Friend reported me to Social Services

[RainbowPeppercorns]

I have been a carer to my elderly parents for many years now. They are both in their early nineties and Dad has just been diagnosed with a terminal condition that means he probably doesn't have long.

Until a few weeks back he was in a care home whilst we made adaptations to their home with some assistance from Occupational Therapy.

He is now back home. We are nursing him in bed as he can't really get up.

It has been such a difficult time. Unfortunately there have been some clashes with my mother over his care. She used to be a GP and has always been very vocal and forthright. They also didn't have a particularly easy marriage. There has been verbal conflict and I ended up throwing stuff around and walking out.

All OK now, apologies etc. She still believes she did nothing wrong by shouting and screaming at me over a tiny thing but I understand as we are both suffering anticipatory grief.

I've been confiding in and leaning on a friend of many years. He was a social worker but had a nervous breakdown and left the profession. Unfortunately he has rang Social Services and told them I have been violent towards my parents.

The police have been to take a statement and my Mum is totally horrified and insisting she doesn't want me prosecuted. Adult Protective Services are investigating.

The case worker told me who reported me. Apparently they are legally obligated to do so.

I haven't spoken with friend yet but I feel really let down.

Your 90+ year old mother was screaming and shouting at you while you were throwing stuff around.

Your family must be pretty dysfunctional if you think that this is anywhere near normal. If I heard this going on next door I would call the police, not social services.

Surely a friend's response would be: "OMG, OP. You sound absolutely at the end of your tether. You need more support. What can I do to help? I can at least help guide you through the SS system to get it."

You need to learn to regulate your emotions, not throw tantrums and lose your temper at your parents who are in their 90s ffs.

my dad was always an unkind person and regularly got nasty as an old man but i would have done something had i found out someone who had care for him as a vulnerable adult was behaving that way.

Absolutely this! OP, you deserve support too. Looking after elders is NOT easy.

I wonder if you are in touch with a carer's group, they will understand how difficult things can be. A friend of mine met her best friend at a meeting and they are able to go on holidays now as they have free time nowadays.

That’s a normal response though you wouldn’t know it judging by some of the angel Gabriel responses here!

Voice of reason. The minimising on this thread. I presume SS is there to help struggling families. The mate didn't call the police.

I'm also very surprised that the police have taken it so far as to visit and take a statement. Social services do contact police and health, so a multi agency decision can be made, though in most cases thats done away from the family and the police make a decision that there's no role for them and they're happy for it to be single agency, ie just social services following it up. It does make me think there may be more to it than what has been shared on the thread, not that I mean any slight on the OP. It's an extremely pressured situation for everyone involved.

What a horrible thing to do to a struggling friend. Very underhand, social worker or no social worker.

I’m a retired social worker. My responsibility regarding reporting abuse is no different from that of the general population, my registration has lapsed but, even if it hadn’t I am just an ordinary citizen when not at work.
I think he was heavy handed. If you said that you had hit your mother or were stealing from her I could understand it.
Did you throw something at her or just slam stuff around in temper?
He would have been better asking you whether you were finding the situation too stressful and if you needed more help.

Op, you deserve a medal for caring for your elderly parents for years

I agree he was bang out of order doing this
He could easily have encouraged you to seek support from SS, it was a report not made with good intentions

It may well work out well in this case, if you receive some support for you all, which is what you deserve

Not very good for social workers is it, rushing to judge he was heavy handed before even asking if she threw something at her parents or even hit them with the thing

It depends what the 'verbal conflict and throwing things around' consisted of. I appreciate it must be a difficult situation, but considering your parents are elderly and vulnerable, this could potentially amount to or at least appear to be, abuse.

I am. Wouldn’t call myself a saint by any means. Just trying to do my best. Cared for my 94 year old mother at home after she developed vascular dementia at the age of 88. Of course I had meltdowns. But they were in private and never once directed at anyone but myself. Throwing things around in the presence of a vulnerable 90 year old is not acceptable, and is an indication that OP is horribly stressed. Which is totally understandable given what she’s dealing with.

The fact that this man is a friend and still reported her suggests that his decision was informed by his experience. There is something about this that doesn’t sit quite right with me, and the fact that social services have involved the police - even if it’s only to take statements to clarify what happened - reinforces that

Your friend did the correct and appropriate thing by reporting you. Neither you nor your mum are coping and the next time your mum is cruel to you and you loose your temper you could hurt her or your dad since they are vulnerable and frail.

Hopefully you will get some support now. Maybe ask for a referral into hospice services and see the counsellor there and encourage you mum to do the same (if that is a safe conversation to have, or ask someone else to have the chat).

But the mother of the OP was screaming at the OP over something trite. Would you consider that a vulnerable lady?
Sounds like they were having a row. It happens, old, young, middle aged. Especially under the very stressful circumstances that they are both under. It's time to put things into perspective as well as listen to the OP. She actually sounds quite balanced imo.

If it intimidates or frightens them, it is assault.

Look at it another way (and I am not for a second suggesting this is the op's situation).

But if a vulnerable person was harmed by an abusive carer, would you feel that someone who knew about the abuse when it was ongoing have done enough by "having a stern word" with the abuser and telling no one? I wouldn't.

It is always right to report a safeguarding concern imo.

My partner once threw a remote control across the room, as it wasn't working.

Was that abusive behaviour? I'd like to know because I was in the room and it was done in front of me... I asked him what was up, nothing he said, it was just a pissed-off thing. So I then told him he was a childish chump and don't do it again. Would it only be acceptable if he lost his rag with something when I wasn't in the room?

It's about putting things into balance and stop us all filling in the gaps. This may well be the first time the OP has ever thrown anything and she did so because her mother was shouting at her and it was just the straw that broke the camels back by the sounds of things, momentarily. If the behaviour continues going forward then there is a real problem. IF.

You are very naive if you think the SS will provide any actual help - it's far more likely that they'll make a difficult situation a million times worse!

Sadly a lot of men don't understand stressful and tiring caring duties women have to do completely unpaid as the sandwich generation. In his male mind he didn't understand your stress and fixated on shouting and throwing things rather than understanding you were pushed to your limit in a high stress situation and offering support.

As others said I would remove him from your circle as he clearly hasn't been helpful in said stressful situation and get support from a carers network. It sounds as though you could use help and if social services come back you can show them what you have done to help your situation.

I had social services involvement when I was looking after mum at home and things got very difficult. They were empathetic and immensely helpful. Like myself, OP is providing care which keeps her relative out of the already broken care system so they were happy to support to keep it that way.

Are you in your 90’s ? Was there a vulnerable bed bound terminally ill man in the house at the time ? If not, it’s not the same situation. If this man has involved social services then clearly something in his professional experience has informed that decision. And if social services have involved the police, there is potentially more to this than OP is admitting to. It’s not so much the behaviour that’s the problem, it’s what it signifies - that the person is stressed and in need of support.

Throwing stuff around is abusive behaviour.