Post by Honda Miyuki on Aug 30, 2018 2:31:13 GMT
This is probably going to be super vague and I don’t have time of energy to get into all of the nuts and bolts of the situation since it’s really convoluted and my mom refuses to tell me what happened most recently and all my dad told me is that she was undeservingly verbally attacked in a vicious manner by her younger brother who was probably drunk and was not acting reasonably. Like when my Dad thinks something is unbearable, shit has hit the fan.
So my maternal grandmother and I basically have no relationship. She ignores my existence, has for years. I don’t really care anymore. She’s made it abundantly clear that I am her least favorite grandchild for years. I’m over it and expect absolutely nothing from her. Anyway, she’s always been rather.... um... loony and scatter brained... and well dingy.. and I say this in the most loving way possible. She is the reason my mom is extremely overprotective of me and involved in my life, she is overcompensating for her own parents who never provided her with a lot of guidance and support.
Well, my grandma was hospitalized recently and she has dementia, which was really hard to actually figure out because she was always like this, well not as bad, but you get the picture. This was about in July and things have progressively gotten more and more awful ever since.
For context, my mom grew up very poor in a small, very poor town of Ohio. My grandma gets social security and a pension since her husband/my grandpa who died in 1995 was in the military back in the 50s. Regardless, it’s not a lot of money. She was living in an apartment with just a bed and a chair. And there were bed bugs. I’m not exaggerating. There wasn’t even a freaking table. But here’s the catch, people think she’s rich because she kept the money from selling her house. And she is terrible with money, freaking gives it away like candy.
In the past few years she has given away about $40,000 randomly. Just gave it away. Mostly to her other two granddaughters. But also to her twin sister, some person we have no idea the identity of, and who knows who else.
Here’s the problem, senior citizen healthcare is expensive. They take all of your money. Like all of it. And, they look back into your financial history about 5 years for Medicaid. If they see huge transactions of thousands of dollars, they think you’re hiding money from the government. Then they deny medicaid AND make everyone pay every cent back (which these people largely cannot do). And you can’t apply to Medicaid until almost all the money is gone. So then, we won’t be able to afford to put her in a nice care facility. And she doesn’t deserve to rot in a bad old people home. I have heard so many horror stories about nursing homes. I do not have a good relationship with her, but she is not a bad person. I cannot see her intentionally harming anyone. She does not deserve to be neglected.
And like, I only have received $100 from her in this time period. It was a check for my high school graduation in 2016. I didn’t even know if I wanted to cash the check because of everything between us, but then I realized I could buy half a textbook with that money. And if they make me pay it back, fine. I do not care. This is not about me. It’s mostly about my poor mom who is just so stresssd about this all. And then I’m worrying about her so much.
Sorry for this ramble. It probably doesn’t make any sense. I swear I’ve ranted about it to all of my friends and anyone who would listen. I just hate the situation because:
-people should have known better than to take thousands of dollars from a poor elderly woman, especially my cousins who I have proof that she actually cares about.
-Why would you give away that much money if you do not have it? It’s completely baffling.
-Have I memtioned how bad nursing homes can be in the US?
Essentially, and this sounds horrible, I wish I could go back to a few months ago where I could happily ignore my extended family’s existence. Well, I’m friends with several on Facebook and I’ll sometimes talk to my aunt when I’m at home and she calls to catch up with my mom. I live far away from both sides, and both of my parents have purposely distanced themselves from their families. They both came from dysfunctional environments.
That’s not even mentioning the several fiascos with grandma canceling doctors appointments and the medication mishaps.
Just ugh. I am quite different from my parents in that I don’t feel any sense of obligation to my family other than my parents. My mom’s closer to how I am, but I do not see any reason to give people who have barely been involved in my life special priority. I care about all people, but if I need to walk away and maintain my distance, I will. My dad once said something to the fact “I’m glad I got it all together when you were little. Otherwise, I am certain we would not have a relationship right now.” And I hate to admit it, but he’s probably right that I would not have put up with it. But then again, we’re talking about over a decade of my life that would have been different.
But I think my own viewpoints towards family just make the situation more frustrating for me because I don’t feel a special connection with my extended family. I like them well enough (when you don’t have too many of them in a room, at least on my Dad’s side). But they do not really know me. I more or less put on the “sweet, cute youngest granddaughter who is a child and doesn’t have anything of substance to say, just a cute, sweet, and innocent little girl.” I am cute and sweet (and the youngest of the grandchildren on both sides of the family), but there is so much more to me. And I do not feel I can express that around them. Well, my cousins are not as bad. Then again, I know most of them even less.
I need to sleep.
So my maternal grandmother and I basically have no relationship. She ignores my existence, has for years. I don’t really care anymore. She’s made it abundantly clear that I am her least favorite grandchild for years. I’m over it and expect absolutely nothing from her. Anyway, she’s always been rather.... um... loony and scatter brained... and well dingy.. and I say this in the most loving way possible. She is the reason my mom is extremely overprotective of me and involved in my life, she is overcompensating for her own parents who never provided her with a lot of guidance and support.
Well, my grandma was hospitalized recently and she has dementia, which was really hard to actually figure out because she was always like this, well not as bad, but you get the picture. This was about in July and things have progressively gotten more and more awful ever since.
For context, my mom grew up very poor in a small, very poor town of Ohio. My grandma gets social security and a pension since her husband/my grandpa who died in 1995 was in the military back in the 50s. Regardless, it’s not a lot of money. She was living in an apartment with just a bed and a chair. And there were bed bugs. I’m not exaggerating. There wasn’t even a freaking table. But here’s the catch, people think she’s rich because she kept the money from selling her house. And she is terrible with money, freaking gives it away like candy.
In the past few years she has given away about $40,000 randomly. Just gave it away. Mostly to her other two granddaughters. But also to her twin sister, some person we have no idea the identity of, and who knows who else.
Here’s the problem, senior citizen healthcare is expensive. They take all of your money. Like all of it. And, they look back into your financial history about 5 years for Medicaid. If they see huge transactions of thousands of dollars, they think you’re hiding money from the government. Then they deny medicaid AND make everyone pay every cent back (which these people largely cannot do). And you can’t apply to Medicaid until almost all the money is gone. So then, we won’t be able to afford to put her in a nice care facility. And she doesn’t deserve to rot in a bad old people home. I have heard so many horror stories about nursing homes. I do not have a good relationship with her, but she is not a bad person. I cannot see her intentionally harming anyone. She does not deserve to be neglected.
And like, I only have received $100 from her in this time period. It was a check for my high school graduation in 2016. I didn’t even know if I wanted to cash the check because of everything between us, but then I realized I could buy half a textbook with that money. And if they make me pay it back, fine. I do not care. This is not about me. It’s mostly about my poor mom who is just so stresssd about this all. And then I’m worrying about her so much.
Sorry for this ramble. It probably doesn’t make any sense. I swear I’ve ranted about it to all of my friends and anyone who would listen. I just hate the situation because:
-people should have known better than to take thousands of dollars from a poor elderly woman, especially my cousins who I have proof that she actually cares about.
-Why would you give away that much money if you do not have it? It’s completely baffling.
-Have I memtioned how bad nursing homes can be in the US?
Essentially, and this sounds horrible, I wish I could go back to a few months ago where I could happily ignore my extended family’s existence. Well, I’m friends with several on Facebook and I’ll sometimes talk to my aunt when I’m at home and she calls to catch up with my mom. I live far away from both sides, and both of my parents have purposely distanced themselves from their families. They both came from dysfunctional environments.
That’s not even mentioning the several fiascos with grandma canceling doctors appointments and the medication mishaps.
Just ugh. I am quite different from my parents in that I don’t feel any sense of obligation to my family other than my parents. My mom’s closer to how I am, but I do not see any reason to give people who have barely been involved in my life special priority. I care about all people, but if I need to walk away and maintain my distance, I will. My dad once said something to the fact “I’m glad I got it all together when you were little. Otherwise, I am certain we would not have a relationship right now.” And I hate to admit it, but he’s probably right that I would not have put up with it. But then again, we’re talking about over a decade of my life that would have been different.
But I think my own viewpoints towards family just make the situation more frustrating for me because I don’t feel a special connection with my extended family. I like them well enough (when you don’t have too many of them in a room, at least on my Dad’s side). But they do not really know me. I more or less put on the “sweet, cute youngest granddaughter who is a child and doesn’t have anything of substance to say, just a cute, sweet, and innocent little girl.” I am cute and sweet (and the youngest of the grandchildren on both sides of the family), but there is so much more to me. And I do not feel I can express that around them. Well, my cousins are not as bad. Then again, I know most of them even less.
I need to sleep.