Hello. This is long, I’m sorry. Thanks if you read it all.
I’m [30sF] and don’t live in the same state as my mom. My parents separated about 5 years ago (amicable separation at the time, still technically married so she can be on his insurance) so she currently still lives in the house I grew up in with my brother [22M] who just graduated college and still lives at home. My other parent lives nearby but separately.
She does not work and has not since I was born 30+ years ago.
Due to Covid, I had only been home for a visit once in the past 2 years, and it was only for 1 night when I had to be in town for a funeral. It was so short that I didn’t notice THAT much wrong. The house was messier than in the past and she seemed a bit more quirky/loopy than usual, i tried to talk to her about it and expressed concern after that trip and she FREAKED out at me, swearing and telling me to mind my own business. I dropped it because out of sight out of mind…
Recently however I went home for a full week. And I was horrified and disturbed by how much the state of things has escalated.
The first huge red flag is when she picked me up from the airport she proceeded to drive like a MANIAC. 60 mph on residential back streets. She even tried to run 3 separate red lights “because no one is coming” and then laughed (???) when I was like MOM WHAT ARE YOU DOING STOP?? She used to be the slowest, most annoyingly (to teenage me) careful driver ever. I finally had to yell at her to pull over and drive the rest of the way home myself.
Then, the house… the house is overrun with hoarding. She has always had an issue getting rid of items but this has escalated. Every room has stacks of boxes and random shit. She also now prints out every news story she comes across online and files away paper copies of them (???)
There is an entire room that we can’t even go into because it’s so packed with shit. This room was my brothers room before he originally left for college. When he first had to move back home from college during Covid he was sleeping on the couch because she refused to clear the room out. But after he graduated in December he got his first job and it’s a WFH job involving lots of Zoom so he needed a private space (he is saving to move out ASAP). Rather than let him make space in this extra room, she gave him her bedroom. This was an argument at the time bc my brother didn’t want to take it but my mom just stopped going into that room and moved her stuff out so eventually he moved into it.
I wish I could say she sleeps on the couch or something now but no. Over the past few months she has apparently begun sleeping on the floor in random places around the house. No blankets or pillows. She just lays on the floor. I thought my brother was exaggerating but when I was home a few times I was startled to walk into a random part of the house and see her literally laying as though dead on the floor.
Then, the food situation. Hoarding has extended into food. We don’t have enough room in the pantry for all the food she buys so there’s just piles of food on the floor in the kitchen. 10+ unopened bags of chips, 3 giant unopened bags of flour, etc. The fridge smells like garbage when you open it. Nearly everything in it is expired and visibly moldy. My brother said she yells at him when he tries to clear out old food, and that he has thrown away stuff in secret before and then find it in the fridge again the next morning… meaning my mom picks it out of the trash in the night. While I was home I made enchiladas for the family and before going to bed asked her where the Tupperware was so I could save leftovers. She said no worries she will do it. THREE days later I noticed they were in Tupperware but just tucked away out on the counter… I went to throw them away and she yelled at me that they were still good and snatched them back… no, they’re meat and cheese enchiladas that have sat at room temperature for over 72 hours now!!! When I tried to calmly bring up food safety she scoffed and then when I pressed it she got extremely defensive.
THEN, there’s her additional visible mental deterioration… she has started slurring her speech quite a bit more than in the past and repeats stories multiple times. Like, she will tell the same story 4-5x in one day. And get mad if you tell her she already told you. She will also be extremely mean to my brother when she never was when we were kids. She will tell him to fuck off (I overheard one such incident when he asked her if she could please stop sleeping on the floor in front of the only bathroom in the house) with so much vitriol in her voice. She is NOT the same person. She was a great mom who practiced gentle parenting. It’s insane to me how she has changed.
She used to drink when we were younger ( I remember her making a cocktail for herself at bedtime my entire life) but told all of us that she stopped several years ago. When I was home I did snoop and it’s true that her normal liquor cabinet just had juice and coffee in it. But my brother told me he sees her with the mini bottles (like from gas stations, the $2 ones) in her pockets all the time. I’m worried that she may actually never be 100% sober which would explain a lot of her bizarre behavior. It also is heartwrenching to think that she’d be okay driving me/my brother anywhere if she’d been drinking.
I know this is super long but I just don’t know what our options are. She refuses to admit she has a problem. She brushes off my suggestions to see a therapist or talk to her doctor about anything. And last time I tried to gently bring up my concerns framing them as coming from a place of love, when things weren’t even nearly as bad, she blew up at me.
Is there anything I can do?? It’s heartbreaking to see her deteriorate like this but I feel very powerless, especially living so far away. What do you guys think it is?? Alcoholism?? Some sort of dementia or something?? I have googled so much about how to help and every site just says to be patient and give the loved one space until they are ready to accept help. But I don’t see that ever happening…
TL;DR recently visited mother for first time in 2 years and found she has mentally deteriorated significantly. Not sure how to help her.
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