My sister(32F) and I(25F) have finally decided to take initiative and step in to help my mother’s(56F) mental, physical, social, emotional health and well-being. Throughout my life my mom has always been inconsistent and unpredictable. She emotionally neglected me and always made sure alcohol came before me. Her alcoholism and voluntary absence ruined my respect for her as a mother and created distance between us. As I have gotten older I have since been able to learn and grow from my past trauma with her and I’m now wanting to be more involved in her life.
My mom’s current living habits are completely unhealthy. Unfortunately my mother is lazy, unmotivated and has always been okay being alone all day, everyday. She lives in constant state of denial and never takes accountability.
She has a big, beautiful house that my grandparents built but chooses to stay secluded in the basement. Her online shopping addiction and lack of cleanliness has taken over her whole entire house. This has forced her to live in the basement that doesn’t see the light of day.
She doesn’t have the motivation or desire to do simple tasks such as laundry, dishes, hygiene, etc. She is retired and does nothing but secludes herself, play games, and sleep.
She is diagnosed with depression, bipolar, high blood pressure, and possible AFib. I know she is not taking her medicine as directed because of the lack of desire to do anything.
She is a chronic bailer and consistently flakes on promised plans with her children and grandchildren. Her excuses are headaches, tiredness, forgetfulness, or just completely going ghost. She also has developed extreme scatter brain and fidgeting.
This suspicious behavior has caused myself, my sister, and many others to believe she is under the influence of substances other than alcohol, which would be hardly surprising. I have caught and witnessed many times pair her drinking with other substances in the past.
She is married to her enabling spouse(45M) who doesn’t care about their living conditions. He does not have any ownership of the house therefore he does not respect the place my grandparents built. He also stays in the basement with her and contributes to the hoard and filth that has taken over. My mother’s husband is extremely paranoid and secretive, making it impossible for me or my sister to have access to her house. The doors are always locked and phone calls are never answered when we show up unannounced. He has no desire to motivate her and strictly wants her to be his company.
He also drinks alcohol all night long with her and adds to the unopened, useless junk that has taken over the house. Not to mention he’s obsessed with buying and storing items in bulk for no apparent reason. I should also mention that my mom’s husband’s best friend is a cocaine dealer that has been extremely inappropriate and persistent with me. Adding to my thoughts of substance abuse.
My mother has had her dark, secluded, and selfish ways, but it has never been this bad. Her father passed away in 2022, making this the main trigger to this intense/manic behavior. She is the beneficiary of the grandfather’s estate and she inherited a large amount of money. She went into early retirement from an amazing government job and strictly live off of her inheritance. She only had 5 more years left till retirement and she would’ve received full benefits. My sister and I tried to convince her to not retire early informing her how bad of an idea it is. But, because she decided not to listen to anyone she now is in need of a job because she claims she is out of money.
She doesn’t not have a house or car payment. She does not have loans, or anything significant that would take much of her money. Her way of grieving was online shopping, but would still not cost enough for her to claim she has no money. Her husband has a great, secure job as IT so I would think his income plus her inheritance would be more than enough to be very well off.
She has neglected her physical health. About 7 months ago she had a procedure to fix her AFib heart. She has not gone back to the doctor to see if the procedure even worked. She has comorbidities such as obesity, high blood pressure, etc. that are going to end up killing her if she does not get her overall health under control.
I explained to her a few days ago that I am concerned for her and starting from here on out my sister and I will now be involved and in charge of every area of her life. I cannot trust her to do anything for herself so I’m willing to take on that responsibility. I also have no intentions on involving her spouse in any decisions that need to be made since he has let this go on. His opinions, thoughts, and feelings mean nothing to me or my sister, making it pointless to involve him.
Someone please help me with a plan of action to start the process of helping her. Where do I start? Her house needs cleaned and organized, her clutter needs to be put up for sale, she needs to break her bad habits, get her physical health in order, and so much more that’s harming her. Why is this intense behavior happening? Is it early dementia or drug use?
I’m completely overwhelmed and have no idea where to start. I work 2 jobs and I am in school so I can’t be with her 24/7. I need her to be held accountable and use her infinite free time to get her house and health back in order. How can I monitor her progress and make sure she is completing tasks without me there besides once or twice a week.
No matter how much she has shut me out or bailed on my past attempts to help, I will not back down this time. I don’t want to live with the regret of not trying to help her when I had the chance.
TL;DR – Where do I begin to help my mother’s declining and concerning mental, physical, emotional and social well-being? She has spiraled into a dark, sad, addictive, cluttered mess of a life and I refuse to not intervene. How can I monitor her tasks and progress without being with her 24/7?