I have posted once before … I just don’t know what to do anymore. I will try to make a long story short. My MIL has always had mental issues. We always thought it was Schizophrenia. She seemed to be doing very well with medication all these years. She was officially diagnosed a few months ago.
My inlaws moved away to “enjoy their life” and never had much to do with us. We saw them once a year. I always thought my FIL was pretty selfish. So I think they were living the life he wanted. I wonder if my mother in law is resentful and shows up in her delusions. He retired early and never thought about what would happen down the road. He never put anything in place to take care of them in their old age. There was no planning. If he “died with money, he didn’t do something right”.
So, he had a stroke. He is functional but is kind of in his own world. He tends to make impulsive poor decisions that he would never make before. My MIL started to deteriorate mentally. They moved up closer to us so we could help them. I’m trying to keep this as short as possible but basically, she had lots of episodes and has been in and out of the mental hospital. Sometimes she would be ok, but now it doesn’t look like she is getting better. She is 76.
My FIL is functional enough not to let us look at his bills or help him in any way. He refuses to accept his age and stroke. We recently found out he is thousands in debt on his cc. They have sky-high medical bills. They can’t afford much at all.
Meanwhile, my MIL’s delusions surround around my FIL. He is the cause of her mental illness. She knows she is sick and says it’s his fault. She thinks he has poisoned her, is in jail, calls the cops on her, etc. She started to leave her house and go to the neighbors to get them to call an ambulance because she thinks my FIL is poisoning her.
So this keeps happening and she is pushed through the crises center in the hospital and has had two 4 week stays in mental hospitals. The first one she granted them permission to talk to me so the psychiatrist told me he was struggling with getting rid of her delusions. He told me she was convinced her husband was in jail for pedophilia. She thinks he is watching her. She ends up not trusting Dr.'s because she thinks my FIL has gotten to them.
So come to her last hospitalization. She just got out. She is part of a program that has a support group and she sees Dr.'s there. She got out of the hospital, went to her program and then went to a neighbor’s house because she was afraid. So the neighbor called me and we went over. She proceeded to tell us she wants half. She wants to sell the house and get separation and that she has support( her group). She wants to live with us for a bit until she figures out what to do. She tells us her husband is making her mentally sick and she can’t take it anymore. At the same time, she is asking us where we are living( we have been in the same place for over 10 years_.
We explain to her that we need a plan. She cannot come live with us but we will help her figure out where to go. She has decided to she wants to live with her sister five hours away but won’t go until the house is sold. My father in law says fine, he will move 11 hours away from us. We told him he needs a plan to, but he says he will live in a motel.
We don’t think her sister is realizing she is serious. We will call her to discuss. We keep telling my mother in law that we have to look into it and that it won’t be instant . Now today she calls saying the same thing and yelling at my husband that he needs to help her.
We have no idea what to do. Is it better that maybe she isn’t living with my father in law? Possibly if that is the source of her delusions but when she is away from him, it doesn’t seem to stop. They have a tremendous amount of debt so I don’t know how much money they will each actually have to move. If my mother in law sells the house and moves away, she won’t be able to change her mind.
We can’t talk to any of her Doctors because she refuses to sign anything to let us advocate. She now wants us to come over and talk tonight about helping her. My husband and I don’t know what to do? I think her support group is influencing her a bit. She keeps saying they told her to call 911 and that she deserves half of the money since she put the time in.
It is so frustrating because we just can’t get help. I know there are support groups, but that isn’t going to help right now. We have to know what to do with this situation.