Lasting Powers of Attorney

[oddoneout]

So relieved to see your post Lat as I guessed you must have reached some sort of crisis point, and good to hear that the police and your GP were there when you needed them.

[Dave2002]

So relieved to see your post Lat as I guessed you must have reached some sort of crisis point, and good to hear that the police and your GP were there when you needed them.

Seconded. Very glad to see your post Lat. Hang in there and seek help as and when you feel you need it. Best wishes, Dave

[Lat-Literal]

2 of 5

Thank you very much indeed.

This part will read as a warning to the unsuspecting of what to try to avoid if ever being in similar circumstances.

So much of my identity has unravelled in the past month. Until my redundancy in 2010, everything seemed reasonably clear to me. I was someone who was able to have an independent life in employment, mainly rational, capable of being practical with intellect and sociable, albeit anxious. The significance to me of my parents was that they were an ongoing presence which I needed to know "existed" in order to function fairly normally. I didn't need them to do anything other than simply be and had assumed that they and others fully understood that this made all of the difference. Now I am not so sure that they ever did to the extent that I believed. Each had always felt that they needed to provide practical and on occasions some financial support even when it wasn't necessary. While appreciated, that at times could undermine my efforts on my own behalf. But on leaving work, there were additional dynamics. That support was both additionally needed and yet overpoweringly overdone. My parents at 80 suddenly saw in themselves a much bigger role in my life while simultaneously what was revealed to me was a new strand in them. One in which shockingly they refused to accept any help from me which built on my feelings in redundancy of personal rejection. For several years, a balance was maintained, not least because I had been made sufficiently wary of other people not to wish to venture far beyond our homes and they themselves were managing to be robust. More recently, we all became weaker with them more obviously and understandably so. At the point at which they were floundering, their rejection of help which was now necessary became less about me and my wish for a role and more of a feeling of being constantly bludgeoned or slapped down. It was also as aspects of my own health were failing increasingly alarming and ludicrous. I haven't lost my parents but do feel now that I have lost parts of them that were key to my sense of self and security.

Into this equation came an uncle, some eleven years younger than my Dad. Out of the blue, he rang me in October. As with other family members, our relations were historically convivial but distant to the point of non existent. For decades, I was not only pursuing my own life but reluctant to be on regular terms with people who were different from me in terms of interests and curious as to why I had never had significant one-to-one relationships. He made huge amounts of money by selling insurance. Given that the financial crash led to my redundancy, the finance industries of themselves are an issue with me. Additionally, not that he was responsible, he was the main reason why my parents and I didn't move in 2010 as I had wanted to somewhere which would be more sensible than continuing to live on a 1 in 9 for my ageing parents and where my mortgage debt could have been immediately settled. My father had refused point blank to move further away from his brother and rather than taking any sort of lead from me chose instead to be the big man and use his pension to subsidise me seemingly forever. As it happens, my mortgage has now been settled but my parents at 88 would not quite have been in the mess they are in now had it not been for that intransigence. None of these things had consciously led to resentment of my uncle. However, his contact was highly unusual. In fact, I am fairly sure that he has never telephoned me before and many years have gone by without e-mails. it transpired that he had been pressing my parents for LPAs for a long time to no avail, not that any of the three had had the courtesy of mentioning it to me and had also been concerning himself about the accuracy of my parents' wills when frankly those have as far as I am aware nothing to do with him.

Initially and for some considerable time I responded warmly. I said that I had also mentioned LPAs once but lightly and had dropped the subject when it was clear to me that they were not wanted by my parents. He was adamant that they were needed and persuaded me of their rightness. He wanted me on his next visit to my parents to join him in arguing the case for them and brought his laptop on which he said he would produce them while including his name alongside those of me and in my father's case my mother. Following a telephone call from me to a solicitor for additional advice, I did so but my father dug his heels in and my mother chose to say she couldn't possibly understand them. On that day, I effectively blocked him forcing them into them on the grounds that force was inappropriate and not at all an endorsement of validity. Subsequently, he persisted by e-mail with a line that I should take this up individually with my parents and keep pressing them. It was, he said, urgent and very important. During this time, I highlighted that I was ill and attending various medical appointments. A cursory support and even a sympathetic ear was offered by him but not, I felt, in a tone which fully accepted that my ill health was genuine. There were also mildly threatening comments along the lines that his daughters who I have never met were competent should I ever feel isolated as if I somehow lacked sufficient competence and that they were close to being my next of kin which rightly or wrongly I privately interpreted as him having one eye on my own financial legacy. There was also the moment when he said to me that in the absence of LPAs he wouldn't fancy paying the frightening - his word which given his own resources was somewhat overdone - fees and fighting through the courts in a crisis and he assumed that I wouldn't want to either but I would have no choice. In other words, should there ever be a crisis and no LPAs in place, you Lat-Lit will be struggling on your own mate which when I read it was devastating to me at a vulnerable time. It seemed ironic given that my father would never move far from him for his own sense - or idea - of security.

Throughout, I did what he asked. My parents became ever frostier with me for doing so. While he sat prettily in his mansion, I was on the frontline feeling increasingly that rather than trying to provide help to us all I was the unappreciative horrible child who had turned into an ogre. Statements along the lines of "and for all we have done for you" were frequent along with belligerence and deliberate "this is too much for us" diversions. In parallel, I went out of my way to see if there was an non LPA solution via further calls to solicitors and Dementia UK who were very helpful and informative but talked me through every possible grim future scenario. Following this, I went into panic and even said to my uncle that I was almost already going through bereavement except that it was worse and I felt absolutely powerless. He advised that, with respect, I was perhaps guilty of overthink. During this period, his and my own positions were beginning to look distinctive to me. Along the way, I had commented that we hardly knew each other and I sent him some e-mails which would enable him to understand me better. They had included comments about my interests and some photographs of friends. He never commented on these other than to talk about the volume of them. It showed me that he had no interest in me per se. And while I kept referring to my parents' future care, his emphasis was wholly on money and specifically that there might come a time when their assets were frozen and they couldn't sell their house. I said that this really worried me because it might impede their ability to get adequate care. He never mentioned care or explained why he was so concerned about their house while my Dad responded to my emphasis by suggesting he would never need care although his condition is degenerative.

What I did get from my uncle was that my mother waffled and kept avoiding the key issue and that my father had some very strange ideas. While true, and I accepted it while also pointing out that everyone has some strange ideas, I felt that it wasn't really for him to be coming up with statements of that sort especially given my parents' warmth towards him not that I said so. I also felt very uncomfortable about joining in a critique when my parents have been so supportive to me in their way. It felt that I was almost being drawn in to a form of treachery. Furthermore, his line was all about my "poor mother" when in actuality she had never spoken in favour of LPAs of the sort he was proposing although she had indicated on one occasion that she might have supported ones with a solicitor as the only named person if my father had not disagreed . He said that he opposed that as being unnecessarily costly, not that it was for him to say, would not comment on my parents' relationship, thereby denying my mother her own position and even sidestepped what I had learnt from the charity about the Deferred Payments Act, saying that he couldn't comment on the legalities thereby revealing that he didn't know as much as he claimed. All he did was keep bombarding me with e-mails to the effect of "has this been done yet - it can't go on any longer". I knew I was close to breaking point and said so to them all, pleading with them to consider the impacts on my health - it has been appointments for anxiety, retina damage, cancer scares, flu and root canal - and they all just tossed it lightly into the air while maintaining their stances.

[Lat-Literal]

3 of 5

The label of schizophrenia is arguably applied too often. It has never formally been applied to any of us. Had it ever been so, it would have been applied to me. In the anxiety condition, the often unhelpful coping mechanisms and the singular status, there are elements which could have led to a diagnosis of something or other had I been a young person now. However, the rationality, capabilities, and especially long-term working and social functioning were probably what essentially prevented it. No one would have ever thought to have applied it to my Mum and Dad. Married, functioning, sociable, normal - and I reckon we could add married again - the very notion of it ever having existed in them would have been regarded as effrontery. And yet it was at least a decade or two ago when medics looked so far as they were able to do so at my own self-analysis which incidentally they advised me against when I indicated that I felt there was something in their and our relationships which had made me as I am. The comment that I tended to get was that they could see why I saw it like that which I in turn saw as a direction to see whatever complexities I had as external. There was never any hint in me of anything other than love and certainly no condemnation but one sees or senses things in inner families that other people don't see or sense. My belief is that psychological variance or disturbance is not necessarily individually characteristic but associated with certain juxtapositions and not others. We are, of course, in the realm of dementia and old age in the current circumstances of my father and mother rather than anything which on the surface is more substantial. However, one sees patterns in the dynamics especially as they relate to power and if one is so minded they make sense of some things going far back. But in more recent times, this has been the second time and not the first time that my parents have effectively tried to fight off others through me and my head.

In 2010, when they were unusually competent, I had sat with them for two hours to explain the position in regard to my forthcoming redundancy in as mature a way as anyone could do and they nodded their heads. A day later they did everything they could do to get me to fight it which I did for as long and hard as I could do while knowing that it was hopeless to try and even not in my own interests. That too had led to a breakdown which affected me severely and from which I had never recovered. Perhaps just by not being married and with offspring, one inadvertently encourages a parental position in which their sense of power is not as ordinarily challenged. Certainly there is probably a greater disconnection between the parents' original outlook on how life is organised and how it is now because they have not witnessed changes directly via other generations. A key problem for me as an individual has been an instinct for believing that the old ways were better while having to adjust to the new. But what above all else became clear to me in terms of the LPA issue was the complete contrast between what my parents insist on giving me and what they are able to receive from me. Even in moments when communication breaks down, money and food are sent in while there is absolute deafness to what I have to say on serious matters that affect us all. Like being treated as two completely different people, it is confusing and disturbing. At some point in these weeks, I think I came to see for the sake of my own sanity that what was being provided as almost being given to a non-existent grandchild for to think otherwise while not being heard is just too much of an overpowering. In parallel, I have had to see any surrogate parents for me as being the doctor and the dentist which in a sense they are to everyone although their emphasis on the physical feels somewhat troubling and destabilising compared with the great illusion of security that emotional support provides while it lasts.

[Lat-Literal]

4 of 5

Towards mid November, my father read a short article in the Daily Express about LPAs. Not that he understands much of what he reads now, he thought that this might have changed his mind but he wasn't sure. It hardly said a lot for me or even his brother that the Express was more persuasive. He had also changed his mind on at least half a dozen previous occasions with my mother hiding behind his changeability so it didn't necessarily represent a dramatic shift. Mostly he had felt that if he really did have to agree to LPAs which he wouldn't, he would only agree to them if my mother and me were named but not his brother. Conveniently both my parents knew that this was not in line with my mother who would only consider them if only a solicitor were named. But after much procrastination, my mother in a very dark mood finally agreed that they would attempt to speak to a solicitor.

They ignored my advice that this would best be done in a telephone call and went by buses to the office where they knew the steps were too steep for them. On returning, the steps were cited as the reason why they could not proceed. Finally, my mother did ring the solicitor to arrange a home visit, deliberately didn't tell me so that it left me wondering, told me and my father's brother that she would refuse to discuss the matter any more until the meeting and displayed loathing for my father while simultaneously advising me that she was concerned about disobeying him and her marriage vows. On several subsequent days, she seemed confused. She visibly fell apart in their home in front of my eyes to the extent that I was very concerned while heavily intimating it was all my fault. Outside she was still getting on buses and being highly sociable with a wide range of neighbours. I genuinely couldn't work out how much was illness in her and how much was put on. I was due to go away for four days but feeling very ill because of it all, and visited a neighbour who is a friend of theirs for a brief consultation. Never especially warm to me, she agreed to keep an eye on them to make sure if they were alright while saying that I was too close to them emotionally and should go away. She then didn't tell them that I had spoken to her and never gave me feedback. On the day that I was due to leave, I had a note through my door from my parents. They were fine. They were going to Croydon. They hoped I would have a good time. I couldn't believe it. My mother had been on her knees only twelve hours earlier and because of it I was close to that state and yet they were again so apparently well it was as if they had never been otherwise. I only went because I felt I owed it to a loyal friend who needed a break.

My parents and the neighbour were pleased that I had cleared off. My uncle was delighted that a meeting with the solicitor had been arranged. My friend was happy to see me. However, from the moment I left the house I felt ill and my condition worsened in the next three days until I started choking uncontrollably in the early hours of day four. In high drama, I had to get a taxi back from the South Coast arriving home at 3.15am in the morning. Twelve hours on the position was unchanged and I was dialling 111. This was diagnosed on the telephone by an out of hours GP as probably a virus combined with extreme anxiety although the advice was to dial 999 if the position didn't change. He was as it happens probably right in his diagnosis. ON seeing my parents that evening, my mother immediately seized on it as good reason to cancel the solicitor's meeting. I said no but later relented seeing that it took a couple of weeks for it to leave my system. My uncle was not at all happy with the cancellation and started up his pressure again by e-mail. At one point, I spoke to the solicitor on the phone and apologised for the cancellation. He quite understood although speaking to him directly turned out to be a wrong move in my mother's opinion for she felt it implied that I was well and she was a liar. I also asked the solicitor how any rescheduled visit would be arranged. He said that he would need to speak with my parents first to ensure that they were not under any duress and fully understood what they were entering into. He would then ask me in to sign the relevant forms if and when that was appropriate.

On delivering this news to my Dad, he said that was no good. They needed me there. I explained that procedurally it would not be possible. I then suggested we did a bit of basic role play. I would be the solicitor and ask them why they wanted the LPAs. He was quite unable to answer it. Could not find even a couple of sentences. My mother walked in and out of the room glaring at me as if to say that I was putting him under undue pressure. Then he suddenly clutched his head and said three times that if he was such a burden he would end his life. At this point, I was even more distressed than I had been. Effectively what was being said to me was that I would be responsible for his death. Not only was this alarming but it struck me just how much it meant to my father not to delegate to me as a person in any way at all. It said volumes about my own life. Then it was my mother's turn. If this continued from me she wanted to be in a care home being looked after rather than looking after everyone else even if my father refused to move. She had had enough of me. She then turned her back.

Next she caressed my father and froze me out. I walked out of the house extremely disturbed saying I didn't think I could ever return again. On getting home, I e-mailed my uncle to say I was dropping the idea of LPAs as my parents could not carry the meeting alone. This, of course, felt wrong in terms of what was right for me and I was alarmed at what it would mean for me in a crisis. I'd probably break down. Then I did break down. I completely couldn't handle it, picked up the phone to my uncle and shouted at him to get out of my life as his pressure on me had led to relations between my parents and me irrevocably breaking down. Feeling totally isolated, I went into a blind panic, starting with literally trying to tear out my own hair after which I took scissors to it. Fearing that things could get even worse, I rang my uncle again to tell him and to ask him to come quickly to help me. He didn't and we have not been in communicationsince. But I could have predicted that he would not involve himself at that point. After that call, I immediately ran into the street to prevent a worse crisis. One which I had never asked for or initiated. One in which I was wholly working for the good. One which had left me a victim of what? Others' dysfunction? Coercive control? Psychological abuse? It was a far cry from the autumn when I travelled the length of this country entirely alone without the slightest hint of any sort of drama or terrible incident.

[Lat-Literal]

5 of 5

And where did I run to? There was only one place to which I could run. Back into the lion's den with the aim of telling my parents that I had dropped the idea of LPAs and let us on that basis restore good relations. That conversation, though, was not held. I gave those messages through their letterbox and then pleaded with them to speak with me but they never opened their door. Distraught, I collapsed onto my stomach on their doorstep where all I could do was make loud wailing noises. It was very cold and symbolically it was not lost on me that one reading of it was that they had virtually left me for dead, such were presumably their own power dynamics or whatever else it was that was driving them. The spirit of World War 2 perhaps. But unbeknown to me they were calling 999 citing unfathomable distress in their son. The police arrived shortly afterwards. They picked me up and came into my home.

I'm not quite sure how long they were here. It was possibly getting on for an hour. A few days later, the news was full of how police resources are being stretched because of calls on them in relation to mental health. The two of them were, to put it mildly, excellent. They got me to talk about my past, my health issues and parental issues before quickly turning to my own interests. We chatted about music and football and coastal walking and situation comedy. At times, they were clearly checking on my ability for recall. How many points did I have in fantasy football? Well, no one remembers their points. It ends in "99" I said. "I think it is 699". One looked at his mobile phone. "Yes" he said. "You would be top of our league - the leader has 682". It was all designed to get me back in a way that I could recognise as me. An ambulance had been called by them but was cancelled on the basis of our talk and their observation with my agreement. They advised me to steer clear of my parents for at least four days and to try to attend a medical appointment that I had booked for the following morning which somehow I managed to do. They also said they would be required to contact social services. I said I quite understood. My GP in the morning noted that she had never heard me speaking of my uncle before. I explained that we hardly knew each other. She added "surely you would want LPAs too" to which I replied "yes I did but not any longer given this". She said "your parents aren't coping, are they". We agreed that I should go onto medication to address anxiety. She also wondered if I might contact my parents' GP to discuss their situations with her. I noted it but thought "not a chance". Far too dangerous for me. I still loved them but felt that it wouldn't be possible to stay in contact. The fear was too great.

Nine days passed without contact. I understand that in this time my parents' version of their not coping in my absence was to go shopping, have appointments and chat with neighbours on every one of those days. My version of supposed coping in the aftermath was to be in bed escaping in sleep and virtually unable to physically move as if I were still on their doorstep. The radio was on, drifting in and out, but it felt to me pretty much like some sort of death. I was so numb with it and deeply traumatised. I didn't switch on the computer at all. Just couldn't do it and never thought I would be able to do so again. Then came a breezy call from my father in stuttering sentences and without any reference to what had happened at all. They had had the solicitor around. He had agreed to their request to undertake LPAs. Given that having his name on there would lead to costs of £220 an hour, would I be prepared to have my name on there and my name only albeit with him agreeing where needed to provide me with support. Talk about bloody minded. I sense that the only way in which they could bring themselves to go ahead with it - and I was always going to exercise the responsibility lightly - was that if I was severely weakened first. I had already made up my mind that I was wrong to have dismissed the LPAs out of hand and that my mother was right in feeling that the solicitor's name only should be on them but also that they wouldn't be done as there was no way on earth that if we ever did speak again that I would mention it. What I had told myself was that I would never, ever get involved in their affairs again. I needed that like a hole in the head. But, hey, what do you know. The sudden expectation that I should do so. With the heaviest of hearts I have had to say yes knowing that if there are battles at every turn that involvement really will end up killing me. Not that any signature has been provided. The forms have apparently not yet arrived or if they have they haven't been presented to me.

Meanwhile, all of the neighbours who observe my parents as aged but fine and presumably supporting a feckless unappreciative son are wholly blanking me. Meals and money are coming back in, whether I want them or not, but I am now the leper of the cul-de-sac for unfathomable behaviour that involved the police. I have read about these situations before and now believe them. Some people end up being driven into insanity. The medication is not agreeing with me. Headaches. I have a lot of spasms currently and for the first time ever have experienced uncontrollable hand shaking. The letter from the social services arrived. It contains some useful numbers for managing panic, general counselling and support for carers. But I am not permitted to be a carer. I am only permitted to be in receipt of gifts as the one who is fundamentally unwell. Displacement aggravated by stronger elements of society which are truly driven by self-interest. The police felt that I was trying to please too many people. I agreed with that while saying that the situation was not of my choosing. It was like being punched in the head from all sides. I still feel extremely traumatised by it all and very much doubt that I will ever fully get over it. I do not intend to speak to my uncle again.

My kind thoughts to anyone who has taken the time to wade through these lengthy posts.

[antongould]

Well I waded through Lat and you have my deepest sympathies and best wishes, but please hang in there and stay with us if you can ....

[gurnemanz]

You certainly have my whole-hearted support at this difficult time.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Well I waded through Lat and you have my deepest sympathies and best wishes, but please hang in there and stay with us if you can ....

- very best wishes from another wader, Lats.

(And what brilliant police officers!)

[Dave2002]

I am another wader. Not sure if I should make too many comments on a public forum though. Firstly, you need to feel better yourself.

Secondly I would almost suggest beware of family, and beware of solicitors. These people are not necessarily your friends.

It probably won't be the end of the world if none of you get LPA, and it may not be possible now anyway from what you have written.
It sounds as though you have tried to help your parents, but not succeeded fully, and also they, in their way have tried to help you, but
are now less able to help you or anyone else. If your parents don't want to do LPA and they can't be persuaded to by you, then watch out
for others trying to persuade them too.

Difficult times, but you have to look after yourself first. Hang in there, and as others have suggested - stay with us here too.

Best wishes as ever.

[teamsaint]

I've waded too. I think there are many lessons to be teased from your narrative.

I agree completely with Dave, that whatever you do, you need to do from the greatest position of strength that you can find. There are a lot of pressures out there to make us do things that may not, at that particular moment, be in our best interests.And the present is terribly important.

Best wishes Lat.

[oddoneout]

I too have waded, although that implies hard and unappealing work which it was not at all, but an impressively articulate and thoughtful narrative of a very difficult and distressing time.
I would second Dave's comment

Difficult times, but you have to look after yourself first. Hang in there, and as others have suggested - stay with us here too.

[Lat-Literal]

Thank you to everyone who has written, the kindness of which I very much appreciate.

[Beef Oven!]

Thank you to everyone who has written, the kindness of which I very much appreciate.

welcome back. you ok?

[Lat-Literal]

welcome back. you ok?

Thank you.

I am getting back - reintroducing things bit by bit - albeit very slowly.