So angry
Well, I have good news and angry news.
Good news first: I'M NOW A STUDENT! An honest-to-goodness student who is starting class June 4! I'm so happy. It's such a HUGE step for me. My financial aid came through last week (finally) and I was able to pay for my class. I'm only taking one - medical terminology - which is one of the pre-reqs for my medical billing/coding certificate. The other one is Intro to Computers, but I'm not going to take that until fall, probably with some of the other courses that I can still take over at the college campus near by. OH! And it's all online, which will be nice, since my body's still screwed up to attend class regularly. This way I can do my course work whenever I want to. YAY!
More good news: Mom has another job! She's now a Visiting Professor for the Chamberlain School of Nursing. She will be doing clinicals in psychiatric nursing. Basically, she'll be taking nursing students around the local free psych clinic and teaching them how to deal with psych patients from a nursing perspective. She'll only work about 6 weeks three times a year, and only two days a week, however she's going to be paid $50 per hour. Which means that she'll basically make an extra $5000 every semester. That's really awesome. And, once she's really tired of working at her current full-time job at the psych hospital, she can transition into a full-time professor at the nursing school (which is what she's always really wanted to do with her degree). I'm so proud and happy for her.
However, there's bad news today: My uncle is once again being a total asshole. My mother has worked her ass off to build her life and her self-esteem back after divorcing my dad. On a daily basis, she's generally happy with her life and with herself. However, when my uncle writes her about anything, he always phrases it in such a way that it's demeaning and condescending. At which point, her self-esteem plummets again back to when she was being abused by Dad. That's just plain wrong. She doesn't deserve to feel that way ever again. Yet, every time she has contact with my uncle, she goes back. I'm seriously tired of him acting this way to her. It started a long time ago when my grandmother's Alzheimer's forced us to move her into a nursing home from her home in Louisiana. There were two choices: moving her to Chattanooga where my uncle was Dean of English at UT-Chattanooga, or to Austin, where we lived. We decided to move her to Austin because Mom thought she would have more time and more medical experience to oversee Granmom's care. For almost 15 years, Mom visited her mother every week, got all the phone calls about incidents (Granmom once microwaved her phone book and almost set the nursing home on fire), and lived with the knowledge that any day, at any time, she could get the call that her mother had died. That's a heavy burden to take on. My uncle took care of the monetary side of the care - making sure Medicare and Medicaid paid their share and fronted money of his own to cover any extra bills, while telling Mom that he'd be taking a giant share of their inheritance from Granmom in order to reimburse himself. Which, to me was grossly unfair since, while Mom wasn't paying anything, she was spending all of her time and energy keeping Granmom alive and comfortable. However, she also was watching her mother fade away slowly. Only a couple of years after we moved Granmom into her first home, she stopped recognizing any of us. That broke my mom's heart so much. Granmom still recognized Uncle Paul for years after, although she finally started thinking that he was his father. My uncle only came twice a year to visit. He didn't see all of the decline. He lived in denial of just how sick his mother was, even after her death.
I'm pretty sure of the reasons Uncle Paul is treating her like this. 1) He feels guilt and shame about not taking a more active role in Granmom's care. 2) He's still angry that he's lost "a brother" in Dad because of the divorce (we literally had to force him to choose between Mom and Dad after the divorce because he wanted to keep a relationship with both. Um, sorry, but someone who is willing to choose the abusive asshole of his brother-in-law over his sister is a total dick). 3) He thinks that it's Mom's fault that the divorce happened and thinks that she's less of a woman because of the divorce. He's treated us all like second-class citizens, or tainted lepers since the revelations of the abuse perpetrated by Dad and the divorce. Which is totally wrong.
For the last ten years, since Granmom's death, Uncle Paul has been battling to get some stocks that are part of their inheritance finally sold to get the little profit from them. The company holding the stocks required things like the death certificate of my grandfather. However, that record was lost during Katrina, and there was a long process in trying to prove that my grandfather was actually dead (though he's been dead 40 years now). Mom told him she'd help in any way she could, but Uncle Paul constantly told her to butt out because he would handle it. Mom's finally gotten to the point where she just wants whatever profit she can get from it and be done with it all. She's asked him to give her the $1000 that's the approximate of her share. He has refused, saying that there are records that, in 2003-2004 she sold off a stock here, and a couple there. Which is totally false. She didn't have time to deal with any of that stuff, since she was in the middle of a horrible divorce, her youngest daughter was in and out of treatment facilities, and she was working part-time while attending school full-time. And there's no reason she would sell off one stock here and there. If she was going to sell them herself, it'd be all at once. So something's hinky, but it's not Mom's fault. However, Uncle Paul literally said, "I demand an explanation of this." He demands it. W.T.F. He's also said that, if there is something hinky going on, he will have to hire lawyers, she'll have to be deposed, etc. This has totally screwed up Mom today. And that's not okay. AT ALL. For one, she's specifically said that she'll sign over all of the stocks that she's entitled to to him, which means that if her share ends up being more than the $1000 she's asking for, he'll reap the profit. Two, to hire lawyers to fight this would cost way more than whatever the stocks end up being worth.
I'm so tired of him treating her like shit. I'm telling her that, at this point, he's doing WAY more harm than good, and she needs to cut off contact with him for her own personal health and well-being. She literally got sick this afternoon after receiving the email from him. That's not good at all. And to see her so upset kills me. If I could, I would call him up and tell him that he's being a shit and to stop treating Mom so poorly. But it's not my place to do so. If he didn't live in Cleveland, I'd totally go to his office and yell at him. He deserves to be treated just as badly as he's treated Mom. I hope that she can cut the cord here and make this gut-wrenching decision to protect herself from the abuse. I know it's so difficult for her to cut off contact with her only remaining relative, but I think it's important to do so. I feel so bad for her and I wish I could make it better.
Good news first: I'M NOW A STUDENT! An honest-to-goodness student who is starting class June 4! I'm so happy. It's such a HUGE step for me. My financial aid came through last week (finally) and I was able to pay for my class. I'm only taking one - medical terminology - which is one of the pre-reqs for my medical billing/coding certificate. The other one is Intro to Computers, but I'm not going to take that until fall, probably with some of the other courses that I can still take over at the college campus near by. OH! And it's all online, which will be nice, since my body's still screwed up to attend class regularly. This way I can do my course work whenever I want to. YAY!
More good news: Mom has another job! She's now a Visiting Professor for the Chamberlain School of Nursing. She will be doing clinicals in psychiatric nursing. Basically, she'll be taking nursing students around the local free psych clinic and teaching them how to deal with psych patients from a nursing perspective. She'll only work about 6 weeks three times a year, and only two days a week, however she's going to be paid $50 per hour. Which means that she'll basically make an extra $5000 every semester. That's really awesome. And, once she's really tired of working at her current full-time job at the psych hospital, she can transition into a full-time professor at the nursing school (which is what she's always really wanted to do with her degree). I'm so proud and happy for her.
However, there's bad news today: My uncle is once again being a total asshole. My mother has worked her ass off to build her life and her self-esteem back after divorcing my dad. On a daily basis, she's generally happy with her life and with herself. However, when my uncle writes her about anything, he always phrases it in such a way that it's demeaning and condescending. At which point, her self-esteem plummets again back to when she was being abused by Dad. That's just plain wrong. She doesn't deserve to feel that way ever again. Yet, every time she has contact with my uncle, she goes back. I'm seriously tired of him acting this way to her. It started a long time ago when my grandmother's Alzheimer's forced us to move her into a nursing home from her home in Louisiana. There were two choices: moving her to Chattanooga where my uncle was Dean of English at UT-Chattanooga, or to Austin, where we lived. We decided to move her to Austin because Mom thought she would have more time and more medical experience to oversee Granmom's care. For almost 15 years, Mom visited her mother every week, got all the phone calls about incidents (Granmom once microwaved her phone book and almost set the nursing home on fire), and lived with the knowledge that any day, at any time, she could get the call that her mother had died. That's a heavy burden to take on. My uncle took care of the monetary side of the care - making sure Medicare and Medicaid paid their share and fronted money of his own to cover any extra bills, while telling Mom that he'd be taking a giant share of their inheritance from Granmom in order to reimburse himself. Which, to me was grossly unfair since, while Mom wasn't paying anything, she was spending all of her time and energy keeping Granmom alive and comfortable. However, she also was watching her mother fade away slowly. Only a couple of years after we moved Granmom into her first home, she stopped recognizing any of us. That broke my mom's heart so much. Granmom still recognized Uncle Paul for years after, although she finally started thinking that he was his father. My uncle only came twice a year to visit. He didn't see all of the decline. He lived in denial of just how sick his mother was, even after her death.
I'm pretty sure of the reasons Uncle Paul is treating her like this. 1) He feels guilt and shame about not taking a more active role in Granmom's care. 2) He's still angry that he's lost "a brother" in Dad because of the divorce (we literally had to force him to choose between Mom and Dad after the divorce because he wanted to keep a relationship with both. Um, sorry, but someone who is willing to choose the abusive asshole of his brother-in-law over his sister is a total dick). 3) He thinks that it's Mom's fault that the divorce happened and thinks that she's less of a woman because of the divorce. He's treated us all like second-class citizens, or tainted lepers since the revelations of the abuse perpetrated by Dad and the divorce. Which is totally wrong.
For the last ten years, since Granmom's death, Uncle Paul has been battling to get some stocks that are part of their inheritance finally sold to get the little profit from them. The company holding the stocks required things like the death certificate of my grandfather. However, that record was lost during Katrina, and there was a long process in trying to prove that my grandfather was actually dead (though he's been dead 40 years now). Mom told him she'd help in any way she could, but Uncle Paul constantly told her to butt out because he would handle it. Mom's finally gotten to the point where she just wants whatever profit she can get from it and be done with it all. She's asked him to give her the $1000 that's the approximate of her share. He has refused, saying that there are records that, in 2003-2004 she sold off a stock here, and a couple there. Which is totally false. She didn't have time to deal with any of that stuff, since she was in the middle of a horrible divorce, her youngest daughter was in and out of treatment facilities, and she was working part-time while attending school full-time. And there's no reason she would sell off one stock here and there. If she was going to sell them herself, it'd be all at once. So something's hinky, but it's not Mom's fault. However, Uncle Paul literally said, "I demand an explanation of this." He demands it. W.T.F. He's also said that, if there is something hinky going on, he will have to hire lawyers, she'll have to be deposed, etc. This has totally screwed up Mom today. And that's not okay. AT ALL. For one, she's specifically said that she'll sign over all of the stocks that she's entitled to to him, which means that if her share ends up being more than the $1000 she's asking for, he'll reap the profit. Two, to hire lawyers to fight this would cost way more than whatever the stocks end up being worth.
I'm so tired of him treating her like shit. I'm telling her that, at this point, he's doing WAY more harm than good, and she needs to cut off contact with him for her own personal health and well-being. She literally got sick this afternoon after receiving the email from him. That's not good at all. And to see her so upset kills me. If I could, I would call him up and tell him that he's being a shit and to stop treating Mom so poorly. But it's not my place to do so. If he didn't live in Cleveland, I'd totally go to his office and yell at him. He deserves to be treated just as badly as he's treated Mom. I hope that she can cut the cord here and make this gut-wrenching decision to protect herself from the abuse. I know it's so difficult for her to cut off contact with her only remaining relative, but I think it's important to do so. I feel so bad for her and I wish I could make it better.