently because they don’t know the dynamic or have all the facts, but probably believe they do.  

Today mom told me that one of her good friends and the H had come to rake up all the plums.  They filled the larg garbage can right to the top.

[Notwendy]

Well good. Glad someone else got the plums for her.

You do way more for your mother than I do. I suspect my mother's neighbors and friends think her kids are awful.

[Notwendy]

My mother set her med alert off in the middle of the night. Since I am the emergency call person ( and there are others on there too) they woke me up. I didn't get much sleep that night and later I called the ER and spoke to the nurse who checked her out and said she was OK. I went about the morning trying to get things done and then fell back asleep.

When I woke up, I got a call from my mother telling me how much I hurt her feelings by not calling her to ask how she was feeling. I explained that I had spoken to the nurse who told me she was OK and that I was not able to get to the phone after that.

Well then, she called me back to then tell me I should not have spoken to the nurse but to her instead.  I explained that her med alert woke me up in the middle of the night and I needed to get back to sleep and the nurse could assure me she was OK.

She then said " oh I told them not to call you at night but they don't listen to me" which is a lie because they call when they get the notice.

So, I called the service and took myself off their call list. I don't live near her. There is nothing I can do for her in the middle of the night. The service is there to assess her and make sure she gets what she needs. Her home health team is notified. They have my number and if they need to call me they will.

[Methuen]

Well then, she called me back to then tell me I should not have spoken to the nurse but to her instead.

Yep.  No matter what you do, it doesn't measure up, and it's never enough, or, never "right".

If you had called her directly, she probably would have criticized you for calling her when she was on her way to emergency, and said you should have called the hospital, since she wasn't well enough to take calls.

It's a lose-lose proposition.

You did what any reasonable person would do.

[Methuen]

I've been reflecting on this whole driver's licence drama with my mother, and I had a flashback to a story I heard my dad tell once, many years ago.

He and mom were newly married (this was 1961).  I can guarantee he did not know what he married, but what he knew of her he genuinely loved.  He was a gentle, kind, helpful person.  Anyways, mom did not have a driver's license.  My dad knew how to drive (he was actually a logging truck driver in those days), so they decided together he would give mom lessons, so she could drive and have her independence.  As I recall the story, he took mom out to a field somewhere.  The car was a standard.  They did some practice with shifting, and then they decided she was ready to learn how to "back up".  He went and stood a good distance behind the car to give her a place to back up to.  Well you can guess the rest of the story.  In true BPD form, she put the car in reverse and stomped on the gas with no feel at all, no care, and no sense of consequences.  He very narrowly missed being run over.  She thought it was funny.  Her was terrified.  He came to understand his new wife a lot that first year.
 She also threatened him once with a butcher's knife.  Twenty -six years later, I got married.  When H and I returned from our honeymoon, she picked us up from the airport.  She was so excited, that she forgot she was driving, and let off the gas right on the highway, and stopped the car right on the highway.  God bless my new husband, he stayed calm, and asked her if she didn't want to take us home please.

Let's just say that her driving never improved, because she didn't have the capacity to stay focussed while driving, or make good decisions.  

This past weekend when I visited her, she said to me:
"I haven't driven since I saw Dr ___.  It makes you not want to drive when Dr tells you could hit a child."

I replied that anyone would be sad to have to stop driving.  When we get our driver's license as a teenager it is a monumental milestone that gives us independence and freedom.  When we have to stop driving, we lose that same freedom, and so a sense of loss happens.  Anyone would be sad about that, and it happens to all of us.

She didn't say much, but I hope it was validating.  She didn't rage at me so that was good.
 What I got from the visit is that she is "processing" the loss of her driving.

Even though it's going to be more work for me driving her to more appointments, the roads are safer without her driving on them.  Our kids haven't driven with her since they were about 10 and 12 years old.  They are 24 and 26 now.

[Notwendy]

Methuen,
I think the increase in her leaning on you to drive her could be an extra toll on you. Driving my mother is stressful because, being alone in the car with her is an opportunity for her to start yelling at me. Being alone with my mother can be a set up, and it's better with other people around. I have had to tell her I will turn the car around if she keeps this up when we are driving, because I don't feel safe on the road driving as it distracts me.

My mother has gotten quite resourceful with finding people to drive her.. She's taken cabs, had her helpers drive her. I realize each exposure might be a Covid consideration, but she needs assistance. She's vaccinated, wears a mask in the car. It's working for her.

This might be an opportunity to introduce the idea of someone else helping your mother by looking into resources for transportation for her.

[Notwendy]

One reason I spoke to the nurse first, is that my mother often lies to me. She may call me up acting as if she's sick, and then call my sibling and act as if she is totally fine. We don't wish for her to feel badly, but can not tell what is actually going on with her.

It's very alarming to get a med alert call in the middle of the night and so, the first thing I wanted to do was to call the ER -because that is the best way to get accurate information. Once the nurse told me she was stable, and they were getting ready to send her home, I was reassured.

I guess she was upset that I didn't call her to show concern, but I would not be able to rely on what she tells me.