Unfiltered Story #265331

My grandmother recently moved in with us. None of us are happy about it, but we accept it since she can’t live on her own anymore. She was living with my uncle, but he couldn’t take her anymore and begged Dad to take Grandma. She’s always been difficult, even when we were just visiting her for a week, but we always assumed my uncle was exaggerating just how bad she is and was being dramatic like he always is.

She claims she can’t see or hear, but that is a load of lies. She can see and hear just fine when she wants to, so we have to whisper when we talk about her, even if she’s upstairs with her TV on. She can’t see enough to drive, but that’s about it.

We’ve offered to get her into my town’s senior center program to get her out of the house a few days a week and so she can socialize with people her own age. They even have transportation for like $10 more a month or something like that, so if no one is available to drive her, she doesn’t have to miss it. She refuses to go because she’ll miss her shows. She only watches QVC, Fox News, and Dr. Phil. That’s it.

She believes she has more money than she really does. My dad had to fight her to get control over her money so she doesn’t spend what little she has on something she doesn’t need. She likes to watch QVC and she has bought stuff off it before, so this is a real possibility. He wants to get power of attorney over her, but she doesn’t want that and is putting off signing. He only got this far because he convinced her that it was better if she had a checking account in a bank up here as opposed to her bank back in Georgia. He’s trying to get her out of her massive credit card debt. She also doesn’t believe that once her accounts are straightened out, Dad will hold her accountable about paying rent. She claimed she paid my uncle rent when she lived with him, but she’s so bad with money she could only afford it once every two or three months. It’s not much, maybe $300-400 a month to help with expenses and groceries.

She did not believe that you had to call your health insurance and tell them if you moved to a new state. She went from Virginia to Texas to Georgia and back to Virginia all without telling her insurance she had moved! “They do it for you,” she says. She also believes AARP is her insurance and also her Medicaid. We keep trying to explain that while you can get plans through AARP, AARP itself is not health insurance nor is it Medicaid. She doesn’t believe us.

My grandmother is extremely lazy and manipulative. She knows we will eventually do whatever it is for her if she waits long enough. For example, she only cleans up after herself half the time, or she would rather go without coffee than have to make it herself since she knows Mom makes coffee each morning, and if we try and call her out on it, she goes, “Oh, I can’t see/hear/didn’t know.” Yes, you did, because we told you two days ago you have to put your dirty dishes in the sink! Or when she was having trouble with the Crock-Pot, I turned it on for her and got it cooking. I told her, “Grandma, this is now cooking on high.” She acknowledged that I said that to her. I had to leave, and she turned the thing off, then tried to passively blame me when her food didn’t cook.

Speaking of food, she doesn’t like the food we buy. We buy cheap food because we aren’t made of money. I also get 10% off store-brand items at the grocery store where I work, so we have a lot of store-brand items in the house. She refuses to try most of it, claiming it can’t be any good since it’s not the most expensive name-brand food you can buy. She thinks she has $600 in her account (she doesn’t) and should be allowed to buy her own food. Dad keeps telling her she has no money so she can suck it up and eat what we eat or starve. We don’t eat out that often either, which she also complains about. She will choose to skip a meal if she doesn’t like it, usually in an attempt at some sort of power play.

She also wants a whole shelf in the fridge AND in the panty just for herself. And not the top shelf or bottom shelf, no, she wants the main shelf. This is because if something gets put in front of her food, she is incapable of moving stuff around to look for it. Or when we put her lunch meat in the meat and cheese drawer, where it belongs, she is incapable of opening the drawer (which is at arm level) and looking for it.

This last example broke my mom. Mom is a preschool teacher and never let me or my brother get away with this type of behavior growing up. She told Grandma no, she cannot have a whole shelf in the fridge or in the pantry, that she has to share the shelf space. Mom refused to budge and Grandma threw a tantrum and went up to her room to cry. Then Dad went to talk to her and again said she cannot have a whole shelf to herself. She refused to come out of her room for the rest of the night and she refused to eat dinner in protest.

We’ve been debating putting her in an assisted living home, but there is a two-year wait. She can’t live on her own, but if she keeps this up, I don’t know how much longer she will be living with us.