Hi everyone!

My father died last March, after an ugly Alzheimer's battle. I didn't speak to either of my parents for 9 months because they were rude, demanding, and verbally abusive.

I feel like my 84 year old mother is trying to reel me in. When hubby and I returned from a trip to see our daughter, she scolded me for not calling her every day. "What if I die?" she keeps saying to me.

I told her that she could call me just as easily as I can call her. She responded with "oh, I'm always afraid I'm bothering you".

She told me yesterday that "She doesn't have anyone". I moved here from Michigan to be here for them.

She refuses to participate in any activities in her very active retirement community. She tries something for one or two occasions, but eventually quits, saying that the people weren't nice to her. I think that she expects me to keep her entertained, but I have my own life and activities too.

I think she's just an unhappy person, has been for a very long time, and that's not going to change. Some small part of me thought that things would get better after my father died, where she'd get out and do things because she was finally free from him. This has not been the case.

Thanks for reading, advice welcome.😁

TLDR: Lying is not new with her. She's a narcissist in her 80s living on her own. She lies to ppl involved in her care. I have POA, manage her meds, and am with her for every medical or repair appointment. If I correct her, she adamantly holds her position before transitioning to playing the victim.

................

Doctor: Are you taking your meds?

Mom (lying): I never miss!

Physical therapist: Are you doing your exercises?

Mom (lying): Three times every day!

Electrician: Do you ever run your space heater on high overnight?

Mom (lying): I would never do that!

Again, lying is not new behavior but I'm concerned how it may affect her care and put the third person in a difficult position. Mom is also hard of hearing so these conversations are loud, repetitive, and longer than they need to be.

Space heater issue is resolved, BTW, and she is safe.

Her lies and my corrections make appointments awkward. Any advice? TIA. ✌️

I'm ( late 50s M) back home for 10 days for my dad's last days and funeral, leaving me with my Nmum, and I'll leave on Friday. Mum (85) knows I'm not coming back to care for her, I didn't return for 10 years, and this will be likely / possibly be the last times she ever sees me. We had dinner and she was nice to me and we left with a hug and a kiss. It was so unusually reasonable and I'm just crying now.

Anyone ever find their difficult parent just turned your emotions upside down by being nice for a change?

I’m a 31 year old female. I’m married and just had a baby. I often worry about my mom’s financial situation though. She is a great person - not on drugs, doesn’t have an alcohol problem, and genuinely has a good head on her shoulders. However, I think she struggles to support herself financially. Ever since her and my dad split over a decade ago she’s had to support herself obviously. She was living in the same state as me with a stable job and cheap rent but then COVID happened and she lost that job and said fuck it and moved to the Southwest part of the USA from the Midwest. She was doing fine out there initially until she again lost her job out there and proceeded to go on a series of temp jobs that kept not hiring her on full time, so she bounced around a lot, making no more than $20-$21/hr. For reference the state she lives in costs significantly more to live than where we live in the Midwest. She eventually lost her apartment because she couldn’t find a stable job but thank god bc she has a really good friend out where she lives and now lives with her. I truly believe she would have been homeless if she did not have this friend. My mom has ZERO money saved for retirement and very little savings in general. I don’t think it’s because she’s bad at money management per se but I just don’t think she makes enough to keep up with cost of living and then when that’s the case how are you even supposed to save? She doesn’t invest because she has zero knowledge on how to do it. In terms of career/job situation I urge her to upskill because part of the reason why I think it’s hard for her to get a good job in this competitive job market is because she’s pretty stagnant, not tech savvy, doesn’t have a bachelors degree, and seems to only seek low level administrative type work that doesn’t pay that well. On top of that she’s almost 62 so most companies don’t really find her appealing as a candidate because of a lot of the skills she lacks on top of her age sadly. She also has a bad knee and desperately needs a knee replacement but can’t afford it!

Anyways….I’m worried that when the time actually comes and she moves back here that I will need to support her in some way. Whether that’s paying her rent or something. I’ve talked to my husband about this but he does not seem very open to the idea which seems a little fucked up to me. I just don’t think my husband understands bc his parents are pretty well off (my FIL was a C-level executive at a big oil & gas company but is now retired). So you can imagine my husband’s parents are pretty well off. My husband also wants to buy a duplex and I brought up the idea of maybe letting my mom live in it and he said “I’m not in business to lose money.” Um…wow? So you’re telling me you wouldn’t help support your mother in law if she needed it? I don’t want to imply that he’s obligated to support her but it did feel kind of cold and careless.

How should I navigate this because I also want to make sure I can take care of my own family first. I mentioned at the beginning of this post that we just had a baby and we want more so I definitely want to make sure I can support my own family in my home first before I commit to financially supporting another adult.

My 80yo uncle, who has mild dementia, keeps getting scammed by people calling him and convincing him to give them his cc/debit card info. Telling him to NEVER give his bank info out or even answer the phone doesn’t seem to stick.

I recently was added to his account so I can manage some of his finances. I asked his bank if they have anything that can help put guardrails up, short of not giving him any cards, and all they have is an ATM card that he can use to get cash and MAYBE at limited stores.

I’ve thought of just having him use a prepaid card, so at least we can limit damage. Has anyone else found any creative solutions to this?

First time ever posting one of these. I apologize for how long this is in advance.

My mother (59) was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis around 2010. We lived in a very poor, rural area, where healthcare was not good. By 2018 she was in a wheelchair, and due to not working with therapy and relying solely on meds, she developed heart failure, diabetes, and severe arthritis all over her body. I (31 M) was in college when the worst of her health issues began, and missed the transition to a wheelchair. My father then died suddenly at 56 in 2024, and my mother refused to move out of their house, despite the fact she could not leave without assistance. She was quite literally trapped there unless someone came to get her. She was able to survive on deliveries for groceries and meds. And she developed a complete spending addiction and hoarding.

Long story short, despite my sister living 15 minutes away, I was responsible for managing everything. My wife and I lived 3 hours away, and at least once a month I would drive to her house for 3 days straight to work and fix things. I took over all of her finances. I tried to guide her to better medical care, but I work 60-80 hours per week, and simply could not do more.

We finally convinced her to sell the house and use that money to get a very nice apartment 10 minutes from our house. I live in an area with world class healthcare, and I pulled every string I have to get her in with the best specialists for her diseases. The apartment was all one floor, on the first floor, even had a handicapped accessible pool. I had to pack and move her from a 5 bedroom house with two garages into this two bedroom apartment essentially alone. She didn’t want to get rid of anything, and every day was a fight over stuff. We won’t even get into the work of selling her house, but essentially I spent every weekend for 4 months either packing her and moving or working to get her home for sale. This entire time, my wife was pregnant with our first child. Kudos to her, she helped so much, and did not complain as much as she deserved to.

My mother never wanted to leave her new apartment. I believe she became depressed that she was no longer in her “forever home” that she bought with my dad. Other than going to appointments, she never wanted to go explore her new home. She continued getting her food and groceries delivered, including ordering food from two restaurants literally in the same parking lot of her apartment complex for delivery rather than using her nice scooter to go pick the food up. She only wanted to stay in her chair and complain about her pain. And buy stupid things online. She essentially expected to be waited on hand and foot, and it was faster and easier for me to just handle everything.

5 months after moving into this apartment, while my wife and I were on our first vacation in years, she decided to stop taking some meds and ended up in the hospital for a week. She became completely bed ridden from there. A few days after getting home she fell and broke two vertebrae in her back while trying to go to the bathroom. After a month in a rehab, she seemed stronger and more motivated to try to move and explore. Then three days after getting home from rehab, she fell again. From here, she completely shut down and refused to do anything outside of laying in her chair. We had to hire a nurse to come in for 4 hours a day to help clean her and bathe her. I drove two hours to get a hospital bed from a guy off Facebook marketplace and a Hoyer lift so we could just get her up. Even with home health therapy (insurance refused to pay for another rehab stay) she did not progress. After about 6 weeks of having to drive to her apartment almost every day to wipe her (of course after the nurse we were paying $4k a month had left), we forced her to move into an assisted living. So for the second time in 8 months, I had to down size her to a studio room in an assisted living. My 8 month pregnant wife and her family helped me move her, and then we put the rest of her belongings in a storage unit. She remained focused on her things more than the fact I was trying so hard to make her new home as safe and comfortable as possible.

Fortunately the assisted living is going well. We have the expected struggles of getting her timely help when she presses her call button, and the food is hit or miss. But she is safe and I no longer have to drop everything to clean her. Of course her main concern is when she will be able to get her own apartment again.

After my child was born (healthy boy), my wife and I had to set very strict boundaries. As you can hopefully understand, a year of me leaving my wife and literally missing her entire pregnancy to move and care for my mother had created significant resentment. After multiple instances of unsolicited advice and not listening to our instructions on how to hold the baby, my wife snapped. I was put in a position of being in the middle of an angry mother and a disabled mother, which I do not wish on anyone. Fortunately, after a very stern series of conversations with my mother, things are going the right way. Maybe we will have a holiday where she is able to come and it not cause my wife to have severe anxiety. Maybe.

Why I have written this incredibly too-long post is because I am lost on what to do from here. I am going to put my wife and my child first, and am done going above and beyond for my mother. I feel a tremendous amount of guilt for not realizing how poorly I was treating my wife, and how unfair the entire situation had become for her. But now my mother is in an assisted living hours from the rest of her family. Her health is improving significantly (diabetes under control, down 50lbs, injections in her knees, a pain specialist, and a therapist for her depression). She still can’t get in a car, and that is limiting her seeing us and having a quality life. I have to rent a Braunability van to take her places, which is not cheap. She also pays for a transport service to all of her appointments, which is about $150 three or more times a month. She is the youngest person in this assisted living by almost a decade. She has become close with some staff, but she basically has no friends who are not paid to help her.

Does anyone have any advice on things I can try to help her create an identity other than being disabled? I have recently seen a glimmer of hope, where she seems like she just needs something to look forward to and be excited for. That was being a grandmother, but that has gone poorly (based on her actions and since we can’t get her to him without tremendous effort.) Her life is just laying in a bed, scrolling social media, doing some exercises that aren’t really improving her independence, taking meds that make her sleep all day, and maybe eating bland food with no salt. I understand completely why she is depressed, and feel a tremendous amount of guilt that I cannot explain. I know her choices have been her own, and she should have tried harder 20 years ago to stay out of a wheelchair. Her life has been so hard, because she always takes the easy path, and never wanted to try to not depend on pills.

I feel torn between trying to give her the best end her life as possible (which means I am not fully present for my wife and child) or essentially abandoning her in a home to rot. I try very hard to balance it, with a priority now on my family first, but no one is happy. Especially me.

Thank you in advance for any advice, ideas, or just a word of positivity

Hi, I am new to this sub.

How do you all deal with your aging parents?

This is mostly for my father.

Over the past decade or so, and more swiftly over the past 5 years, my family has seen cognitive decline in my father, specifically signs of alzheimers/dementia, etc. which is not surprising given our family history of the disease. Even relatives and family friends have noticed him becoming more stubborn, combative, and very difficult to communicate and reason with. He's also losing his hearing which doesn't make things easier.

We have all been extremely patient and understanding for a long time. We've had many fights regarding his behavior and only recently has it gotten a little better.

Even when he was younger and healthier, he had strong signs of OCD (controlling, directing, rearranging things, counting, and generally always wanting to be in other people's business but doesnt like it when we comment, etc.. )which you can imagine has been greatly exasperated by the disease.

When asking my mother why we havent started measures to mitigate the progression of the disease, her reasoning is, in essence, that "he already knows, we cant tell him because that means it is reality and that he is becoming old and that will devastate him."

This means that they haven't gone to a doctor for a diagnosis (for this specific matter), nor are they planning to.

I find this extremely selfish on their part. I am absolutely willing to support and understand, but how do you even start when the person wont even acknowledge the issue in the first place?

Hi there. My grandparents are in the high 90s and still live alone far away from our families. They are still able to do stuff on their own (to some extent) but we no longer feel comfortable with them being on their own. We are wanting to find someone who will either live with them or move them into a community where people can check on them. Not necessarily a senior living home but maybe a neighborhood where they can still have their own home.

We aren’t sure where to begin looking especially regarding where to find an in home caregiver that is trustworthy. For some context they are in west Los Angeles area if anyone has any recommendations! Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

My mom has been wildly irresponsible with her finances since I was a child. As in, my siblings and I all went hungry on a semi-regular basis as children because she'd spend money on multi-level marketing and get rich schemes instead of buying groceries. Just months ago she gave $30k to someone she met at a real-estate investment seminar to invest it for her, and didn't get any kind of contract. Our family is not wealthy, that's life-altering money for all of us and she just... gave it away.

My dad has alternately fought with her and enabled her for decades. But dad just received a third terminal diagnosis and has maybe 6-8 months to live.

When he goes, most of their income disappears and there will be no one there to be sure the mortgage gets paid (their mortgage should have been paid off a long time ago but she keeps borrowing against the house.)

My siblings and I all agree that if she is left to her own devices she will give away or lose everything and make herself homeless in short order. None of us expects to have any inheritance, but none of us can afford to pay for her end of life care if she squanders everything she has.

What can we do? Short of getting her adjudicated as a mental incompetent, I don't know of any way to stop her from ruining herself. I can't afford to support her and don't want to leave her homeless.

Do we have any options here? Has anyone else been through this?

My mother-in-law who is in her 70s is an absolute mess mentally. She has been Baker acted countless times but they let her go after just a couple of days saying that she is stable and able to go home. Without a doubt the very same day she gets home she is calling us non-stop talking about her anxiety being awful and how awful her life is.

We can't get her into assisted living because she spent through her retirement and only lives on her social security. We cannot afford it because it would take an extra $1,400 a month out of our budget that we barely survive on now. She also has no assets because she spent through over $100,000 in 9 months after she retired. We can't be there constanty, because life.

She either needs to be in a longer-term mental health facility to get actually stable and properly diagnosed or an assisted living, but how do we do that? We have tried her doctor, psychiatrist, psychologist, her Baker act services I don't know eight times at this point? A neurologist, elder source, council on aging. We have gotten absolutely nowhere!

To be quite Frank she's driving us and her neighbors /friends absolutely crazy.

I want to seek advice and opinions from people who have a single parent (my father died) and they dont live with them.
For context my mother lives far from me and doesnt want to live with me (i dont have the most comfortable living space) she is struggling financially and im willing to help but my concern is her detoriation especially health wise. Nursing home is not an option either and I cant move where she is because of my job (the only financial help i can give I can’t afford to leave it)

Anyone who went or is going through same?? If yes what did you do??

One of my mom's (83) last living friends is in memory care about halfway between our two places, so she's been visiting her about once a month and then coming and spending the night with me, so as not to have to drive back during rush hour.

She seems to be tireder every time she comes. It may well be the stress of driving, which she hates, coupled with the stress of seeing how anxious and unhappy her friend is, not to mention the stress of worrying that she's seeing her own future. But I worry it may be actual deterioration and I'm not sure how I could tell.

Folllwing the good advice of some Reddit commenters, I called my mom's doctor to tell them I was worried about her for several reasons. It turned out being exactly what she needed because now she's getting the tests she needs. I love my mom and going through this with her has been really hard and it's about to be so much harder.

My dad passed away in September. My mom (72) over the course of 32 years apparently has not paid a single bill over the internet. She has been on computers, she knows how to use a computer and was addicted to FarmVille and Facebook and purchases stuff off of Amazon etc.

The a week or so week after he passed it became apparent that she was without a paddle in the ocean with bills and whatnot.

I (33 F) sifted through all the utility bills, mortgage, and car loan documents. Set up the pension documents and the IRA rollover process which should be processed by January. Called social security for her to set an appointment and retrieved her SSA password because my dad had set it up for her and she never logged onto it afterwards. Made a binder with all passwords, all certificates, tax documents and loan documents.

I bought a computer for her (my dads gave a bitlocker error and I couldn’t access it) and put all the payment portals for utilities, retirement accounts, and bills on the homepage with saved passwords. Tried to make everything as seamless as possible. Showed her the process multiple times how to pay the bill. Basically click user name, click password sign in, bingo. Saved debit cards for automatic payments etc.

Took her to a probate lawyer and am in the process of getting most of the accounts from my dad’s name to hers.

Most of this stuff, she could do by herself. But now I’m in a pickle where she expects me to do everything paperwork related. She doesn’t read her mail or email, she just off loads it onto me when I visit.

She has never been personable to me in my adult life and even childhood, so it’s a gut punch that there’s little warmth while visiting. Dad was always doting. Now it’s just her asking about paper work, the only time she calls is about paperwork.

I stopped over last Sunday and she just gave me a stack of mail to go through, most of it was credit cards bill that my dad owned that needed settled. She didn’t read them and said “she doesn’t know what they are for”.

I live almost an hour and a half away and she expects me to be the keeper of paper work when I visit, while I have an older brother who lives a mile away. She doesn’t really ask him to help with any paper work, she says “I don’t want to ask him he gets mean”. He did set up an appointment for a repair for her and got the ball rolling on Medicare stuff and that’s about it.

I think I want to just distance myself from the bill payments once the pension and SSA stuff settles in. Automate what I can, and leave her to her own devices, because I pretty sure she’s just offloading all of dad’s responsibilities onto me through weaponized incompetence or forced helplessness or whatever.

And what makes me annoyed is she always complains about the younger generation and how they have it so easy, while these past few months have made it apparent that she has been insulated from any true financial responsibility for the past 30 or so years.

Just a rant, I feel like I haven’t been able to properly greive with all this being thrown at me.

My mom is 71 years old. I have noticed more frequently her becoming much more forgetful, she doesn’t remember things I’ve told her in previous days. It will just be basic things about what I did, or what one of my kids did. Something else that stood out to me though was how she has completely forgot about something a little more significant.

About 8 years ago I rear ended someone in a big truck and I had a little Honda civic so my car got damaged and to help me out I traded cars with my parents and I drove my dad’s truck while my parents took my car in for a couple weeks to get repaired. At one point I asked my mom if it would be okay for me to go on a small road trip with my dad’s truck with a friend to a state park. They were fine with it.

My mom started talking about going to said state park with a friend as she has never been and she did remember how I went and I told her “oh yeah I went when I was borrowing dad’s truck.” She looked at me like I was crazy and was like what?! I reminded her that I had rear ended someone and my little car was messed up so they had helped me out and I borrowed dad’s truck. My mom then said she did not remember that at all.

I feel like that’s something she would remember. I don’t know if I should be concerned or if this is normal for her age or both. Is there anything I should be looking out for?

Long story short I don’t talk to my dad. I could tell you why, but we’ll just say he’s mentally abusive and a drunk. I found out through my cousin ( who heard from a stranger at a local brewery) he’s had some health issues. Broken hip, minor stroke and an illness so bad he was hospitalized. Here’s my question, how will I find out he’s died. I’m his only living heir, he doesn’t talk to anyone else in his family or they’ve all passed. Has anyone else dealt with this?? Just to be clear my mom and he divorced in like 86 and the one brother he has left doesn’t speak to him. I’m his only family.

I’m 35 and have a house. I’m a single mom of an 11 yr old. My mom is 58 and able bodied. She was living with my grandfather the last 10+ years but he passed away this year. I didn’t realize how much his social security was helping her. She is now at a place where she’s saying she needs to move in with me. I haven’t lived under a roof with her since about 16. She’s a major trigger for my mental health. I do not want her to live with me but I don’t know how to say that. I know that if she moves in with me, she’s never gonna leave. I am so stressed out just by the idea. My home is my safe place and having her there will take that away. She also thinks she’s about to lose her job, which means she would be moving in with no income. If anyone has advice I would greatly appreciate it.

hello! my grandmother recently had a bad fall and broke her hip. she ended up having to have the hip pinning surgery, and seems to be in good spirits now! her energy and mood seems to be completely back, which makes me very happy.

she had been toying with the idea of staying at a rehab center close to where we live. (we’ve been having to drive 1.5 hours to visit her at the hospital where she was transferred to.)

the only place near where we live is full, and the next closest has bad reviews, so she decided on at-home occupational and physical therapy.

i’d love to have her stay at a facility, but it’s just not going to be doable it seems. all i want is for her to get the best care and improvement as she can.

does anyone have any successful experiences with at-home health?

My parents (early 70s, late 60s) are doing fine on their own for now, but having seen my cousins take on these caregiving roles, I know what can come. As an only child, I know it's possible that I may be taking on a lot in the future.

We've already talked openly about the kinds of care they do and don't want, which I'm grateful for. But I'm wondering if there are other tangible things I can do now to help them have a fulfilling older age and to make it easier on me when I'm the one looking out for them.

For those who've been through it: what do you wish you had known? And is there anything worth doing now to prepare? Or questions to ask sooner rather than later? Practical stuff like paperwork or accounts, or anything else that made a difference.

I'm seeing serious risk factor/health red flags in my partner's parents (65, 69 y.o.) that have been worsening pretty quickly over the last few years. Mainly frequent falls/poor balance, frequent illness/infections, vision impairments (FIL has macular degen., diabetic retinopathy, and glaucoma) and they still drive, including heavy freeway traffic and along a dangerous stretch of mountain roads. MIL is still working FT in a very high-stress job, and they are really pretty young for everything they're dealing with.

They are very independent and generally reserved with personal things, and I think largely in denial of a lot of their health issues and what they mean long term. I've been in the family for over 20 years and have a healthy relationship with them, but haven't seen them as much as I used to over the past few years, so I don't feel like I'm as close as I once was. But I'm a healthcare professional and I can't unknow what I know or unsee what I've seen, and it's pretty distressing to watch this play out with loved ones. They've missed holidays, birthdays, milestone celebrations in the last year d/t one or the other being unwell. MIL has fallen twice in the last month (walking dog/in a tub-shower) and she is putting off medical care for a back issue (also, I suspect secretly drinking again after an AUD-complicated hospitalization in 2020 and she claims she's quit)

I want them to regain some health and maintain their independence for as long as possible! I need to tread carefully, and don't want to approach this from a fear or anxiety based place (although, I'm pretty afraid from what I see-- not helped by the fact that I work in a neuro/ortho IRU). But I don't know how receptive they would be to anything too subtle. Looking for advice on if/how to address my concerns with them.

(USA)

My parents (67 & 58) are BROKE. They have no retirement savings, no house, and maybe $500 in the bank. They have one car worth maybe a few thousand dollars. Even though my mother is only 58, she’s had 2x heart attacks, a stroke, and a triple bypass surgery. It’s a miracle she’s still living. My dad just survived an aortic dissection at the beginning of the year and has returned back to work. Literally the only thing my parents seem to have going for them is the miraculous ability to survive.

The house they rent is a total slum because the landlord refuses to fix anything. The floors are falling in, the bathroom has mold, they have wild animals living underneath. They can’t easily move anywhere else because rents have gone up so much and their credit isn’t good.

I live my own life a thousand miles away. I have proposed buying them a small, cheap, accessible house to live in. The house will be in my name only. I can afford to do so, but I’m scared of becoming their permanent caretakers. I’m OK with paying for the house and hiring cleaners etc. but I absolutely cannot move back. Will giving them a place to live make me entirely responsible for their care?

So my mom lives with my mamaw to help care for her, but still has a full-time job. Mamaw has still been pretty independent for the most part, but the last year or 2 she has begun to go downhill. Her room is becoming full of packages and trash and laundry and just random junk. It has become a fall hazard at times, and it takes days for me and my mom to clean through. We do a good job of keeping her trash out and keeping the fall hazards off the floor, but she is always adding to it.

She has had a problem with falling; sometimes she will keep it a secret because she is embarrassed, and we won't know till days or weeks later. She has been scammed by telemarketers for actual thousands of dollars. She has physically gone out, listened to these people on the phone, bought $3000 worth of gift cards, sent them pictures, and had them stolen. She hid that from us for 2 weeks before her credit card bill came in and my mom saw the transactions. It was a really difficult time for everyone. She has an online shopping problem, signing up for things she doesn't even know about, buying random expensive things from sketchy websites, and forgetting about them or having some excuse about why she needs them. It is a genuine problem, and we have had multiple conversations about it. She refuses to accept she is not mentally capable of handling her finances.

Most recently, about 2 months ago, she had a UTI and was showing crazy cognitive symptoms. Couldn't walk or speak or hold her bladder, and what little she did say was insane. We took her to the ER; she had a UTI. This happened a couple of years ago, so I wasn't surprised. They admitted her for about a week, and they found she has very bad muscle deterioration. She ends up in a rehab facility for 3 weeks, working on physical therapy. Now she's been home for a couple of months at this point, still going to physical therapy sessions a couple of times a week, and she now uses a walker.

This last Friday, she had ANOTHER UTI after being sick for a week. My mom took her to the ER again. They gave her antibiotics and IVs for dehydration. They let her go home if my mom promised to make her drink water. My mom had been doing her best, but Mamaw refuses to drink water consistently and does not see it as a problem. She thinks she is drinking plenty of water. Mom began going through her pills and setting up her pill box. She found mamaw has been incorrectly setting up some of her medicines, and skipping days or nights. My mom set up her pill box organizer so she doesn't get confused. On Sunday, Mom checks on her medications and sees she skipped her antibiotic on Saturday! Mamaw said she took it; my mom said clearly not- it's still in your box. She saw she did not take it Sunday morning either. Mamaw said, 'Yes, I did; I remember taking them this morning.' Again, she is wrong because the pills are still in the box.

My mom just now sent me a picture of Mamaw's credit card bill for the last 2 months. $1000 a month on random things, random sketchy websites, random packages, and some sketchy 'tech support' costs I bet are scams.

On top of this, some other behavior is washing fast food cups and storing them, washing popsicle sticks and keeping them, and plastic straws, and grocery bags, and various other strange behaviors. She mistook the toaster oven for the microwave the other day and stood there for a solid minute pushing buttons. She stays up very late; my mom has gone into the kitchen at 2:30 in the morning to find her wiping off the fridge door or setting up her pill box organizer. Just a lot of stuff.

I know she is sad, I know a lot of her friends are doing better than her, and some are doing worse, and I'm sure that's scary. She wants to travel but knows she can't go alone. I made plans to take her on a little road trip in a month, so I think that will help. I can sit her in a wheelchair and take her to a zoo or a museum or something. Anything to get her out of the house and make her feel normal.

I really don't know what to do. I'm at the point where we need to take her card away and get her a new debit card with a set allowance on it every month. She is going to hate that, and she doesn't think its needed, but I really don't know what else to do. Any advice is appreciated.

I notice my parents are constantly calling me to help them with what I deemed as mundane task. For example, they might send me a photo of a letter and want me to me to summarize it for them like I am ChatGPT. They want me to call customer service for them to resolve issues.

My concern is that I am now the only child. My younger sibling and I used to share duties of handling their request but my sibling suddenly pass away. I have health issues and worry that if something happens to me there won't be someone around to help. Most of my relatives are overseas. I pointed this out to them a few times, but they always denied that something could happen to me even though it's already happen once before.

Are there things I can do to help them be more independant. I have often push back constantly and change procedure to those that they are used to. They have learn do things like Rideshare for example, so it's not impossible for them learn things. I have set up alternate people to help in emergency circumstances, but they are unlikely to be as responsiv,e, but that may have to do?

So I found out for sure last weekend at my baby shower that my MIL has type 2 diabetes. A couple years ago, I told my husband about overhearing my in-laws talking about her having an issue with her diabetes, she lied to him and said she was maybe prediabetic. At the time she was twitching a lot and now my husband asked on Saturday what was going on because her face seems like it's almost paralyzed on one side and she clenches her jaw when she talks. She finally admitted to him it's diabetes. To be honest I'm pretty upset she's been hiding it from us and chose to disclose it at our shower, but what I'm really mad about is finding out she isn't even getting treatment according to my father in law. They are super ignorant or uneducated on how serious this is. At the end of the night my father in law was taking leftover soda and asked my mother in law "you like sprite right?", which she replied yes grab it. Thankfully my husband took it away and told his dad that she can't drink regular soda if she has uncontrolled diabetes.

I'm not a doctor, but I know what diabetic neuropathy looks like since I have a lot of family members with type 1 & 2 diabetes. I even lost a relative a few years ago because of gangrene complications from diabetic neuropathy. So as you can imagine I am pretty livid that she is refusing to seek medical treatment now before things become dire.

An extra complication is that it's about to be winter where I live and my in laws live an hour away in a rural community and I'm 7 months pregnant. My husband and I can't hold her hand and drag her to an appointment. I am just at a loss because my father in law is so obtuse to the severity and minimized when my husband explained it, she's refusing to be an adult about this situation and getting care or making any sort of lifestyle change and I am in no condition to be there. It's had me in tears everyday since finding out which can't be good for my baby. I'm just so mad that someone can be that selfish and unwilling to take care of themselves especially when they're about to be someone's grandparent. What can I do? I need some strategies because it's stressing me out thinking how she's (not) so slowly killing herself over sugary food (she's seditary, overweight and eats highly processed food everyday, like chips, soda, boxed mac & cheese, mash & gravy, cookies, etc.) This is supposed to be a joyful time and this is instead what I'm staying up in the middle of the night about.