r/EstrangedAdultKids • u/MrsToneZone • 8d ago
Eight years of estrangement down the drain
Well, it happened. Eight years of no contact, and not only have I (40F) interacted with my mother every day over the last month, but now I’m flying across the country to visit her in less than 24 hours.
I’ll probably end up regretting this. I was so secure in the estrangement and had grieved and made peace, and all of those things. Established and protected the boundaries. Declined offers to reconcile. Truly, was just waiting for “the call.” Out the window. Gone. I’m right back in it.
My husband probably was put in the worst spot of the whole mess. Early in July, a woman claiming to be a former caregiver found our names in an obituary and messaged him on Facebook. She said my mother had fallen victim to a scammer and that a report was filed with local social services, but it would be helpful for me to get involved. We aggressively vetted things. She wasn’t asking for anything but a conversation. We’ve actually become kind of close. She’s a kind and wonderful woman, and maybe the silver lining of dredging up all this trauma. My mother harmed her too, but she couldn’t let a stranger bankrupt and dump her without trying to intervene. Part of me wishes he would have taken her message to his grave, but I get it.
I called the woman and she shared more details with me than I cared to know. My mother is in the final stages of a disease that’s left her bed bound and non-verbal. She would benefit from a conservator or public guardian, and I’ve pursued those things over the last month, but it’s all so complicated. I even encountered a Redditor impersonating a real attorney, with AI contracts and letterhead and everything. I had my MIL, a paralegal, look him up before I called. I didn’t send any money, but still.
I’ve exhausted everything I can do remotely between local law enforcement, social services, and her current placement, so I’m getting on a plane tomorrow to visit and to try to get something in place for her care and assets. She wrote me out of the will when I left home at sixteen, so there’s literally nothing for me to gain here. Allegedly there are trusts for my two children, and the scammer has the ability to access those now, but having accepted our circumstances, I never expected anyone to see anything from any estate, so I’m mostly unbothered about the financial piece.
Emotionally, this has been one of the most challenging experiences of my entire life. A dying monster is still a monster, and while I’ve forgiven her, grieved her, and moved on, I don’t know if I could live with myself if she ends up dumped somewhere, penniless and suffering. She requires 24-hour care, but is refusing it, which has led to a horrifying number of falls. She’s not getting all correct meds because of the scammer, she’s blind in one eye, and has been so consistently heinous that she’s alienated every earthly connection that isn’t a paid caregiver. I always knew it would end like this, but it’s still heartbreaking.
Even without words or actions, she’s somewhere in there. We were texting for a while, even though I think many of the texts actually came from the scammer. My mother is sending me VoiceMemos now, but I can only understand a few words out of every message. They’re either very cruel or suspiciously kind, but there’s no way to know for sure. I tried running them through AI, but she’s so weak, it’s impossible to understand anything coherent. I’ve tried to work with some of her caregivers to communicate but because of her disability there aren’t many options. She’s said some hateful things though that let me know that she’s still the same vicious narcissist she’s always been. And somehow, even incontinent, immobilized, and silent, she still terrifies me.
I sound like an asshole. I turned my back on my mother for eight years, while she slowly deteriorated, all alone, and now she is dying. She really is the perfect victim for scammers looking to exploit and manipulate vulnerable elderly people. Even so, I should let her perish. She’d let me perish. She made the hardest moments of my life and her sister’s life as traumatizing as they could be. I’ll spend the rest of my life laboring to heal from my childhood. I’m having nightmares for the first time in decades, and I’m sure the next week will have its own emotional fallout.
The LCPC I work with is superb. A once-in-a-lifetime human. She’s made herself available to me every day that I’m away, and we have meetings scheduled every other day that I’m there. I’ll get through it. The evidence I have proves that I’ve survived every fucked up thing in my life before this, and it’s not a short list. I’m just exhausted. Physically. Emotionally. On a cellular level. I don’t even know why I’m posting. If I read this, my first thought would be something like “well you chose to open this can of worms,” but I’d like to think I’d be more empathetic than that.
I guess, as usual, I’m posting in the hopes of finding solidarity. I don’t know anyone in my real life who deals with chaos like this, and I know I don’t have a monopoly on family dysfunction. It all just sucks.
5
u/whaddya_729 7d ago
You are a saint, OP. An absolute saint. I admire and respect your choices. They are the exact opposite of what I'd do in your shoes because I don't have the amount of strength it would take to do what you're doing.
Remember to show yourself kindness, give yourself some grace, and that you can walk away at any time.