I'm a long time lurker and occasional poster who has name changed. Have been around since that thread where that knobber was wanting to motorcycle across Afghanistan and such places whilst his pregnant wife was left at home. I just don't know what to do about this very complicated situation and I think I need the perspective of the wise women of Mumsnet.
I was born into a very difficult family situation. My parents were both mid-teenagers when my mother found out she was pregnant with me, she and my dad had actually split up a few weeks beforehand and he had left the town they lived in to go and live and work in a relative's hotel in London. When she told her parents there was absolute uproar (it was the early 1970s) and a big family conference ensued, with both families meeting up at my dad's parents' house. My maternal grandparents said that unless my parents married or my mother had an abortion they were going to kick her out. My dad refused to get married, my mother refused an abortion. The meeting ended without any resolution but my dad's mum said to my mum that if she needed any help at all she was to ring her. A few days later my mum rang and said her parents had thrown her out, my grandparents picked her up and she and I lived with them and were financially supported by them from then until she married my stepfather when I was six. Her family more or less ignored us up until that point.
When my mother became 'respectable' by marrying my stepfather her family deigned to come back into our lives again. My mother then started trying to edge my paternal grandparents out of my life, encouraged by her own parents who hated them - presumably because they had shown up their own bad behaviour. I was hardly allowed to see them, if I talked about them the room went quiet and if I did get to see them they were endlessly scrutinised to see that they weren't favouring me above my siblings - even though my stepgrandparents blatantly treated me as second-class without any censure. The whole thing was just awful as I loved and missed them very much, having lived with them for all those years.
At 16 I had had enough of this and left home to go back to live with my grandparents, I stayed with them for another ten years until I met and married my DH - who has a completely loving and functional family who have helped me deal with all this crap. My mother and I didn't speak for five years after I left home (she ignored me). When I was 21 we started speaking again but the relationship was always difficult, she hates my dad and takes it out on me all the time. I had to virtually force her to be civil to my nan and hostility was never far beneath the surface. This went on for about ten years until my mother and stepfather managed to let's say 'fanangle' me out of the best part of £10,000 - which is a very long story that I won't go into here for brevity's sake. I realised then that they had been abusive all my life and cut contact with them for good. It's been seven years now and I've never regretted it and have no wish to have any contact with them ever again.
However, they have now managed to get a foothold in my life again because my nan is ill with dementia. It became apparent a few years ago that she was having problems but she is extremely proud and stubborn and would not admit it. She seemed to have a complete personality transplant and where we had always got on so well she started being really nasty to me and kept constantly arguing with me and then later ranting about me to various people, accusing me of trying to take all her money and put her in a care home and various other things. Although I love my nan she has fallen out with a lot of people in her life and is estranged from both her children (my dad has never forgiven her for 'taking sides' in the great pregnancy fiasco). She has two siblings herself but neither of them have been any help so trying to deal with her has been down to me, which would be hard enough in itself but is especially hard as I have an auto-immune disease which means that I suffer from chronic pain, I've also recently been diagnosed with Addison's disease so stress really isn't my friend.
Anyway, my nan decided I was the enemy and within hardly any time my mother and stepfather suddenly started visiting her and taking her out for coffee and lunch etc. My nan can't remember how horrible they have always been to her and now thinks they are the best of friends. Because I cannot be around them I can no longer go up to my nan's house in case they are there or turn up. They have been trying to bully me back into contact for years because they can't bear not being able to have any control over me.
We all live in a very small town so I get to hear about my nan and I know that she has deteriorated a lot recently. She doesn't recognise people and although she sometimes looks ok, she sometimes looks a bit scruffy now too. I just don't know what to do to help and protect her. I've already been to the doctors and explained things but there is little they can do without her agreement. I couldn't live with her as she is quite nasty at times and she doesn't sleep and I really need my sleep. She refused to go into sheltered accommodation, won't go to the doctors and is now running around with people who have always been awful to both of us. I recently learned that she had 'given' my half-sister's boyfriend her car. She is clearly very vulnerable but she doesn't believe these people aren't her friends and I have no idea how to keep them away from her if she keeps letting them in. My dad, uncle and her sisters have all said they will back whatever I do but they can't be arsed to step in themselves and help me and I am her only blood relative living close by. I feel awful for just walking away but that is what I have had to do at the moment.
Another problem is that my mother and stepfather are very plausible. They are involved in local government, civic and charitable projects etc so a lot of people think they are the salt of the earth though it is a different matter behind closed doors of course.
Please don't be too brutal, this has been heartbreaking for me.