BPD mum - compulsive spending

[catmae1]

Hello
Have any of you dealt with a parent who is completely irresponsible with their finances and spends compulsively? My uBPD mum has had a spending addiction for decades (it was the reason her and my dad divorced when I was growing up as dad worked three jobs to keep us afloat while mum hemorrhaged money daily without restraint, remorse or any care for the consequences).
I  became involved in her finances a couple of years ago when she had a brain hemorrhage and was in a coma for a period of time. I realised she was severely in debt and had been hiding it. It took me a long time and caused me a lot of stress sorting everything out with her creditors. As she was physically and mentally incapacitated I had no choice but to sort out the financial mess.
Thankfully she recovered although she is left with a disability and can no longer drive so has home carers x 3 a day to help with every day tasks. I relinquished power of attorney for her affairs after she recovered as she wanted to control her own finances again. I told her she would have to stop spending and I cut up her credit cards. Since then, she has pretty much blown every penny of savings she has, took out another credit card and compulsively spends every day. If she keeps this up she'll be bankrupt before the year is out and will no longer be able to pay her bills or for her carers. Myself and other family members have tried reasoning with her numerous times but she ignores all advice and continues spending. Her GP says she has mental capacity to make her own decisions so I can't have any control over her finances unless she were to agree, which she doesn't. This situation on top of the other BDP behaviours causes my a lot of stress and whilst I have put boundaries in place to deal with some of her other behaviours to protect my sanity, I do worry where it will all end when the inevitable financial train wreck happens and whether I will be blamed by others for not doing more to help her. As well as spending over the phone and online, she gets friends to buy things with her bank card and she orders excessive amounts of food every week (I used to do her online food shop but took a break when I was having a mental breakdown and she figured out she could get more of what she wanted if she does it herself). Her carers and cleaner say there is always too much food to fit in her fridge and a lot gets wasted. She also buys and binges on unhealthy foods that she shouldn't be eating because she is diabetic. I know there is very little I can do to control any of this (I live several hours away and she seems determined to deny it hide everything from me anyway) but it doesn't stop me from worrying about it

[Notwendy]

Yes, we have similar stories.

My BPD mother is basically doing the same thing. I have power of attorney but since she is "legally mentally competent" and wants to be fully in control of her money, there's no way to intervene. There were financial issues with my parents as well. When Dad passed away, he left her with plenty of money but she's spent most of it. Family members have tried to intervene as well, but with no changes on her part.

What I have done is shift attention from what she's doing to what options are available to her if/when she depletes her savings. I don't know what social services are available where you are. I scheduled a consultation with an elder care attorney for my own information. It was money well spent as I could be informed.

My mother is elderly and is in assisted living. She needs a lot of assistance- and it seems your mother is also in a medical need category. In the US, people who are elderly or have a disability can receive social security. If they have no other income source, they become eligible for a Medicaid paid nursing home if they require nursing home care.

If someone has additional income besides social security, they won't qualify for Medicaid but there's a medical needy pathway- that might help supplement nursing home costs but there are rules about that.

Now that I know these rules and options, I can have an idea for what options my mother might have.

I don't know what is available in your area- but most countries have some resources for people who are elderly or medically disabled. Yes, I am concerned about my mother's spending but I agree, it's a sort of addictive behavior that I can't change. It seems to help to have an idea of what her options might be.

[Turkish]

My mom was a Hoarder and a compulsive spender. In retrospect, she was like this when I was a little kid. Get rich quick schemes and such.

Brace yourself: outsiders may likely blame you for not rescuing or taking care of her (enabling!). They won't get it. I fielded many phone calls, including my mom's last neighbor (a frienemie) who cussed me over the phone ("but she's YOUR MOTHER!") despite the fact that my mom used her as well.

Sometimes it's best to let logical consequences take their course. My mom lost everything, including 2 properties. I had helped with $, but in the end I had to let it go.

[Notwendy]

I am reposting this article that I found a while back. Even if our situations aren't all the same, the emotions of the author resonated with me, and I think with many of us who are in the situation of a disordered elderly parent.

https://slate.com/technology/2022/03/mentally-ill-parent-elder-care-boundaries-liz-scheier.html

I also feel I have been judged by others for not being more of a caretaker for my BPD mother. But like the author, my mother does not respect boundaries. She's emotionally and verbally abusive. And no matter what I or anyone else "does for her"- it either isn't enough or she finds something wrong with it.

I agree with Turkish. We have tried to be proactive with my mother. At one point, her extended family had been judging me as "not doing enough" so they stepped in to assist her. Now, they too have seen that their efforts have not been effective or appreciated by her. They won't try either. We haven't stopped contact with her- we still care about her well being- but we have seen that trying to "rescue" her doesn't work. The only boundary we can hold on to financially is ours.

None of us would feel OK if she were to lack basic needs- like shelter, or food, or clothing- but fortunately, that isn't the situation with her- and there are social services like Medicaid to prevent these situations. My mother is fortunate in she gets some monthly income from my father's investments.  It's that her spending exceeds that. So she's drained most of her savings. She took out a home equity loan ( and didn't tell us) and we moved her to assisted living to avoid the bank repossessing her house as she had spent most of the equity in it. As soon as the house sold, she began to recklessly spend what was left of it.

For me, the most reassuring thing has been to look at what assistance my mother might qualify for, and also facilities that would be within her income as it's not likely she would qualify for assistance. It's reassuring that, at her age, she would not be without her basic needs being met- it might not be her choice of where if it's not affordable. We have told her that. She can either conserve her savings to stay in the assisted living she's in, or if she doesn't, she may need to change. She's in control of that choice.

[TelHill]

I am reposting this article that I found a while back. Even if our situations aren't all the same, the emotions of the author resonated with me, and I think with many of us who are in the situation of a disordered elderly parent.

https://slate.com/technology/2022/03/mentally-ill-parent-elder-care-boundaries-liz-scheier.html

I also feel I have been judged by others for not being more of a caretaker for my BPD mother. But like the author, my mother does not respect boundaries. She's emotionally and verbally abusive. And no matter what I or anyone else "does for her"- it either isn't enough or she finds something wrong

Thanks for posting this article, Notwendy.  It's comforting to me as I try to do the right thing, like all of us, for a severely mentally ill parent. My dBPD mom's behavior is as self-destructive as an addict to alcohol, illicit drugs. Get too close to mom and you'll go down the same destructive path - true at 40 when she was an independent adult and 90 as a partially disabled senior citizen.  

I experienced what Turkish and NW say about being blamed for not being a caregiver. I was also blamed for not doing the job correctly since mom's bpd acting out went public in her neighborhood as she aged.

A neighbor lady I never knew before but chatted with my father when he was still well enough to take walks confronted me out of the blue when I was as a pt caregiver. Her house was on a walking path I took. She told me she would give anything to have the privilege of caring for her mother if she were alive.  Perhaps I should spend more time with my parents. This was the 4th time she ever saw me.

I stopped walking by her house to avoid her. A few weeks later she came by my parents house because she knew my parents were alone though I answered the door. She told me during our conversation  her MIL was in a nursing home 200 miles away from her only child, her H. There's a lower cost of living there.

I was the whipping post for her guilt about this. So, please take  these nosy judgments with a huge grain of salt.  It's all about them and not about you.

[Notwendy]

There was an elderly lady in our community who people would stop by to visit- we did too. She was very sweet.

She had two daughters who lived several states away. We didn't see them or even know if/when they visited.

I imagine people wondered why but I didn't. Either they were self centered and didn't care- or- they had their reasons. . My BPD mother can also act sweet to visitors. Being alone with her is a different situation. So I didn't question the daughters. The woman was well cared for and also had friends and neighbors to check in on her. My BPD mother also has a support system where she is.

I understand the feeling of wishing to have the privilege of caring for a mother. To me, this is one more event of feeling that something is different about my mother. I could see that my friends' mothers acted differently with them than my mother does with me. When my friends began to care for their elderly parents, I wanted to do that too, and I tried but my parents were emotionally and verbally abusive to me - and I had to have boundaries with that.

People assume we are being selfish if our parents are difficult in their elder years. Unless they have had a similar experience, they compare this to their own experiences. I did help a bit with my elderly MIL.  She has her own quirks but she doesn't have BPD and she's not abusive. There were a few times she got irritable and snapped at me. But this is normal and it isn't abusive- it's frustrating for someone to feel dependent. It also was not her general personality.

Helping BPD mother is degrading. She doesn't ask for something, - she orders you, commands you. If you don't do something immediately, she gets angry. She is demanding and insulting. Calls you stupid if you don't do something exactly as she wants.

After helping MIL, I felt as if I had done something nice. It wasn't convenient, it wasn't easy, but it was worthwhile. After helping BPD mother, I feel degraded, demoralized, and manipulated. I still feel that I did something good, but it's not the same as helping a mother with whom we have the caring mother-child relationship.

[TelHill]

People who haven't been close to a BPD loved one assume moms are sweethearts.  You're right, Notwendy. We know the sweetness from BPD mom's lips is this .  She's not friendly and sweet in public. She's dead silent.

The neighbor was going through a hard time from what my dad said. She was 40ish with many health crises.  

She seemed extremely upset her son failed the entrance exam for a local competitive parochial high school.  I told her I went to the same high school 35 years earlier when it was easy to get into. I wouldn't have said anything if I had known about her son.

She seemed angry with me. I believe her chasing me down and showing up at my parents house was due to all these factors.

I saw in this instance not to tell these my background to anyone I don't know well. There was a population increase in the county where my parents live, with many more parents chasing a Catholic school education and more income inequality.   I think being raised by a BPD parent makes me want to overshare to have people like me.    

[Notwendy]

Yes, what people say can reflect their own feelings. It's interesting the idea of oversharing. I think I also talked too much in conversations. I try to not do that. I can relate to wanting people to like me.

I think in general, admission to schools has gotten more competitive- driven by a lot of factors. It seems to be a more stressful situation to get accepted now. Of course you had no idea about her son's aspirations to get accepted.

I think we've all said things that weren't taken well by others even if that was not the intent. I also think we tend to be sensitive to how others react to us. For my parents, saying something that BPD mother may have felt offended by was considered a major transgression- possibly one that would be remembered. So we can feel afraid when we see someone react to what we may have said.

[TelHill]

Yes, what people say can reflect their own feelings. It's interesting the idea of oversharing. I think I also talked too much in conversations. I try to not do that. I can relate to wanting people to like me.

I stick to not oversharing when I'm calm and my life is settled. I have learned to watch it in the last few years with many things in my life being in flux and feeling lonelier.  I remind myself constantly of that and to match the level of sharing the other person is doing as long as I feel comfortable with matching it.  My natural (more unnatural in reality thanks to my FOO) is to give all information right away because have issues attracting friends. Desperation with too little common sense is not a smart philosophy for making friends.

I think we've all said things that weren't taken well by others even if that was not the intent. I also think we tend to be sensitive to how others react to us. For my parents, saying something that BPD mother may have felt offended by was considered a major transgression- possibly one that would be remembered. So we can feel afraid when we see someone react to what we may have said.

Such a great insight, Notwendy! I always thought this strong emotional reaction was based on the person in front of me, not as a reaction to dBPD mom's behavior.  Definitely something to analyze in future non-family interactions.