Tips for Living with a Chaos Muppet
October 3, 2024 10:15 AM Subscribe
My mother is a chaos muppet. I am an order muppet. Thus far, I have not been very good at protecting my lovely simple order-muppet world from her chaos. Have you mastered this art in your own life? Do you have some advice for me? (Obviously the simple path is "disappear and never contact her again" but this is not a practical thing at the moment.)
My mother, bless her heart, is a kind and intelligent woman who nonetheless lives her life in a perpetual state of chaos. For many years this chaos came from too many kids/no money, undiagnosed mental health issues and unmanaged alcoholism. But now she is medicated and sober (still poor)...and still manages to pull chaos into her life wherever possible. Like she needs to. The minute things calm down she compulsively adopts a troubled dog or destroys her porch with a sandblaster, that sort of thing. It's clear that at least subconsiously, chaos feels like home to her.
I grew up in her chaos wake and I have a ton of empathy for everything that she is and everything that made her that way, but I also ran as far away as possible as fast as possible and built a life that is the polar opposite of hers in every single way. (My siblings did the same, to varying degrees.)
Now, however, she is elderly and in need of a ton of support from us. We manage her money; we bought her a house; we got her relocated near family. It's the most I've been involved with her since I was 17. And it means a constant churn of surprise expenses, high drama, and a lot of downright quite bad decisions are now falling upon us all the time. (Also a lot of things that aren't her fault, like how often she is targeted for scams like every other elderly person in this stupid nightmare country. We spend SO MUCH TIME trying to just make sure she's not getting taken for every penny.)
My life is so stressful now. Every day I am like, what fucking next. I am so broke. HER CHAOS IS INFECTING ME. And I need it to stop.
Where do I start?
My mother, bless her heart, is a kind and intelligent woman who nonetheless lives her life in a perpetual state of chaos. For many years this chaos came from too many kids/no money, undiagnosed mental health issues and unmanaged alcoholism. But now she is medicated and sober (still poor)...and still manages to pull chaos into her life wherever possible. Like she needs to. The minute things calm down she compulsively adopts a troubled dog or destroys her porch with a sandblaster, that sort of thing. It's clear that at least subconsiously, chaos feels like home to her.
I grew up in her chaos wake and I have a ton of empathy for everything that she is and everything that made her that way, but I also ran as far away as possible as fast as possible and built a life that is the polar opposite of hers in every single way. (My siblings did the same, to varying degrees.)
Now, however, she is elderly and in need of a ton of support from us. We manage her money; we bought her a house; we got her relocated near family. It's the most I've been involved with her since I was 17. And it means a constant churn of surprise expenses, high drama, and a lot of downright quite bad decisions are now falling upon us all the time. (Also a lot of things that aren't her fault, like how often she is targeted for scams like every other elderly person in this stupid nightmare country. We spend SO MUCH TIME trying to just make sure she's not getting taken for every penny.)
My life is so stressful now. Every day I am like, what fucking next. I am so broke. HER CHAOS IS INFECTING ME. And I need it to stop.
Where do I start?
Do you have professional support? Because I needed that while I was establishing better boundaries with my mother. That’s just one part, because caregiving really is a whole new world. But it really helped me to have someone who was aware of the nuances (over time) who could help me prioritize my own needs and give me suggestions for handling specific conversations.
Financially I think the hard thing is that you just have to stop. She has never been capable of being a good steward of her money; yours will be worse. If you can convince her to have control and give her an allowance do that. Otherwise, I’m not sure you can save her money from her.
Hindsight is 20/20 but I would almost always go for a modest rental over buying a house for anyone else because even though you don’t end up with an asset, someone else does maintenance. I think you might want to look at something like you rent the house out for $x and she gets a place with rent that costs $X-a bunch, if real estate is how you will fund it.
posted by warriorqueen at 11:04 AM on October 3 [1 favorite]
Financially I think the hard thing is that you just have to stop. She has never been capable of being a good steward of her money; yours will be worse. If you can convince her to have control and give her an allowance do that. Otherwise, I’m not sure you can save her money from her.
Hindsight is 20/20 but I would almost always go for a modest rental over buying a house for anyone else because even though you don’t end up with an asset, someone else does maintenance. I think you might want to look at something like you rent the house out for $x and she gets a place with rent that costs $X-a bunch, if real estate is how you will fund it.
posted by warriorqueen at 11:04 AM on October 3 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: OK I promise I'm not arguing but I really don't follow your point about the house; I do have an asset, it is the house that I own that she lives in. And also I am not sure I follow why it would be better for me to rent to a stranger, and for her to PAY rent to a stranger, than for her to just pay rent to me?
Edit: for what it's worth rentals in her area are much more, monthly, than the mortgage on the house.
EDIT again: never mind, I misread your comment.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 11:20 AM on October 3
Edit: for what it's worth rentals in her area are much more, monthly, than the mortgage on the house.
EDIT again: never mind, I misread your comment.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 11:20 AM on October 3
That is what I meant - that it is easier to rent to a stranger where there are penalties for sandblasting a porch, and for her to live where dogs aren’t allowed and normal boundaries exist. I’ve rented to strangers and I’ve paid rent for family and I’ve had family live in a house in a way where they wrecked the value of the house. In the family situations the chaos is exponential. Sometimes it is easier to not have joint responsibilities. In a house if she wrecks the stove, it’s you she calls. In a rental, it’s the landlord.
But if the math doesn’t work, then it doesn’t work. I think to generalize, the more clear things “I pay for this, I don’t pay for that even if you wreck it” or “let’s lock your money up here and you get X a month and when it’s gone it’s gone” is much easier than jointly managing assets of any kind.
posted by warriorqueen at 11:53 AM on October 3 [1 favorite]
But if the math doesn’t work, then it doesn’t work. I think to generalize, the more clear things “I pay for this, I don’t pay for that even if you wreck it” or “let’s lock your money up here and you get X a month and when it’s gone it’s gone” is much easier than jointly managing assets of any kind.
posted by warriorqueen at 11:53 AM on October 3 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Ah I see. I was thinking how as a landlord, I'm responsible for the maintenance no matter who's living there -- and the most expensive and difficult maintenance (furnace, roof, etc) is going to happen regardless. The entanglement of it all would still probably be less, yes.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 12:06 PM on October 3 [1 favorite]
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 12:06 PM on October 3 [1 favorite]
I don't know your mother at all, let alone her current condition in terms of mental/physical/cognitive capacity, so for what little it's worth - are there any activities it might be possible to get her involved in that could provide stimulation and kind of "wear her out" such that she either wouldn't feel as much need, or have as much energy left over, to get up to trouble?
Does she have friends around? Does she spend most of her time alone?
Another thought that's probably not worth very much given that I don't know the particulars - do you necessarily have to be involved if she has trouble with a dog she adopts? Is "destroys her porch" literal or the kind of esthetic damage that you could choose to just ignore? If we're talking muppets, it seems to me that Kermit for example would just kind of look on and shrug or sigh at a lot of the chaos at least as often as he'd try to restore order. Bert in contrast would always try to fight Ernie's chaos, and all that would result in was him going crazy.
One thing I do think is worth thinking about together with your siblings though is what the future might look like as your mother ages, and whether there are things it might be worth trying to start changing now in preparation.
posted by trig at 12:10 PM on October 3 [2 favorites]
Does she have friends around? Does she spend most of her time alone?
Another thought that's probably not worth very much given that I don't know the particulars - do you necessarily have to be involved if she has trouble with a dog she adopts? Is "destroys her porch" literal or the kind of esthetic damage that you could choose to just ignore? If we're talking muppets, it seems to me that Kermit for example would just kind of look on and shrug or sigh at a lot of the chaos at least as often as he'd try to restore order. Bert in contrast would always try to fight Ernie's chaos, and all that would result in was him going crazy.
One thing I do think is worth thinking about together with your siblings though is what the future might look like as your mother ages, and whether there are things it might be worth trying to start changing now in preparation.
posted by trig at 12:10 PM on October 3 [2 favorites]
1. Your need for order and to manage your life is likely a direct reaction to the way your mother manages her own life. I point this out to say, it's no surprise that that this would drive you particularly bonkers.
2. Maybe you need to figure out how to be a boundary muppet. That will probably involve therapy for you.
What you can't expect is for your mother to be different or change. You can only change your involvement and reactions. At some point, if you want sanity, you gotta throw up your arms and stop expecting that, if she gets enough and the right kind of help, she will magically become better at managing herself. No matter what she has, she will always create chaos of some kind.
posted by bluedaisy at 1:07 PM on October 3 [5 favorites]
2. Maybe you need to figure out how to be a boundary muppet. That will probably involve therapy for you.
What you can't expect is for your mother to be different or change. You can only change your involvement and reactions. At some point, if you want sanity, you gotta throw up your arms and stop expecting that, if she gets enough and the right kind of help, she will magically become better at managing herself. No matter what she has, she will always create chaos of some kind.
posted by bluedaisy at 1:07 PM on October 3 [5 favorites]
This may sound glib but I mean it absolutely seriously: she seems like she needs an outlet for her creativity and if she is capable of it, I think you should see if you can get her involved in a ceramics studio somewhere, starting with a class or two, so she can use up her creative energy making a mess and making things and likely make friends in the process. Ceramics are a chaos muppet's dream world.
It also doesn't have to be wheel-based ceramics; she could do sculptural or handbuilding to start out, since that's easier to get into and honestly also makes more chaos-muppety things. Order muppets tend to prefer the wheel, I have just realized, and chaos muppets hand building.
posted by urbanlenny at 1:11 PM on October 3 [2 favorites]
It also doesn't have to be wheel-based ceramics; she could do sculptural or handbuilding to start out, since that's easier to get into and honestly also makes more chaos-muppety things. Order muppets tend to prefer the wheel, I have just realized, and chaos muppets hand building.
posted by urbanlenny at 1:11 PM on October 3 [2 favorites]
I think the order you can bring to this is basically boundaries about when you’re available to the chaos. Some ideas:
- designate a sibling to be the person you answer calls from at any time. This person will call you if there is a TRUE emergency. This is to give you peace of mind about the rest of these potential boundaries.
- only read text, emails, answer phone calls, listen to VM from your mom on a specific day of the week during specific hours. All other times you are not available.
- timebox the amount of time you will spend working on solving problems. 1 hour a week or day or whatever. Don’t work on the problems outside those times.
- set 15 minutes a day for worry time. You can only worry about your mom/this situation during those worry times. All other times if you worries come up, say to your brain “save it for worry time.”
- only respond to or try to solve a problem after one other sibling has tried. Give other people a chance to step in and take care of things. You can also alternate who is “on call” for a month
posted by CMcG at 2:13 PM on October 3 [3 favorites]
- designate a sibling to be the person you answer calls from at any time. This person will call you if there is a TRUE emergency. This is to give you peace of mind about the rest of these potential boundaries.
- only read text, emails, answer phone calls, listen to VM from your mom on a specific day of the week during specific hours. All other times you are not available.
- timebox the amount of time you will spend working on solving problems. 1 hour a week or day or whatever. Don’t work on the problems outside those times.
- set 15 minutes a day for worry time. You can only worry about your mom/this situation during those worry times. All other times if you worries come up, say to your brain “save it for worry time.”
- only respond to or try to solve a problem after one other sibling has tried. Give other people a chance to step in and take care of things. You can also alternate who is “on call” for a month
posted by CMcG at 2:13 PM on October 3 [3 favorites]
I think you need to sort out what is a chaos problem and what is a chaos quirk.
Like: your mom adopting a troubled dog? Chaos quirk. Doesn't need a solve, you can comfortably ignore! The boiler has exploded? Chaos problem.
Moneywise, you need to separate your mom's finances into a necessary bill bank account and a chaos money bank account. Chaos money bank account is the only one they have the info to, that is for scammers and nonsense. (Trust me, I feel this, I've been dealing with an elderly scammer victim sending money to yet another '22 year old girlfriend' recently). Chaos money account is not your problem! Chaos money account, let the bank and eldercare sort out!
posted by corb at 2:33 PM on October 3 [8 favorites]
Like: your mom adopting a troubled dog? Chaos quirk. Doesn't need a solve, you can comfortably ignore! The boiler has exploded? Chaos problem.
Moneywise, you need to separate your mom's finances into a necessary bill bank account and a chaos money bank account. Chaos money bank account is the only one they have the info to, that is for scammers and nonsense. (Trust me, I feel this, I've been dealing with an elderly scammer victim sending money to yet another '22 year old girlfriend' recently). Chaos money account is not your problem! Chaos money account, let the bank and eldercare sort out!
posted by corb at 2:33 PM on October 3 [8 favorites]
Yeah, speaking as a chaos goblin* from an entire family of chaos goblins, what you need to do is talk your mom into agreeing to give you full financial power of attorney. Then YOU take over the finances. I recently did this with my older, ill relative. What I did was create two accounts - a joint one that I have full access to and an individual one that I can have access to if I want but I mostly stay away from. The joint account is where his social security goes and what the bills come out of. He only theoretically has access to that account - I hold the cards. The other account is his to goblin out with, buy groceries, do whatever. It has a no overdraft restriction on it so when that money is gone it is gone - the bank will not helpfully pull any money from another account. The plan is I will reseed it with money from his savings when it's empty but so far since we did this he's being really careful with it.
I have a whole lot of other responsibilities that I'm having trouble dealing with - chaos medical stuff is horribly difficult to parse, particularly in this broken country - but taking the money issues away was a huge huge help. Your mother probably feels guilty for all the financial chaos; she may be very relieved to let you just step in and take it over. I was not expecting to do it or that my relative would ever go for it but LO, he just handed me his scary briefcase full of paperwork and said, it's all yours now kid. And that was that.
* it is so unfair that I ended up being the least chaotic person in my family. Nobody would ever have predicted this. By normal standards I think I am still alarmingly chaotic.
posted by mygothlaundry at 3:49 PM on October 3 [11 favorites]
I have a whole lot of other responsibilities that I'm having trouble dealing with - chaos medical stuff is horribly difficult to parse, particularly in this broken country - but taking the money issues away was a huge huge help. Your mother probably feels guilty for all the financial chaos; she may be very relieved to let you just step in and take it over. I was not expecting to do it or that my relative would ever go for it but LO, he just handed me his scary briefcase full of paperwork and said, it's all yours now kid. And that was that.
* it is so unfair that I ended up being the least chaotic person in my family. Nobody would ever have predicted this. By normal standards I think I am still alarmingly chaotic.
posted by mygothlaundry at 3:49 PM on October 3 [11 favorites]
Ya I would set a threshold above which I would step in otherwise I’d let her chaos around and enjoy the insanity it brings with my popcorn. Start a bingo card. Collect data on mean time to chaos (MTTC). Don’t try to stop or prevent it at all. Know that it is certainly coming.
So maybe set a $ and emotional threshold after which I’ll step in. Will this be a $100 repair? Let her fuck it up. $2000 repair? I’m gonna have to get in there missy. Are you emotional this week? No kidding. Your brother died? I’ll be right over.
Remember at the end of the day Kermit would let the muppets fuck up the performance. His main concern was keeping the theater.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 3:57 PM on October 3 [8 favorites]
So maybe set a $ and emotional threshold after which I’ll step in. Will this be a $100 repair? Let her fuck it up. $2000 repair? I’m gonna have to get in there missy. Are you emotional this week? No kidding. Your brother died? I’ll be right over.
Remember at the end of the day Kermit would let the muppets fuck up the performance. His main concern was keeping the theater.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 3:57 PM on October 3 [8 favorites]
PS chaos muppet thank you for that term
posted by St. Peepsburg at 3:59 PM on October 3 [2 favorites]
posted by St. Peepsburg at 3:59 PM on October 3 [2 favorites]
I'm a mild chaos muppet. I'm grandma age. I have chronic fatigue and depression is often trying to break in. I like projects, so I bring home the cool chair that needs some work, I do Japanese tie-dye and things spill, I don't take care of the water spigot so it's leaking. My ideas outstrip my ability to execute them. My ideas and projects are monuments to hope, and denying that I'm too old to do stuff, be creative, and have fun. They're an antidote to constant messages that I'm too old to matter, too old to have fun. (I am financially stable, self-sufficient, etc, tho.)
I say this so that you have some perspective about where it comes from and that might make it easier to deal with the latest chaos event. I went far away from my alcoholic, bipolar Mom, too, spent years establishing boundaries and hammering out an okayish relationship.
Get your Mom busy. Church choir, Library stitch -n-bitch club, whatever. Loneliness makes her do some of the stuff. There's an Area Agency on Aging for every part of the US. See what resources they have. If there's any service to have somebody visit, go for a walk with her, garden, whatever, that would be great.
Thank you for being so good to her; I recognize that there's significant emotional and $ expense. Compassion is a wonderful path to growth. My son called a few minutes ago to share a memory and stories; it meant the world to me.
posted by theora55 at 7:24 PM on October 3 [11 favorites]
I say this so that you have some perspective about where it comes from and that might make it easier to deal with the latest chaos event. I went far away from my alcoholic, bipolar Mom, too, spent years establishing boundaries and hammering out an okayish relationship.
Get your Mom busy. Church choir, Library stitch -n-bitch club, whatever. Loneliness makes her do some of the stuff. There's an Area Agency on Aging for every part of the US. See what resources they have. If there's any service to have somebody visit, go for a walk with her, garden, whatever, that would be great.
Thank you for being so good to her; I recognize that there's significant emotional and $ expense. Compassion is a wonderful path to growth. My son called a few minutes ago to share a memory and stories; it meant the world to me.
posted by theora55 at 7:24 PM on October 3 [11 favorites]
just popping in to send good luck, OP! lots of good suggestions here.
and love the muppet theory! we should all endeavour to be “boundary muppets”. thx to blue daisy for that one!
posted by tamarack at 9:46 PM on October 3 [1 favorite]
and love the muppet theory! we should all endeavour to be “boundary muppets”. thx to blue daisy for that one!
posted by tamarack at 9:46 PM on October 3 [1 favorite]
Hi OP, one additional thing that might help is to train yourself to react less to her chaos. It’s really helpful to me in dealing with my (chaotic in a different way) family to practice thinking “ oh she is being a chaos muppet again” or “of course she did x” or “this is the part where she brings even more chaos”. If you can retrain your brain to give you some loving, observational distance, while accepting that this is the way she is, that might help you feel less distressed by the day to day. Think of her like you would a toddler or a puppy; she may be doing her best but there are going to be messes.
Other thoughts that might help: “Mom has drama, must be Tuesday.” “I can choose how involved I get with this particular issue.” “I can be a good daughter/son even if I have to step away for a moment.” I hope it gets easier for you.
posted by yogalemon at 1:13 AM on October 4 [3 favorites]
Other thoughts that might help: “Mom has drama, must be Tuesday.” “I can choose how involved I get with this particular issue.” “I can be a good daughter/son even if I have to step away for a moment.” I hope it gets easier for you.
posted by yogalemon at 1:13 AM on October 4 [3 favorites]
I keep thinking of this Andrew Jackson quote: "I was born for a storm, and a calm does not suit me."
Really, what this sounds like here is that you are always stuck having to clean up the chaos muppet's mess and that's where the resentment comes in. You can't just let her have her chaos because you have to mop it up every day. She unfortunately probably can't stop being chaotic because that's who she is, but if it's possible to limit how much chaos she can get up, maaaaaaaybe? (I'm grasping at straws here.)
You say you manage her money, but how much of that do you do? Are you totally in charge of her funds, or can you be so? If she's limited as to how much she can give away to scammers, would that help? If she can't go run out and buy a sandblaster on the spur of the moment, would that help? Have you attempted to talk to her about any of this or is that a total lost cause?
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:18 AM on October 4
Really, what this sounds like here is that you are always stuck having to clean up the chaos muppet's mess and that's where the resentment comes in. You can't just let her have her chaos because you have to mop it up every day. She unfortunately probably can't stop being chaotic because that's who she is, but if it's possible to limit how much chaos she can get up, maaaaaaaybe? (I'm grasping at straws here.)
You say you manage her money, but how much of that do you do? Are you totally in charge of her funds, or can you be so? If she's limited as to how much she can give away to scammers, would that help? If she can't go run out and buy a sandblaster on the spur of the moment, would that help? Have you attempted to talk to her about any of this or is that a total lost cause?
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:18 AM on October 4
Re: the scams, how is she being targeted? (Online, via cell phone, via landline, etc.) If it is over landline, you can purchase and install a call blocker like PhonePeace, I believe you can have an approved list of numbers that will always go through (it holds up to 800 numbers), and the rest are blocked.
If it's over cell phone, you can also try setting her default ring tone to "silent" and giving an audible ring tone to people in her contacts list / doctor's office / pharmacy / vet office etc. so she won't hear the phone ring if a scammer is calling, and they're less likely to leave a message than a legitimate business.
If you are able to freeze her credit, that will help prevent new accounts from being opened in her name.
posted by castlebravo at 11:04 AM on October 4
If it's over cell phone, you can also try setting her default ring tone to "silent" and giving an audible ring tone to people in her contacts list / doctor's office / pharmacy / vet office etc. so she won't hear the phone ring if a scammer is calling, and they're less likely to leave a message than a legitimate business.
If you are able to freeze her credit, that will help prevent new accounts from being opened in her name.
posted by castlebravo at 11:04 AM on October 4
Response by poster: Think of her like you would a toddler or a puppy; she may be doing her best but there are going to be messes.
UGH the thing is, I specifically built a life that has zero toddlers or puppies in it, because I absolutely cannot stand either toddlers OR puppies.
I do appreciate the replies, because they have outlined for me that in the end it's not even really about just, keeping her from getting scammed for example. Because even if there was an ironclad way to do that, I'd resent having to do it.
It's more a question of how to handle my resentment at having my entire life hijacked by a person I don't even particularly like, and specifically to care for her in ways she never cared for me when I was a tiny non-adult person with no choice in the matter! So that's probably...you know...just going to be a problem for the rest of at least her, and possibly my, life.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 10:11 AM on October 9
UGH the thing is, I specifically built a life that has zero toddlers or puppies in it, because I absolutely cannot stand either toddlers OR puppies.
I do appreciate the replies, because they have outlined for me that in the end it's not even really about just, keeping her from getting scammed for example. Because even if there was an ironclad way to do that, I'd resent having to do it.
It's more a question of how to handle my resentment at having my entire life hijacked by a person I don't even particularly like, and specifically to care for her in ways she never cared for me when I was a tiny non-adult person with no choice in the matter! So that's probably...you know...just going to be a problem for the rest of at least her, and possibly my, life.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 10:11 AM on October 9
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Once you've stepped back, you can reevaluate. If she is having enough health/safety issues that you're still constantly feeling overwhelmed by them, maybe it's not safe for her to live alone? (Not advocating moving in with her!)
posted by Eyelash at 10:55 AM on October 3