Navigating Family Dynamics with Death and Substance Abuse
Hi all -
It’s been a rough few months for me, particularly related to my family. So I wanted to take this opportunity to open up a conversation that many of us are afraid to have - boundaries with family members. My grandpa died a few months ago and my grandma has dementia. My mom moved in full-time to take care of grandma, and to be honest, she’s not the best person to take care of her. My mom is an alcoholic. Last year she fell and broke her pelvis and tailbone in three spots, then when she went into the hospital for too much pain, the hospital didn’t see on her chart that she was an alcoholic, and she started detoxing. They over-medicated her, putting her into the ICU and on a breathing tube for 2+ days. She was sober from beer and cigarettes through the rest of her time in the hospital, and within 24 hours of being released, she had ordered cigarettes again. She only lasted a few weeks before drinking again. Then taking on the responsibility of caring for her mother with dementia and all other family living 2+ hours away. Needless to say, when I’ve seen her lately it seems like her drinking has increased which is worrisome.
While my mom has been taking care of grandma, one uncle has been coming down to help almost every weekend and the other uncle is Power of Attorney. About two months ago, my uncle (Power of Attorney one) called me and said that he was feeling pretty overwhelmed and hadn’t been taking care of the bills for my grandma. Was this something I would and be willing to help with? I told him that I could help with the bills. The issue here though is that he didn’t open up my grandma’s bank account, or any of the bills since my grandpa died, and my mom had no way to see into the bank account so she didn’t know how much money they had. Needless to say, by the time I organized everything, I was able to determine that they were spending about $4,000 a month and only making $2,000 a month. My mom also expressed to me that she was not doing alright and felt very alone and trapped being the sole person taking care of my grandma and needed a break.
That’s when I couldn’t just stand by anymore. And this is when I stepped into help, and therefore was not able to set a clear boundary. I immediately went into solving mode - they are spending too much money, we need that money to pay for memory care, we need to clear all the shit out of their house, get it listed, get it sold, and use that money to continue to pay for memory care, and once we spend down all her money to $6,050, then we can apply for Medicaid for my grandma. Talk about a shit system in life - you spend your whole life working for retirement, assets, everything - then you have to literally spend all your money before they will accept you onto Medicaid and then they still take your entire income, minus $50 a month for “spending money”. So looking forward to the rest of my life knowing this information….not. Actually, putting all of these items into motion put me into a very bad spiral.
At the beginning, it was getting things organized. Are we doing an estate sale? Which order are we selling the house - estate sale first then sell or get it listed and do sale once it’s listed? Can we get other family members or church people to help us with moving items or cleaning up their yard? I created several shared documents - one on Medicare/Medicaid, assisted living information, etc., a budget of expenses and income, a clean up plan/volunteer plan. We met with folks at the assisted living place, we found a place with a bed available, got everything packed up to prepare for movers to pick up, had an auction house selling all the items and sending us the proceeds, and found a realtor. These checklist items were all fine and while a lot to deal with, my family members were struggling and I felt like I could be the person to help them during this situation.
But, during this process, I started to go into a dark place. First off, I don’t have any kids at the moment. So that fact that I don’t have kids means that I’m the default person in the family that can be “available” to help with all of these things. If I had kids it’s not like I would use them as an excuse, but I would also be able to set better boundaries because I would be having to take care of my family. And then I started thinking, what if I never have kids? Will I always be the default person to be the responsibile adult in my family? And if I don’t have kids then what is my purpose besides be the adult to handle these things for my grandma, my mom, maybe my uncle, and who knows who else for the rest of my life. And since all the people I love are getting older, is the rest of my life just going to be cleaning up people’s messes and watching them die? So then I start thinking, what’s the point of life? Why don’t people just kill themselves at a certain point in life so they don’t actually have to go through this hard shit…like I said…dark spot…don’t recommend that you go there.
It was a huge spiral that had me crying randomly for days straight, drinking to cope with my emotions, etc. I want to be super clear that I’m not suicidal and also reiterate that my mom tried to kill herself several years ago and I was her last phone call. Knowing someone is trying to end their life is a terrible feeling, and ending your life is not the solution. So if you are having these ideas, please please please talk to someone and know that YOU MATTER. Even if life feels like everything is shit and isn’t getting better…it will. It’s going to be painful and full of emotions but you are much stronger than you believe you are.
So once I started to come out of my spiral, I realized that I didn’t clearly state boundaries to begin with, and that I needed to reset some expectations of what I can and can’t help my family with. To be fair, I didn’t know what the boundary was at the beginning. I was just staying completely out of it until someone asked me for help, then I ended up managing all of it and being the person running the ship.
This week is the week where all the pieces finally came together though. I told my family two weeks ago that once this week is over, I am stepping away from leading this whole thing. We moved grandma into memory care on Monday, the movers came today to take the furniture and all packed items to the action house, we have done some serious deep cleaning, and and realtor is working to set up photos so the house can get listed.
At the end of the day, what matters is that my grandma is taken care of. It’s also important that I’m emotionally and mentally okay. And honestly, losing one parent and having a parent not always know who you are has got to be hard on my mom and two uncles. I just wanted to take some of the burden away if I could, but it cost my mental health and it’s always important to make sure you take care of yourself before you can help others.
So my question to you is…where are you currently lacking boundaries in your life? How can you reset expectations and advocate for yourself so that you can maintain a boundary and ensure your mental and emotional health get to a better place?
So until next time….stay bold, stay empowered,
Rach
