<p>Great to come home to many helpful and fascinating comments. First, very glad to have support for not responding to the remark about my husband. I really questioned myself about whether I was being a coward, but it was frustrating to imagine a give-and-take conversation getting anywhere good or profitable for me or for my relationship with my mother. So that is a big plus. There have been times on the phone when I just don’t respond. Just blank air. She waits; if she wants to keep talking she changes the subject.</p>
<p>oldmom4896, DD3 is 11 and doesn’t care a wit, just doesn’t want to go to the NH (When we go I let her bring in her tablet. At home she reads and she skypes her friends and is completely tuned-out about Gma). Now, there is a history w/DD2 who is 16 and very intuitive. She has known much for a long time and we talk about it in a healthy way (But I have NOT told them about the suicide attempt–they were young enough then to believe that Gma was hospitalized for a “bad back.”) About two years ago my mother made the mistake to remark to DD2, “oh DD2, now you won’t be able to fit into my wedding dress” which DD2 interpreted quite rightly as Gma suggesting she had put on weight or was somehow “not skinny enough”. She is a very slender girl, just not the stick my mother was. Well, DD2 developed an eating disorder. She would only eat exact measurements of certain foods at certain times and would not stray from a highly-structured eating plan. She did not lose weight. She is a healthy weight. But she is smart and went online to a teenage forum about eating disorders and concluded on her own that she had an eating disorder, on her own she found a local teenage/eating disorder therapist (she even made sure the therapist took our insurance) and asked me to take her to the therapist. She has been seeing her for about a year. Her eating has gotten more varied and risk-taking and the therapist says they can wrap up this summer, unless DD2 just wants to keep coming. I hope she continues through HS. The therapist is young and highly skilled. DD2 needs help letting go of the idea she HAS to rank #1 in her class or the world will fall apart. Her GC is trying to get her off that idea, too. DD3’s mind has been opened about Gma these past 7/8 weeks because she has been home from college and sits with me and my husband as we talk over the day’s developments, my research, the whole picture. I think we are handling it in her presence so that she does not lose respect for Gma, but recognizes that there is a problem. She and I have had a few one-to-ones about things as they develop. </p>
<p>The SW just called me back and we talked about our meeting and my mother’s decision and whether I was “enabling” her. She was very on my side about bringing the Polish ladies to be interviewed because my mother KNEW 24/7 existed; I could not hide it from her. She stressed that it was very clear at the mtg that everyone was favoring AL and that my mother used the power of her choice to make her decision. The SW said, If your mother breaks her hip the first week the caregiver is there, that is because she made her choice, there is nothing you can do about it. BTW she said because of certain tests and stuff, my mother has a definite release day of Thurs.</p>
<p>Now, to my promise to relate last night’s conversation with my mother. I saw the caller ID and said, hi mom, hope you had a good day, can’t talk, Elisabeth said she’d call at 7:30 (E was at a sleepover pre-college type seminar). She said, I’ll only keep you a minute. I only wanted to say one thing. So, okay. She said, Tell Caregiver that when she comes to (name of our town) she cannot wear the kind of shorts she wore to the nursing home. I was shocked. I said Mom! First of all, I am not nor will be a go-between between you and Caregiver. If you have something to say to her, you say it yourself. But second, something much more important, is that there is nothing wrong with Caregiver’s shorts. They are the same shorts the ladies (in our town) wear. There is nothing wrong with them. And I am telling you, you are making a grave mistake if you think you can dictate to someone what kind of clothes she can wear, especially a poor single woman out of her own country, living on a limited income, to say nothing of the hurt and insult she would feel if you made such a remark. I am telling you, you got your way in the end, this whole process has been a huge undertaking of many people’s time and effort, and if you do anything, anything to undermine or endanger your relationship with Caregiver, I am out of the picture, you go straight to AL or a nursing home . Do I make myself clear? She said, very cooly, Well, you said what you said. Give my love to the girls. And we both said Bye! But the self-questioning never stops. Was I too harsh? Did I overdo it?</p>