I am in a situation where I desperately need guidance before potentially doing something that could severely upend many people’s lives.
The crux of my question is this: Can a person with BPD live in an assisted living environment? If so, what additional resources do they need? If not, what is the appropriate setting for them?
Here are the (mostly) germane details. Please ask if more clarification would be helpful:
My elderly mother’s income has been reduced from $3,000/month to $800/month, and her mortgage is $900/month. This is obviously an untenable situation, so I’m trying to help her move to the “next stage of life.” She owes ~$70,000 on the house and the house is worth ~250,000-$300,000 in its current condition.
And its current condition is horrid. The roof is falling off, the furnace only runs half the time, there are holes in the walls and plaster falling off, and the yard is completely overgrown. She has stopped doing real housework; I have been vacuuming for her when I visit once a week.
In addition, her health has deteriorated to the point that she has to go down the basement stairs backwards to do laundry and clean the litter box. She is chronically dizzy, which is ostensibly why she doesn’t clean her house like she should. She fell in her yard four years ago and landed on her face, knocking out all but one of her teeth. But she has refused to go to a dentist to get dentures because she wants a $40,000 dental rebuild (I should note, however, that when we looked into that she was such a difficult patient that the company ended up refunding her $4,000 prepayment and asked her to go elsewhere). She also has refused to see a doctor for the past 11+ years, aside from a doctor she sees who prescribes her Adderall and Xanax. Mercifully, she doesn’t drive anymore, following a series of minor hit-and-run collisions.
I could go on and on; suffice it to say, as she’s gotten older she’s become less and less capable of taking care of herself. I won’t even go into the financial messes she’s made, largely because I don’t know any more than what I’ve actually witnessed, but in a nutshell there are judgments and liens and credit cards being declined.
So it seems clear to me that, at this point, she legitimately needs help with her life. She needs a place without stairs where she can get some help with housework and meals and a driver.
I’ve been working with a local service that has helped me find several communities more than capable of taking care of her needs. Apparently, as I think I understand it, if she can live in one of these communities for a certain period of time (one to two years?) she can transition to Medicaid support when her finances are exhausted. Given her financial situation, that would work out about perfectly, with maybe enough money left over to finally fix her mouth.
The problem, as I'm sure you can imagine, is the resistance my mother is putting up. I don’t have any idea what her long-term plan is, but on her good days she’ll go see a place with me and spend the whole time talking to the staff about how much people love her artwork, all the ways she knows she has psychic powers, and the plots of several books she wants to write; and on her bad days she just sits and pouts and says it’s not fair and she won’t move and she just wants to die.
And, mixed into those extremes are healthy doses of shaming and belittling she tries to leverage over me, I assume to try to manipulate me into doing her bidding, whatever that may be at any given moment.
So, now, I’ve only just realized a major problem that could ruin everything: At all the places we’ve visited, all the staff and other residents have been so kind and gracious and patient, and the facilities seem so wonderful and peaceful… What would happen if she moved into one of these places? Would she treat the staff and residents like she treats me (I know who she is, so I can put it in context, but I don’t expect a stranger to do the same)? Would she end up just getting asked to leave? And if so, what then?
My mother obviously isn’t the first BPD to need assisted living, so how does this ordinarily play out? Could she mellow out once she’s living in an environment where the walls aren’t falling in around her and her mouth is fixed, etc.? I honestly cannot see her for one moment joining social activities or eating with strangers, so will she ever adapt, and is that even important?
Or is there something else that happens with BPDs when they get to this stage of life? Is there a better place she can go?
I should say that I’ve been sorting out my relationship with my mother for an entire lifetime and I genuinely don’t feel I need help setting boundaries. I know she’s cruel and vindictive and insensitive and malicious, but I do love her and I’m concerned for her. I refuse to let her live with me and I absolutely will not financially support her, but I also don’t want to see her become penniless or end up in a women’s shelter if there’s anything I can do to help her avert that.
I’m just more and more wondering what that means.
Thank you in advance.
