I’m trying to take care of my 78 year old mother. My adult brother with disabilities and mental health issues and a previous diagnosis of schizophrenia and psychopathy lives with her. He is accusing me of neglect and possible abandonment if I don’t take care of him as well.
He has been told by his insurance company that he doesn’t need a caretaker, but he has contacted the police and tells them that I don’t get them food, they are starving and I refuse to take him to his doctor appointments. All of this can be proven incorrect but he’s keeping records, recording phone calls and video camera evidence that I’m not doing what he thinks that I should be doing for him and also says I’m neglecting my mother.
She orders her groceries for delivery, and I take her for groceries otherwise. I can’t enter their house because I’m extremely allergic to the cat.
I take my mother to all of her appointments except for tell-visits and she has had me take my brother to his as well. He has started refusing to go to his appointments and blames it on mom and me.
They live in the same apartment complex, and she has reserved a parking spot in front of my house for her car to be parked, as I’m the only person that can drive. He wants her to seek her vehicle so he can afford to take Uber X where ever he needs to go.
They moved near me after my father died and it has nearly wrecked my own family. We can’t do anything, can’t make plans, he thinks he’s supposed to go on vacations with us, so we just don’t go anywhere as a family. I have an adult son with autism and a 12 year old that I take homeschool. I can’t take care of them 24-7, and my mother, except for the driving part, is mentally competent and has been cleared by home health to live on her own.
My brother accused me of kidnapping my mother when I took her for a drive to let her have a break from his incessant screaming at her two nights ago. Yesterday, she tried calling the police to help her because he was mad and wanted chips instead of what she had in groceries there. He called the police back out and they told her to call me to take her to the store to get his food and legal weed. It’s legal here in Texas for the light version that’s below a certain level of thc.
I called the police also yesterday after he destroyed a wall between her bedroom and hallway knocking it into the outside hallway and she finally called me and couldn’t breathe and her blood pressure was near 200 and he was raging at her.
Police said it’s a civil suit. They refused to take him in on a mental health hold, because he can flip the switch and seems perfectly normal when he talks to authority figures.
He has accused us of trying to poison him and tells the police officers. The officer seemed annoyed with me for calling 911. He was also shocked when I said I had been there to pick her up in the middle of the night when he wanted something to eat the previous day. I guess he told them I was never there and never helped.
The problem is, he’s working very hard to build a case against me for abandonment and neglect and tells me I will go to prison. We are moving from this area next year, so I do not need this on top of my own family issues and health problems.
additional information: He has been diagnosed with MS, and is receiving SSI for high level autism, which he convinced someone in Washington State he had. The original diagnosis in his early 20’s of Anti-social personality disorder, he says, can’t be found. Several places have diagnosed him as paranoid schizophrenic, and one place said delusional disorder. He only accepts the diagnoses that will benefit him most.
He was previously married, had lived on his own, and when he moved back to my parents, he refused to leave, work, or help them in anyway. Before the SSI he relied solely on my parents for money. Now he makes her pay for everything and he buys things from Amazon and pays for his weed. She gets nothing.
I’m scared of what he’s capable of.
You and Mom need to be on the same page here. She needs to be willing to get rid of your brother. She has no obligation towards him. There is no law that says a 78 yr old mother needs to care for her mentally ill son. Also, if you have never cared for your brother, your not obliged to. Giving him rides is not caring for him. He wants food? Go on-line and order it. Call and have it delivered. If Mom agrees he needs to go, then call APS and tell them he seems to be escalating and Mom is afraid of him. That the cops seem to feel she just does what he wants. Tell them about the Wall. He needs to be removed before he hurts her. He needs a Psychic eval and a place to live because your Mom and you refuse to meet his demands. You Mom needs to be all for this or it won't work. Now once u do this, you may have to remove Mom from the home if APS is not able to remove him right away.
Definitely, call the police again if he even touches Mom in an aggressive way. She must tell them that she is afraid for her life because he seems to be escalating. Use the word schizophrenia. Hey if he lies she can put a little drama in there too. Hope she is a good actress. "Yes, his schizophrenia is escalating, I don't think the weed is helping. I am so afraid of him, that he will hurt me. You need to baker act him"
I cannot believe they did not remove him after the Wall incident. Your Mom was in danger. She pays the rent, he should have been removed. Again, call the Chief of Police and complain that his men are not doing their jobs. Your brother should have been taken to ER and an psychic eval done. Probably sending him to a facility for at least 72 hours. Then Mom refuses to let him come back saying she is afraid for her life. God I would be. That the State needs to take over his care.
Keep us updated.
When the police ask why you didn't do anything, just tell them that you called them 10 times in the past and they never did jack squat. Then ask the officers why THEY never did anything.
Isn’t it incredible how these out of control people suddenly act so rational when the authorities show up? I have been through this kind of thing myself. I’m so sorry for what you’re going through. It’s natural to want to help mom as she ages. But if she refuses to detach herself from him you have no choice but to save yourself.
It hits home for me because my mom, who is lying in a hospice bed, wants to financially help my 60 y/o brother with a history of mental health issues and abuse. Reading it from your perspective makes me feel like our moms are choosing our brothers over us, the ones who help them all the time.
If doesn't feel like it. That is the fact of the matter. I can bet your mother isn't helping you out financially nor is she paying you for services you do for her.
Move now. Is there a husband?
Right now, it appears as though Mom and brother come as a package.
Can Mom be placed in AL?
You have your entire universe taken up caring for your own family unit that does not include your Mom. You do that, take care of them and yourself. Move away if you must to protect yourself and your family.
No one should be living that close to an out of control person with the diagnoses and medications your brother has. It would be trouble enough if he was a stranger to you, and just a neighbor. Show the damage to the apartment to the landlord. Have a neighbor call 911 if there is violence occuring and heard outside of the apartment.
Mom is competent, advise her to call APS and get the son to move out to his 'qualified' apartment. She should call 911 when the son is abusive.
You have been falsely accused, get yourself free right now. It is a legal and a safety matter because he is violent. See a lawyer if you can.
Refuse any help for Mom because it is actually dangerous for you. End her ability to park her car at your apartment. Get her space reassigned. It is a power and possession issue.
Your brother is behaving like an enemy. Act accordingly, inform your children in every safe way you deem necessary. Contact with brother should be a no, unless supervised. You are really in a difficult position. Pack a go-bag for you and family. Maybe it is you who should be escaping to a safe house?
Keep in mind that an abuser in control of you will escalate as soon as he knows you to be backing away. Get counseling/urgent help from domestic abuse groups. Mom will be on her own until she figures out how dangerous this situation is and will be if she continues to house a dangerous (to himself and others) person in her home. It is also a violence issue, not just a civil/domestic issue.
Think of the situation as doing too much and enabling a violent person,
instead of neglect. Back away, move away. Sublet your apartment if you must.
Go to a women's shelter?
You can do this once you decide that your situation is not survivable, someone will get hurt.
No, the OP should not give up her home and move into a womens' shelter.
True, the brother is treating her like an enemy because he likely doesn't want to risk losing his free housing with the mother. He lies to her about how she would be put in a "home" if he wasn't there. He knows his mother can still get by on her own and that his sister will help her.
This loser knows he has to keep the situation locked down or basically he's in the street.
The OP should get a restraining order against him if he's making threats to her of her family.
Now everyone is in the state of Texas. So she should do what Texans do.
Get a gun.
No one has to give up their home, job, community to relocate because some morbidly-obese, pot-smoking loser that still lives at home sponging off his elderly mom is acting like a bully.
I don't think so.
Your brother is a nasty dangerous piece of work. You need to cut any link with him. If that means not being in touch with your mother, that’s part of the burden she has voluntarily taken on. If she wanted to, she could help with the problem, but from your description it’s not going to happen.
Forget the car parking space. Only meet your mother somewhere public, and she can get a taxi to meet you there – if she wants to. The more you have to do with mother on her turf, the greater the risks to you. Less contact you have with your brother, the less facts he has to build his nasty allegations against you.
One thing to think about – my experience in the welfare area is that there are some people who get ‘addicted’ to drama and disaster. My work was in giving management support to organisations whose clients had extended family networks where there were always murders, court trials, hospital admissions for violence injuries – somewhere in the extended family if not directly for them. After years of it, ‘normal’ life just seems flat. Does this apply to your family? Is it hard to walk away?
The worst thing a person with schitzophrenia or any other psychiatric illness can do is self-medicate.
Weed no matter how mild it is has an adverse and terrible effect on people with schitzophrenia and rage disorders. It's worse even than alcohol on these people.
Of course we live in the days where everyone thinks pot i harmless and is the remedy that can heal and treat every illness A to Z, but it's not.
It's a dangerous substance to many people with psychiatric diseases.
Tomorrow you go to the police department and explain to them about his mental conditions. Make sure they understand that you help your mother out and not him. They cannot force you to do for him.
Your mother needs to move to a 65+ community. This way your brother will not be able to live with her so she will not have to live with his abusive behavior any more.
If she is willing to move, he will get placed in a group home if he's unable to function independently.
Your mother needs to move as soon as possible. If she refuse to, then you need to lay down the law here.
You can still continue to give her rides to where she needs to go, but it must be with the understanding that you will not go up to her apartment to get her and that your brother is not to come down to your car. That if he does you will call the police and get a restraining order against him. Also, take pepper spray or a taser with you when you pick your mother up.
I think you should call your brother's case worker and his doctor and tell them that he's smoking weed. Marijuana is the worst thing a schitzophrenic can do. It will make their conditions so much worse. After you have done this, you wash your hands of him.
You help your mother. His social worker and help him. That is what they're being paid to do.
Really, I get where you're coming from. There comes a point where you just can't deal with someone's mental illlness or the effects of it anymore.
Explore that end of it, and see where it goes.
If it goes nowhere, you need to drop it and minimize contact with both of them. This kind of family is worse than no family at all.
1) your mom
2) your brother
Why are you "taking care" of either of them? You say they each have been deemed competent and able to live on their own. So that's the end of it. Neither needs a "caregiver". That you do your mom an occasional favor by driving her to her appointments or picking up groceries is not "caregiving". It's doing her a favor. Which you are allowed to STOP any time you want to.
Why did you get sucked into this situation with your brother? How did mom talk you into this?
Sounds to me like your mom and your brother have a highly dysfunctional relationship. That's a shame, but it is NOT YOUR PROBLEM to solve.
If brother is terrorizing mom, sorry to say but that's on mom to get him removed from her home. Not you. I would guess that when you tell her this, she cries and carries on that he's "not that bad" and "you don't understand"..."he has problems and he needs me" etc... am I right?
And then there's this - even IF your brother was unable to live alone, under NO JURISDICTION is it on YOU - his sibling - to take care of him! That's what social workers are for.
The police have already told you this is a civil matter. That means no crime has been committed. When you get nervous about being arrested for this, hold onto that thought, and repeat it to yourself like a mantra.
When he starts in with his crap, I would just laugh in his face, tell him "go ahead, call 911." And then tell mom you won't be back until his crap stops. Make your move, raise your kids and be happy, and don't get yourself worked up over these nonsensical threats.
Good luck to you.
You summed this up beautifully.
You are not responsible for either of them. Your brother sounds like someone with entitlement issues and has found his way around the system. Most of the mentally ill people I've dealt with are extremely manipulative. Your brother is prone to tantrums when he can't get his way. This is the time to draw boundaries with him. He bullies and threatens. It seems like mom gets intimidated by these threats when she doesn't give him what he wants. A person can have more than one mental health issue. Do not allow your life to be ruined by a crazy person.
He managed to get an investigation opened on my father before he passed and they came out to look into my parents because he said my dad was poisoning him. Didn’t take long to realize no one was trying to hurt him, but he has a way with words and people when he wants something. This resulted in him getting an apartment paid for and resources to pay for his food and bills. Then he moved right back in with my parents when there wasn’t any drama happening.