AGING PARENTS

(main issue is they clearly didn't include mom's rent over the FL threshold and utility cost in the calculation, which should divert $300 - $400 more to her. and they're including income she will no longer be receiving).

man I've been in v similar---can you see any way you're not going to have to take care of it yourself? If you do have to, fucking have to, won't your work people understand? Is there no one else at work who can cover when you're dealing with this?

they would, it's less that than coming back to a mountain of work to make up when I'm back. I took one day off this week for pre-planned PTO and I took forever to get caught up today. and just the unbearable pressure of being the one guy who 'has to get it right' or everything falls apart.

i'm going to give mom an outright script to work from tomorrow, if that doesn't cut it then I may have to bite the bullet. problem is you can't really make 'appointments' with them, they just show up when they feel like it and sometimes aren't there when they say they're going to be.

O shiiit---could your brother do it?

heh. that was my second idea. now he is a wilting flower in front of people but if I gave him what to say and he went with mom together the whole will be greater etc etc.

i'll figure it out. just tired of the 'rubber bands around my chest' feeling.

Word. Go listen to some headbang, every day, if don't already. Thuh allotment.

oh for realz, u know it

Both my parents are gone, but now it's my older sister.. moved to a suburb of Kansas City where she knows hardly anybody; hasn't been working; was diagnosed with some serious health issues to do poor living.. and is now asking me to pay her electricity bill because the power was shut off, almost $500 to restore

I think she's received an eviction notice

She needs like a social worker or something, but I've been looking at the Missouri Social Services website and it's fair to say they're not so generous with their benefits

Very stressful, there's no one but us, no rich relatives to bail her out.. she's gotten herself into this situation but she's in awful health now, I don't know what to do

'due to poor living'^^^

There should be a cooling center she could go to for now, with whatever rules, and contacting Missouri Social Services seems worth a shot, even with shit benefits; maybe they could advise, at least in general terms, also her landlord? So sorry!

Thanks.. I think she has like literally no income, she said that her disability case is 'pending' but I don't know what to believe

She had a good job at a post office in rural Colorado, and then got into some injury litigation with them where they basically gave her a few thousand bucks and let her go. She moved to MO and then I guess just burned through the money watching television or something, never actually got a job in missouri so she's not on the rolls there. The one friend she does have there has been texting me and says that she never cleans her apartment or even hardly leaves the apartment except to go get cigarettes and groceries I guess. I think she's self-medicating for depression, a relationship fell apart a couple years ago, but for chrissakes, get your shit together, nobody is going to save you

uggh, sorry for the rant but this is really stressful, she has like literally no cash at all... just an old truck and a couple cats. She's only in her mid-50s and already semi-infirm

well, as intimated above, in the almost two weeks since dad's application for ICP was approved, mom's done next to nothing to get the spousal diversion recalculated. I asked her last Friday to call DCF as we believed that was now the place to call - and I was having a day at work and barely could afford the 30 minutes away for lunch. She made one cursory try, got lost in the phone menu, and put her soap opera back on. so I begged her if she could try harder and she apologized and did but of course the stupid DCF line always says "we're too busy ,call back later", no option to wait on hold.

she said she'd call first thing Monday in the morning when they opened. didn't, woke up late, couldn't get through by the time she called. said "sorry I will wake up early tomorrow". didn't again.

this doesn't even affect dad anymore - this affects her income alone. It's a difference of $300+ month and I cannot afford to help her financially now that I'm in my own financial ruins.

when I woke up and realized she hadn't woken up to do it, I tried to call, and of course, same stupid message. so I went online and found something that looked like it might be what I need to report the miscalculation of spousal diversion, and did it.

but since mom is clearly not going to help with this (even though it directly affects her), I signed up for Group Legal at work and hope I can get an Elder Law attorney to help.

really just disappointing that she saw me in the middle of my work meltdown last week and heard me say I can't take something else on, on top of what I'm already doing, but she decided to force me to anyway.

so I get to have 'that' convo now before I go to therapy and rehash it again, and hope whatever I submitted ont heir website wasn't completely ass wrong, but we really can't wait any longer on this.

in THINGS I WISH I HAD KNOWN FOR $5000, ALEX

My brother kept asking me for a few years if I could claim my folks as dependents. I mistakenly thought that I could not because of their income. Their social security exceeded the income limits posted. Somehow I missed the part that said social security doesn't count unless the combined income exceeded a certain threshold, which my folks' combined didn't. moreso, my parents only file jointly to get a refund and don't owe taxes.

so once I found this out I decided to go file amended returns.

net income to me by doing this change and filing as head of household (which I also qualify for)

+$8000

downside - 20 week processing time.

plus side - it is the miracle I've been looking for, for three years. if no hiccups at IRS - wouldn't completely solve debt issues permanently but would basically end my current straits as I know them and get the rope off of my chest.

i don't even know how to register this yet because it is a shocking bit of good news that seems almost too good to be true.

That is excellent news - I hope everything goes smoothly with the IRS!

this week my mother used the actual phrase "a knife in my heart" when I asked her to stop telling me how terrible I look in selfies and that I shouldn't take those kinds of photos, or at least share them with family.

Is your mother's name Livia?

sounds like a healthy boundary to set to me. those comments can weigh on you over the years even if in their mind it seems innocent or 'typical mom comments'.

mom gets on me about the way I dress and i'm like "I'm 42"

yeah, my brother gets it all the time too, your haircut doesn't look professional, you're being uncouth, you don't look nice in those clothes, you should think about how you come across, your kids keep pulling gloomy faces in photos and I would like you to have a word with them, you should never share a picture where you look that terrible (in response to a pic of me and my partner happily rock scrambling at the beach in winter). Had it for years. I'm 53, he's 49, just maybe we are pretty on top of our presentation and interaction with the world. And when I call it out, she's "devastated" (literal quote) that I could imply that she is anything other than purely supportive and positive, to question it is the occasion for said utensil in said organ. Thank god it was an email because the Livia reference would have surely caused a visible reaction on my face.
And holy shit Neando, if anyone was due a break ... fantastic news.

your mom and mine must have run in the same circles. when in reality they should be happy you feel comfortable being open with them. otherwise you get kids that grow into adults that talk to you in single word sentences and speak through gritted teeth and tell the real truth to your therapist.

and thanks!

My mom got moved to level 2 memory care this week which my sister is protesting. But this same sister disagreed strongly with me when I said mom was having serious memory issues 2 years before mom finally got diagnosed so eh whatever. I'm generally very happy to be living thousands of miles away and never visiting and leaving those judgements to the professionals.

i had to tell my parents both point blank that i did not want their feedback on my physical appearance. their response was "we made you!" and i replied that i did not care, that it was my body/appearance and i was not interested in their opinions.

kind of a damper on the good news from yesterday, after weeks of trying without success to get mom to treat the billing thing with urgency, the thing I predicted happens, she gets told dad owes $1500 from his social securit yfor July and August, and she is acting panicked now.

I wrote back a long, stern message saying this is exactly why I told her to get moving on this and that her inaction forced me to get involved after I had told her I could not take this on, and now she is acting shocked by something that should be a surprise to nobody. told her I loved her, but that she needs to get on top of this.

I won't see that refund money from amended taxes for 4-5 months based on current timing, and I cannot foot the bill. I have an applicatio nfor a grant at my company's help fund but I have no idea when that will show up.

it will be solved one way or another (I'm not gonna let dad get evicted, and I predicted mom would fuck this up so I already have some other things in motion) but it's just the lack of listening to me that frustrates me.

xxp LL I think that is perfectly valid, and I am pretty scrupulous about only saying positive things to my daughters (which is not the same as no feedback, I realise). Life is hard enough without another set of arbitrary standards to comply with.

I really don't get the impulse of parents to criticize their grown children's appearance. Sure, I tell my 13-year-old to brush his hair (he wants to wear it long, fine, but keep it minimally groomed), but the adults? What's the point? They all have their own style and it's really none of my business. I think they all look great.

My mom used to absolutely rake my clothing choices and I mostly ignored her, but managed to make it stop when (in front of her friends) I told her, ‘one of us gets to write for Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue, and it’s not you.’

For me it's less about disparaging comments than the abundance of appearance-based comments themselves -- it felt like my value was tied up with what i look like and it made me feel like they didn't see me at all, they only saw what i look like. It felt like the way i looked was the primary thing that mattered to them. when it occurred, the disparagement was disguised as "just asking questions" type pass-agg behavior when it did come. "so...what made you decide to cut your hair so short?"

my answer to that type of question was always "idk" because i do not owe anyone an answer about my stupid hair as a middle aged adult. i also do not have any witty or scathing retorts so i go with "idk"/DNAQ

it's a thing parents/moms do that I wish they wouldn't. one time in high school, I went to church looking odd (I wore shorts and black socks with sneakers....I had no style). I got home and mom flipped out on me, like got angry and said "do you want to look like a DORK?". she was humiliated that I went out that way and I was really hurt by it because literally nobody gave a fuck but she was harassing me over it.

today she keeps telling me to stop wearing heavy metal shirts and I'm like this is the way I dress and feel comfortable and I don't care what the fuck people think about it, why do you?

so I had to break down and start a GoFundMe because although dad isn't *yet* going to be evicted or anything, if mom doesn't furnish the money to the nursing home eventually, he will be, and if she does and she can't pay rent, then *I* will be evicted.

so I start it and my brother refuses to help me share it because he 'doesn't feel comfortable'. so I had to respond 'hey dude, uhh...this affects *me* too, not just mom. I'm near bankruptcy and do not have the savings to pay this myself, I will be out of money and unable to pay rent in a few months if I do that".

literally tired of the effort I have to put in to get anybody to do things.

part of the reason is he mistakenly thought the room and board was free now under Medicaid and still doesn't get the "has to give up $784 of his Social Security that mom used to use to pay bills and this calculation is also wrong by almost double but we can't get traction on fixing it".

Damn, if my brother pulled that, I'd tell him my foot up his ass would feel a lot more uncomfortable.

yeah i'm like boy is it easy to be prideful when you aren't the one impacted by it.

I did find that there is some taxpayer advocate group that can apparently help you work with the IRS to get manual amended return expedited so I'm going to try that. getting an extra $8k in less than 5 months would be a godsend . getting it at all is a relief though.

the problem is now solved. for privacy i'll not go further than that but I know some incredibly supportive people is all I'll say.

I feel the most relief I've felt in some time.

WOOO YEAH

Excellent news, Neando. Pat yourself on the back for that one.

That is very good news.

Dad's in the ER. he can't swallow basically.

Only happened because I kept on the nurses when I observed dad unable to eat.

Sigh

thinking of him and you

thank you tabes. so he has an infection and severe dehydration (because they neglected him this week). he's doing a lot better now that he's on an IV and antibiotics, but my mother and I are livid an I've already lodged a complaint and filing one with AHCA right now.

He's stable, in PCU (one below ICU).

Possibly feeding tube time :(

But he's severely underweight. 122 pounds as a six foot tall man.

Investigating other nursing homes to move him to ...

It all just got realer. I was a bit naive about what a big step a feeding tube is, but also...that dad might not even want it. The doctors have urged us to be cautious and consider the possibility of...hospice.

To do that, we have to ask a lot more questions. But today was the first day I looked in dad's eyes and realized we may be nearing the end.

Mom and I are sobbing and consoling each other in the ER

Oh, Neanderthal, that's a real tough thing. Wishing you and your family the best navigating this.

Man, I am so sorry. Hang in there.

But today was the first day I looked in dad's eyes and realized we may be nearing the end.

After all your struggles to maintain him in health that's a hard (and huge) realization. Glad you and your mom are pulling together on this. If your dad is anything like mine was, he needs to hear that your mom will be loved and taken care of in his absence. That will free his mind to think about how much he's willing to endure to stay alive. Much love to you and your family in this painful time.

Sorry to hear this, N. I just went through this with my uncle, who passed in July. I visited him in the hospital while he was still speaking and watching TV, on a Saturday. He passed the following Monday, will both my cousins (his daughters) there, listening to Merle Haggard.

When I saw him, he was still talking about wanting to take a roadtrip up north to see his old haunts.. it was clear that trip would not likely happen, but I was still helping him plan and offered to drive... it was pretty heartbreaking

oh N, thinking of you and your dad and mom and sending you good feeling.

I send you my condolences and sympathies.