Addicted to money and potential elder abuse

[Mixtapeballon]

Hi Everyone

My Mum is BPD and there has always been issues with money.

For as long as I can remember, she has borrowed, begged (often alongside threats or attempts to suicide) or stolen money from loved ones (usually her Parents and Aunt). It's always been a contentious issue and it;s often resulted in her running away from unpaid bills by moving house (she's moved a lot).

Anyhow, this culminated into her getting involved with a conman who promised a dodgy mortgage and a payout after my Grandad died. My family lived under the lure of this promise for around 10 years (with my Great Aunt selling her house and my Grandma taking out two equity loans on her house, and many loans over this time period reaching around £300k). This has now come to an end after the money dried up and my Mum moved away taking my Great Aunt with her - my Aunt no longer had a house and it made sense financially that they'd share the bills.

Now, my Great Aunt is in her mid 80's. Since she moved there, she's had a heart attack and had a stroke about a year ago. She struggles with her mobility, but can generally look after herself, though she finds this tiring. She doesn't have access to public transport, and so she's reliant on my Mum for accessing healthcare, go to the bank, buy food etc.

Since my Aunt had the stroke, my Mum has withdrawn from her. We can't really work out why, but my Aunt often won't see her for days. My Aunt has sometimes been without food and has been getting very annoyed and frustrated, but my Mum will often state that my Aunt is always wanting to go out and seems to generally resent doing anything for her.

My Mum has stolen from my Aunt in this time and all of her savings have gone. My Mum has a pet horse, which she visits twice a day and whilst my Aunt pays a lot of the bills, my Mum is living the lifestyle she wants, aside from having my Aunt around.

My Aunt has decided that as she gets older, she can't rely on my Mum and it's blown up. I thought that my Mum was upset at the thought of my Aunt leaving, but she is actually only upset that she won't be able to keep her lifestyle going. This was quite shocking to me, as I thought she had some feelings for my Aunt, but maybe not!

Has anyone else had anyone like this around them? How did you manage with it? I can't see a good ending from this.

[HappyChappy]

I’m so sorry to hear your story, this must be difficult for you and your Aunt. I can relate, unfortunately. I don’t know enough about your situation to say if this applies, but you asked for relatable, so :

My BPD has always offered inheritance but never given it – she sees money as love and someone with a PD has a lot of self love. So they often see money as power and control. They know they can use family ties to control close relations, e.g. “honour thy mother”, “blood is thicker than water” but they will use money more with strangers, as they can’t control strangers as easily as they can relatives they’ve gas light for decades. This brutally cold realisation was necessary for me to escape the F.O.G. , boy was it hard to accept, because we kids are progammed to expect unconditional love - a BPD's love is always conditional. It's only after the con, they drop their guard/ mask and don't work the false story.

Hence when they don't think they can get anything more from a relative, they drop them like a stone, with a cover story. But as they run of tansactional love, it's what they got from the other person that they miss, not the person. It's not malitious, it's just because their minds work differently to ours. If you lack empathy, you can see that as a weekness to exploit, as most with a PD do.

Not sure if any of this does apply here, but if you are the child of someone with BPD, then you will have been gas light and groomed to believe your BPD does care about family and that the shame blame of their actions belongs to someone else. So don't take on any unfair shame here. You sound very empathetic so will have done the best for your mom and Aunt given the information you had at the time. You said you mom moved them away, this isolation helps control the message, so you'll probably never know the true story, but be assured that's not your fault. You can't change your mom's behaviour and a child of an undiagnosed BPD is programmed to believe mother knows best.  All we can do is manage how we react to such realisations. Hindsight is 20:20. The points I make above come from BPD research so that when someone does push false news, all we can do is use that research to figure out what your mom or Aunt really did think. Presumably your Aunt also got something out of all this ? I hope this theory doesn't fit, but if any of this does relate, I'm so sorry you had to be part of it.  How do you feel about all this ?  How is your mental health ? 

[Turkish]

Going without food?

Have you thought about reaching out for an advocate for your aunt?

https://www.ageuk.org.uk/information-advice/health-wellbeing/relationships-family/protection-from-abuse/