Hello,

I have been reading the postings here for a couple of days and am amazed and grateful there is a place to talk about this stuff. Finding this group all started the other night after watching the latest tv episode of "The Mentalist," when the new supervisor called Patrick Jane a psychopath, then listed the major symptoms. I said, "Wow, that sure sounds familiar." I went hunting online and here I am.

It is going to be hard not to make a huge, ugly spew while telling about what my husband and I are going through. But it helped to see a encouraging post here the other night about how writing it all out can help stop the vicious cycle of thoughts, and perhaps bring up some insight or a plan of action.

I don't know if I can make a long story short with this. After all the reading I've done the past two days, I can look back at my 37 years of knowing this woman -- I'll call her MIL -- and now see quite clearly what she is and has always been. MIL is my husband's "step mother," his father's second wife.

So far, most of what I have seen in my reading is: you cannot beat a psychopath at their own game, and if you sue them for any reason they will hurt you beyond what you can imagine. My husband and I have almost come to the conclusion that for his father's children and grandchildren, there will be no inheritance whatsoever. Right now it looks like her daughter and grandchildren will get everything. (MIL's daughter is already sucking some accounts dry.) What MIL has done to cut us all out of the estate is criminal, and she has done it in the most cruel way. Long story.

We see no way to contest what she has done without even more major expense and horrible pain to ourselves than we have already suffered. We have already wondered this past year if we are losing our sanity. There is nobody around here to talk to about it.

Anyway, I am here to read and see if telling this story will help me see things any more clearly. I hope to hear what others have to say about involving the law.

Thanks,
blue heron

Let me just start recording.

It is probably a good thing that over the past 37 years I had very little direct contact with MIL because we lived over a thousand miles apart for most of the time. Husband and I usually saw MIL and hubby's Dad for short times at Thanksgiving or Christmas. Less than a week at a time for all these years. Yet I saw and heard things that made me wonder what was up with her. But it was never long enough for me to put two and two together.

I want to say that husband and I have been involved in the mental health consumer advocacy movement for quite some time, having a couple of bipolars in the family. So we are educated and trained in mental illness, trained as lay counselors, etc. I can diagnose a mental illness almost as good as a doctor can. But we never learned one thing about psychopaths. That's why I could never put MIL in a mental illness category. I knew something was wrong, but she never did fit anything I knew of.

Anyway, I'll start with the present, because it is so bad. We walked right into a hornet's nest. My husband and I are both on disability, and I am doing a tiny bit better than he is. Every time we visited his folks "out west," we loved the climate and the way it made us feel; we loved the people; we loved the small city where they lived. We finally got a chance to move out here to the west a year ago. Husband's folks had moved to a senior community that we liked, and in 2009 we put our names on a waiting list for a home in the community.

Husband's folks acted so thrilled that their "dear, precious children" were going to be living so close after all these years, etc., and they were looking forward to it. Dad-in-law is 90 and MIL is 89. Dad is in late stage Alzheimer's (which nobody in the family will admit), and MIL is nearly crippled with arthritis. We took a lot of pains to make sure they understood we were NOT moving out here to be caregivers, because we are ourselves disabled. We were moving because we were hoping the climate would help us feel better. MIL made sure to say ohhh, she already had plenty of help, so it was not going to be an issue. (ha)

Well, in July of 2010 we got word that our names had hit the top of the list, and the unit that was available was -- guess -- next door to Husband's folks! (Wonder who fixed that, haha.) We did have quite a few reservations about that! But since our health was not getting any better, we went ahead and moved while we were able. We had to hire extra help to get us and our belongings out here, so it cost us almost double what anyone else would have paid for the move. We didn't get out here until last November, because I was executing my father's estate. Yep, right in the middle of everything, my dad died.

Okay, so right from the get-go when we got here, MIL and her one remaining daughter started in on us. We "looked fine" to them, so why couldn't we (fill in the blank) -- come clean the place so MIL could quit having to pay a maid, come clean up after Dad when he messed, come get Dad up off the floor when he fell, well then at least come make breakfast for them every day at 9:30 a.m. sharp. (We quickly saw that Dad should have been in an Alzheimer's care unit long time back, but MIL did not want to spend the money. Money, money, money, it is ALWAYS about the money!) We always said no, no, no, sorry, we told you we didn't come out here to do that. Once in a while that mask you all talk about would slip down, and the cold, calculating, hateful look in her face would be chilling.

She talked my husband into leading a family Bible study every Monday night at her place, and she coerced and manipulated all the children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren into coming over for it. She has always acted like this pious Christian Bible scholar, "praise God" this and "bless Jesus" that, but I discovered that she could NEVER find one scripture reference in the Bible, ever. And she turned out to be almost completely ignorant about the life and teachings of Jesus, all the Bible stories that little kids learn, and the basic tenets of the faith. She just made up stuff as she went, and I was appalled because the little great-grandchildren might not know she was fabricating the whole thing. You couldn't correct her, or she'd make you pay somehow. I told them I had nothing to add to their get-together, since they'd never listened to a thing I had to say in 37 years anyway, so I wouldn't be coming. So every Monday night, I ate dinner alone.

Actually, MIL is just an uneducated, abysmally ignorant country bumpkin with a learning disorder (she admitted that), who has put on airs and made herself out to be something she's not for all these years. But she does it so she can find a person's "hook" and attach herself to them so she can use them somehow. Suck them dry. Wreck them.

It took me about two months to finally get a full picture. The only reason she had ever called us her "dear, precious children" was that's what it took to get us out here so she could put us to work. It took me until this past March to cut off all contact with them, which is very hard, since they live next door! My husband finally had to walk out on them in about August.

And I'll tell you why in another post when I quit sweating and hyperventilating over this one.

Thanks,
blue heron

My husband and his step-sister have for 19 years been joint powers of attorney and joint executors for MIL and "Dad." That is, until one month before we got moved out here next door to them. We discovered some time in November that my husband had been removed, and now it was all up to his step-sister.

He had in the past had several talks with his father about the things in his living will (advance directive for healthcare), and Dad had expressed confidence that Husband would do what he was asked to do. So it was a terrible surprise to discover that Husband was no longer going to have any say over what happened to his father. When we asked who changed this, MIL said Dad did it. I was thinking, "No way!" The man is in stage 6 Alzheimer's (out of 7 stages) and is not competent to make legal decisions for himself. Yes, MIL and step-sister said, that's what he wanted and so we had the paperwork drawn up and got him to sign it.

You got a man with severe dementia to sign legal papers that he had no idea he was signing? That is illegal! Oh, says the step-sister airily with a dismissive wave of her hand, Dad will sign anything. Well, yeah! Of course he will, but he has no idea what he's doing! Sure he does, she protests, or he wouldn't have signed it.

Why on earth did you change all of this, my husband asks. Repeatedly he is told it was his father's decision, but when he speaks with his father in one of his lucid moments, his father is very upset to hear this news and says he would never approve such a change, and does not remember signing any papers.

It finally comes out that MIL and step-sister do not believe there is anything wrong with Dad, and I cannot freaking believe it. Every health care professional, like nurses and therapists, who spend any time at all with Dad say he's definitely in late stage Alzheimer's. But MIL and step-sister want to keep their dear old man at home, even though nobody can deal with him and he's getting grossly neglected. It further comes out that they do not want to spend the money to have Dad in Alzheimer's care. Ah, there's the real problem.

Well, husband sits down at the table with MIL and step-sister and asks again why they did this, and they do an old con technique -- bluster and misdirect. "Oh, well, we can change it back! We can change it! We just took your name off because you lived so far away, that's all! I mean, if some doctor in an emergency room had called you to find out what to do with Dad, you would have had no idea of his day-to-day treatments, or his medications, or anything!" And we're thinking, duh, you knew we would be here within weeks of your changing it. If that was the true concern, you could have changed it years ago. So what is your real reason?

Yes, they could change it back, that is the truth. But they won't and they haven't. And they are smirking about it all the way. At this point, it is all I can do to keep from brutally physically assaulting smug step-sister, so I stay away from her. I am not a physically violent person, my pen is mightier than the sword, but I have wanted to permanently maim her for months.

Husband finally teases out of them that they knew full well when he moved here and got a good look at his father he would insist on putting him in a nursing home, and they didn't want him to go because they are "broke." So they changed the legal papers. Somehow he got them to spill those beans, and once they realized he had gotten them to betray themselves, you should have seen the look on MIL's face. You know that cold, black, murderous look. Like there's somebody else in there. Except now I know that's the real her, and everything else is a sham.

Oh, for heaven's sake. Husband sits down once again with MIL and step-sister, both of whom couldn't pour piss out of a boot if the instructions were printed on the bottom. And guess who is running the household accounts -- step-sister. He gets them to gather up all the papers, all the bank accounts, all the financial papers, etc., and sees that they have around $800,000.00 at their disposal at any given moment. Surely that's enough to take proper care of Dad and MIL too? No, no, no! We're broke! We don't know where all our money went! We have to sell some of our liquid assets right now to cover a big bill, and Dad can't go to the nursing home! (It's all a lie.)

And from here it falls apart.

After I quit sweating over this part, I'll come back and write more.

blue heron

Hi blue heron, welcome to our community. I will wait for you to tell your story to comment and offer any ideas or support. In the meantime you might contact an Elder Abuse Agency. My brother and SIL had to do that to protect her father from her meth addict sister. They take these things very seriously.

Di

Thanks for your comment, Di.

Actually, someone did report MIL to Medicare and the state Family Protection service, and they would not put up with any of her baloney. She could not bluster or misdirect any of them; they were quite stern with her and hinted that if she did not remedy the situation, they would sue and fine her. That infuriated her, because she's above the law, you know; always has been. She just couldn't seem to get around the law this time with the pitiful story of how she's just a poor little old crippled lady and people should cut her a break. (She has used the "poor little crippled lady" story on several occasions when she wasn't going to get away with something -- like failing to put a leash on her dog while in the park!)

She did go around accusing us of making those calls, smearing our name in this little community, but it was Dad's home healthcare nurse who reported her. (She visited a couple times a day to give him insulin and check his vital signs; she wasn't full time.) We were on the verge of reporting it, but we didn't have to. Dad did end up in a nursing home, where, for a short time he was doing quite a bit better. And it soured MIL's and step-sister's guts horribly that they had to put out cash for that.

However, just this early morning, Dad died in the hospital with pneumonia. His doctor insisted that MIL honor the Do Not Resuscitate order and his living will. Otherwise, she would've kept him hanging on. He can no longer be a victim. (Even though he got in a few licks of his own.)

In the heat of the moment, my husband has found out yet more about why he was removed from all the legal papers. It was blamed all on Dad. But I guess it no longer matters now, does it.

I expect that MIL will now change her will from "all the children share and share alike" to just one beneficiary, and it certainly won't be either of Dad's sons. My husband thinks things will quiet down now, but I bet it doesn't.

For myself, perhaps now it will be even easier to totally cut them out of my life. I really don't care what happens to them. There are plenty of others willing to feel sorry for them and be used by them.

I'll keep telling the story here, because I'm finding it helps me see some patterns. And perhaps it will help others see something. So I thank you for this safe place.

blue heron

We are finding out more and more interesting things now that Dad has died. It is interesting that one of the traits of a psychopath is to isolate people and try to keep control of them.

MIL has isolated her daughter and her live-in granddaughter from everyone else for a couple years now, has them doing her beck and call, including illegal activities, and swearing them to secrecy about everything. She cowed them into being totally silent toward us for months, with what kinds of threats to their well-being I don't know. She hooks people in by buying them, and they cannot get away.

So until yesterday, when Husband finally pried it out of step-sister, we had no idea Husband was actually removed from having any legal say-so because MIL told her two minions my Husband was threatening to sue them all, AND take his HALF of the estate early. Say what!!! (There were four children in the wills, so how could he "take his half." Doh.) No wonder they were curling their lips at us when we silently passed each other in the car port. She had them believing it would happen any minute, and had them terrified that they would all be wiped out, destitute, homeless, etc. Of course, she blamed it on Dad, saying he's the one who was afraid Husband would sue.

And not either one of those two -- the step-sister or the granddaughter -- had the wherewithal to come talk to US and see if any of it was true! Talk about isolated.

We also have heard rumblings of rumors that money is being hidden away so no one can find it, probably including Medicaid, which is also highly illegal. But they are above the law, see. I have had enough of hearing one of them say, "But that's the way I want to do it (which makes it all right)," when someone protests that something isn't quite legal.

I want to know what my husband was supposedly going to sue anyone about. I mean, they've probably done plenty worth suing for, but only they know exactly what they have done.

My advice for the day would be, if you're dealing with a psychopath, then you'd all better closely confer with each other, probably against the psychopath's wishes, to see what you're all being told about the others. Good grief.

I have had to take blood pressure medication since a couple months after I got here, and I have never had any trouble with b/Psychopath my whole life. 166/100 is not good numbers ... But now that I can see more clearly about all of this, I am feeling more on top of the game, for that is what it is. I should have remembered what I learned many years ago in kung fu class: never take your eye off the adversary, no matter how helpless they look. It's just a shame the woman has to be considered an opponent.

That's all for today.

Thanks for reading.
blue heron

Thank you for sharing so much of your story.

I have always had low blood pressure, and now, since dealing with this, I have high blood pressure. I guess the pressure and the stress of dealing with it all takes a toll on our bodies.

I'm trying to relax more. I think it's working. It feels nice

Hi blue heron, sorry wasn't online much yesterday. You might have legal standing. If your father-in-law (fil) already had the Alzheimers (sic) diagnosis before the paperwork was signed or enough people who knew he wasn't in his right mind you could have a good shot at getting a legal guardian. I am sure the people at Elder Abuse would know and could advise you about how to protect your fil. It would be an act of kindness clearly to protect your fil and if possible your own financial interests.

There has to be a way to protect him and your interests. He needs protection badly. I am sure the Elder Abuse people would be on your side. As far as their claims over who called Elder Abuse? You might want to call them in the meantime to find out his legal rights. Who cares if they find out it is you? I would have to guess the Elder Abuse people would be glad to help you and it is your husband's father that needs protection and I would think any money that they had him sign over or make any changes to may not be valid in a court of law, the trick is you need him declared incompetent and with their history of abusing him, getting the Elder Abuse people on your team will help a great deal.

You know kung fu, which I know nothing of but get the theory from your explanation, thanks for that. Put on your kung fu suit and practice being in what I call your neutral zone and sort this out. Why should they get away with your families share of the $. Why should they get away with abusing your fil?

I am sure you and your husband must feel a great deal of pain seeing his father at the hands of a couple of Psychopaths. He is his father so I would go after them anyway possible to protect him. In an ideal world the Elder Abuse people can guide you and probably if there is enough question over at what state he had things changed they would probably be able to put an emergency freeze on the $ until things get sorted out. Elder Abuse advocates would work quickly, they are not going to just stand around and leave your fil in their care and have them spending money they obtained when he was not able to know what he was signing.

This is a fight that I would advocate having. Your fil deserves your protection and why the heck should they walk with the money while they are abusing him, too crazy. You are really now one step in front of them if you can get the information from Elder Abuse about the legal side of things. I am sure they have seen other evil families treat another family member the way they are treating your fil. If you act quickly they won't get their grubby paws on the family money that is rightfully your since he probably was not functioning properly to be signing legal documents. I would love to see the looks on their faces if they swoop in and freeze the money now. Get your fil out of their care and get what money is rightfully yours, that would be my focus.

I have my bet that you will win this one. You know who your opponent is and we will be here to support you.



Sounds to me that now you know she is considered an opponent, go for it. I would be on the phone to the Elderly Abuse people as fast as I could get to my phone and get the process going.

Di

Hello, Dianne,

I believe you are correct in all you've said, and anyone who reads this in the future needs to heed it. We may still be able to get Family Protective services or someone like them to help us --

Even though Dad died Monday morning!

We are watching what everyone does now, and this has been a terrible week. I think the lies will now only get worse, and I believe they're siphoning money off and hiding it somewhere faster than ever.

It is a mercy that Dad has passed away, he was suffering so much. Except for one thing. He did the usual estate arrangement of passing all his earthly goods to his spouse. That would not have been a problem until just recently. I don't really understand why Dad's half of the family is suddenly being cut out. Not a clue, except greed. So I guess that's the end of that, unless we do something legally. (Is it worth it?)

I want to say I understand a person can do whatever they wish with their estate, and that is fine. It's their prerogative. But to have had it all set up for all these years to divide equally among all the children, then suddenly change everything in such a cruel and underhanded way, it is almost beyond bearing to stand by idly without saying something.

It has been very weird watching what different family members are doing this week. We have many people coming from far away for the funeral, and there are estrangements and poor communication among them all. When they all converge at one point on Saturday afternoon, there is bound to be fireworks. Everyone's wrapped tighter than a violin string.

I have always been able to sense what is going on beneath the veneer of situations, and I don't feel much collective grief here. I sense a smoldering anger and bitterness, along with helpless frustration.

Question: Will a psychopath "buy you off" somehow to distract you from your real feelings, or your real complaints? I watched it today when MIL handed one angry grandson a huge wad of cash and told him she would give him some more tomorrow. Yup, that's MIL -- here's some money, now shut up.

Thanks for allowing me to ramble. Next week we will decide how we want to pursue all of this, and if it is worth it.

blue heron

Hi, starry,

The blood pressure thing was a surprise, huh?

I have been doing qigong (chi kung) and Chinese meditation for a few months, and it helps for a few hours. Anything that involves slow movements and slow, measured breathing helps. If I would do it every day, it would probably fix it.

Keep plugging!
blue heron