Caring for elderly parents? Pop in for support and a rant

[thesandwich]

Pace yourself, it's a marathon not a sprint!

This is a safe place to offload- don't be embarrassed about how you feel. No judgement here...

There are lovely people here with practical experience of some of the issues which crop up who'll share their hard won knowledge!

Cross posted with Nota. May I also add that every time you visit bring your documents as even though they may scan them it is likely they will be lost. Also be prepared to give details of any accounts you hold at that bank. Took six visits for us to sort after waiting eight months for guardianship to come through from courts.

the other thing is, I have no idea what the legality was with dad having set up the accounts for mum.

she thinks she signed letters but of course being them, there's no copy of the letters (handwritten) and she just signed anything he asked her to sign.

I know she is 80 but this is where I get really annoyed - how any responsible adult could do this, I don't know.

Sorry cross posted again. That’s not an easy set of circumstances without a branch.
I think you will need to do a fact finding mission with your mum by your side in the phone. That won’t be easy but I’d set it up for early in the day or when your mum is at her most business like. Eventually you may need to involve the executor and let her/ him take over the phone calls but the issue will be the bank seeing proof of death certificate and that your mum is who you say she is. Hopefully someone else will know more and I don’t cross post again.

fortysix mum is the executor. The account is in her name, so it's not part of the estate, so that side might all be irrelevant.

I may be worrying about nothing, but my main concern was her calling the bank and saying "I have a savings account with you but I don't know anything about it because my husband set it up". I don't think that kind of thing should be legal but it probably happens all the time!

grace have you got financial POA for your mum? If not, it sounds like now would be a good time to put that in place so that you can step in and sort some of this yourself, rather than stressing her out. If she phones while you are with her, she can say she gives authority for you to speak on her behalf, even without the POA.

That’s mildly easier as your mum is the executor. I would assemble the bits of info in front of you and just launch in on the phone helpline. Assume it may take several calls and lots of patience but it will eventually resolve. You may want to take notes and names of everyone you speak to and times of calls for your records but fingers crossed. Who dares wins and all that. You will be immensely proud of you and your mum if you move it forward

nota no, I don't have PoA.

We discussed it when dad was ill but mum felt it would put her back to square one if she just handed everything to me. Plus, she is worried about my mental health - I have A&D normally and looking after a grieving widow isn't helping. She has done the calls to change joint accounts etc. Grief is up and down though isn't it - some days she can cope, other days she is in bits.

I'm probably being overprotective - but also trying to protect my own sanity because I'm dreading another incident of mum crying over bank account paperwork!!

if we find there isn't much in there, I'm half inclined to tell her to leave the money where it is and we can sort it out later - I do think I will need PoA later on but she's so overwhelmed with grief at the moment. It's like a cycle of grief -> anxiety attack -> deep breaths > moment of trying to be efficient > then repeat.

I half wonder if I should just tell her to stop everything non-urgent and just get through the next few months.

in some ways, I think mum is coping with the crazy up and down cycle, but I can't cope with her up and down cycle. That's not a criticism - it's just I'm used to living a life where I don't have to deal with anyone else's anything really, and that peace and quiet was key to my mental health.

so she is trying to protect it, with her efforts to handle things herself, and I do appreciate that.

Fortysix "You will be immensely proud of you and your mum if you move it forward"

ha ha, no I'm mostly just immensely irritated and utterly flummoxed that my parents operated in this horrendous codependent way. I'm quite proud of the fact that mum and I haven't had a massive row yet, but neither of us have an argumentative nature!

I have a nasty feeling, if mum had gone first, I might have been faced with dad asking how to operate the washing machine or something. Now that would have been a mega argument....

Grace, just a suggestion try to look in your dfs files or on his computer he may have written down all passwords. I know a lot of people do. For what it is worth, I would be fuming and super stressed out too.

Iamdanish

he told us he didn't have any passwords written down anywhere, a couple of weeks before he died. (yes he had the decency to be apologetic) I haven't attempted to crack his computer either - no one knows the password - because he had no anti virus on it - hence he never told me he was opening online accounts!

thank you for saying you'd be fuming too. Mum doesn't use a computer, so whatever he has set up online needs to be closed and just transferred to one of her other accounts.

even if he had written down his passwords, we don't know what email he might have set up to access the accounts. There is a long paper trail of letters with these banks - he clearly didn't know what he was doing as I can see from the letters that he is asking all kinds of questions - by letter - about an online account.

I didn't ask before because i was hoping the paper trail would show the accounts had never actually been opened, but sadly I think they have.

Grace did your Dad ever take his computer to a high street fixer? I had to crack all Dad's codes and took his stuff to his high street IT guy, he had a note of passwords. Failing that they can retrieve the password. I removed all their stuff they could use to access banking and changed passwords so Dad doesn't mess it up. I say this kindly but i think your Mum is too unworldly to learn computers and internet banking from scratch. She'd have to be fairly assertive to go on a silver surfer course or something. Although there's probably something for Asian ladies that she'd enjoy, any hope of that?

Grace
Oh, i know you are in a place near to hell... But asking by letter 😂
It is going to be the walk of shame down to the bank, I guess. So sorry 😊.

thigh

I know we can sort out Dad's computer by paying someone but it seems pointless for the banking - ultimately we need the banks to release the money to mum for a not-online account. I could probably crack his computer myself, but it's just adding to a list of tasks that make mum anxious and are of no benefit to us. Right now I want to get mum's money clear to her (and me) so we know what's what.

There is no way mum will bank online so no need to revive his computer at the moment. In future, I might do it so I can use it and it isn't being wasted, it's new, but for the moment, it's not a priority.

sorry, I'm in rant mode now but it's just as well to vent now before I go back tomorrow.....I know it's less than 2 months, but it's quite hard to manage someone who is in a massive stress about everything, has zero knowledge, and is also grieving for the man she spent 60 years of her life with. At the beginning I thought "oh well, she is having a worse time than I am" but now I'm starting to think....when does this get better? I mean, I know she will be sad forever, but I wonder when the anxiety will go away?

the 111 call about palpitations - I'm sure that was anxiety.

oh for a useful sibling to support right now!

Iamdanish

no, the banks don't have physical premises in our part of the country. It will either all be done via correspondence or we will have to get a solicitor involved! No, hopefully it won't go that far - there will be other widows who had to call banks and say "no idea, my DH did it all".

Morning all.grace sounds incredibly tough- sorry.
Are the accounts with major banks/ building societies? Some have people who deal with bereavement issues- perhaps worth trying to contact that bit of the bank? But sounds like it could wait a bit.... perhaps until after new year when most places will be back to full staffing? Things will get better, promise.... but just be really kind to yourself.🌺🌺 and this nest of vipers is with you.
cockroach all

Mum is selfish and an egomaniac, she equates physical labour with love. That's labour not caring, she is obsessed with having things put here, put there. Take this upstairs, take that downstairs. She will run everyone around her ragged and it's never enough.

It's tempting to say "oh but she's old" but I first remember her saying "do this, your legs are younger than mine" when I was 3 and she was in her late 30s. She has been joking for years about how she goes in shops and the post office and creates a fuss and wants things fetched and a chair brought for her. She laughs about it afterwards and I said "you really are enjoying being old and playing the old card aren't you" she said "I most certainly am".

I truly don't understand it, she's a black hole of need. I do love her and she, I think, means well beneath it all. But she's such a difficult, dissatisfied person who just wants, wants, wants.

I said to her yesterday "I'm surprised you're still so ill and still in your nightie, you were only in hospital for a couple of days. It's surprising that it is made you into a complete invalid over a week later when you were walking around chatting to everyone in the hospital". I also said "Dad has gone very much downhill, he was out having short walks every day and since you got out of hospital he has become an invalid too".

She's such an egomaniac that if she's ill, he's ill, she can't look outside herself at all. Oh well, it's his own fault for having married such a weirdo.

We discussed it when dad was ill but mum felt it would put her back to square one if she just handed everything to me. She doesn't have to hand over everything. PoA finance can be set up either to operate when the person has lost capacity, or while they still have capacity. And if they still have capacity, then there's no reason why she shouldn't operate some accounts and the attorney operate others. (Though our solicitor suggests that banks get confused if dealing with both the person and the attorney, so best to separate on the basis of institutions not accounts).

sandwich

we could try the bereavement route but these are accounts just in her name so it's not really relevant.

re waiting till New Year, I was actually planning to leave these two particular accounts for much longer than that. I was just asking here as I am reviewing my list of things to do. I find it easier to look at the "to do" list in my own home and then plan what I will tackle with mum before I get there.

I should say, she is being brave, and for a woman who didn't even know where the bloody gas meter was or how to read a bank statement, she is doing well. I think what really stresses me is the emotional rollercoaster aspect of it all - I'm not used to spending much time with anyone, much less someone who is enduring terrible grief.

thigh that sounds hard. I have no idea what to suggest.

grace In other contexts Dad does know what time it is. It's more as if he finds it hard to work out what is important information to communicate.

cross posting everywhere

thanks for the support

Dint yes, she's aware of that, but still doesn't want to do it yet. I do think it would make sense to sort her accounts before going for PoA anyway. Dad had a lot of accounts set up for her with small amounts of money - we are consolidating them so there will be fewer accounts etc, which will be easier for me as well.

I could get these jobs done really quickly but as I say, mum keeps breaking down with grief - hence why I wondered if we should just park it all for a few months till she feels she can cope. All bills are on direct debit except one, and we know there is enough to cover them, so I don't know why she wants to figure out the other stuff now. Well I do in a way - distraction. She has no hobbies or anything so at least the daily admin is a new thing for her to learn when she's in a fit state.

thigh gosh that sounds so difficult. My mum is trying really hard not to be a bother and still does all the cooking, washing up etc - she won't let me help even if I'm there 2 nights in a row!

thank you for listening to my rants. Sorry, I realise in context of what everyone else is dealing with, there's nothing to rant about really!

Dint has your Dad got a talking watch? I got Dad one from Amazon about £20-25 - he loves it, it's very simple.

I decided not to visit today
DM will be there
DD is going later and will do checks etc - I might ring ward tonight
However have spent 2 hours cataloguing everything that’s been going on and have just emailed to hospital manager - she said she will forward to ward manager who will hopefully contact me tomorrow to arrange a meeting

thigh I'm not sure that's the problem - I think it's more that he can't distinguish between important things and unimportant things. He's obsessed with making plans to communicate to people information that they don't need to know. I think he probably felt that his going downstairs was something we needed to know about urgently, even though it was 2am.

sympathies to all. jace we found we had to be really really on their case, luckily my DB worked for NHS for almost 40 years, so could cut through the crap. I remember the day I arrived to find her out of bed (good) but sitting on a plastic chair with no arms (really really not good). So I swung into action and demanded she was off that chair NOW and into one with arms, cushions, back support etc. I was told they were just waiting for the right chair, which magically was in the bay opposite, but I do wonder how long she might have been sat there waiting to fall off if I hadnt appeared.
I do sympathise with how under-staffed/over-stretched they are, but it's really not bloody good enough. I think the elderly are seen as 'inconvenient' rather than actual people a lot of the time.