I should be happy, tomorrow is our ruby wedding anniversary. The OH wants to go to a destination which is three hour’s drive away and I won’t because he isn’t well enough and I don’t want to spend four hours every evening sitting alone in a hotel bedroom while he fills up at the bar. Normally you would have a good party but he won’t have my Al-Anon friends and I won’t entertain the pub again. I did this five years ago, I made the garden fabulous, put on a great spread and provided flowing wine and they all turned up grim faced with cans under their arms and sat on the lawn in garden chairs drinking to oblivion.
Meanwhile my mother is on track for a Deprivation of Liberty order. Yes, they wish to lock her up and throw away the key. You might think after all that she did to me and the number of times I wished as a child that someone would do this, that I’d be delighted but of course I’m not. The thought that your mother is not safe to be allowed out is not just distressing, it’s the knowledge that it’s another step towards the little quilted room, that’s really upsetting.
I do wish, with all my wishing, that young people carelessly ingesting substances and the denizens of pubs and bars who have to be peeled off the door handles at closing time could just see where it ends up. Locked up and missing the great events of your own life and dragging your relatives down with you is where it ends up. I am taking the fall-out for people who have carelessly damaged their brains with self indulgence and I am heartily tired of it.
My mother was assessed last week and the lady who did the assessment rang me before and after she had interviewed my mother and we had a full, frank and very helpful interchange of views and information. I then had a talk to the care home manager after my visit to my mother this week.
I have previously written about the Mental Health Act 1983. When the Police and Hospitals in the UK talk of ‘sectioning’ a patient, they are referring to the section of this Act of Parliament which enables a body of several professional people concerned with the care of a person with mental health issues to detain them for their own safety or for the safety of that of the public. It was rehearsing this Act in my head that caused me to run into a parked car last summer instead of paying attention to my turning circle as I edged out of a tight space last summer, well if I hadn’t been saying the Act over and over out loud I wouldn’t have gone into the tight space in the first place.
The Deprivation of Liberty order is, if you like, one down from sectioning. It gives the right to permit the care home manager to keep my mother in the home. At present when my mother is sitting beside the front door repeatedly hitting it with her walking stick because she has decided she’s going shopping; if she did manage to escape and passers-by saw the care home manager trying to womanhandle my mother back inside (good luck to her, my mother is built like a brick out house, I reckon it would take three carers at least) the passers-by could call the police and be on the side of my mother. (It takes all sorts). Once the order has been passed by a board of the county council the care home manager will be within her legally expressed rights.
The fact that my mother can go out shopping if accompanied, the fact that this has been arranged several times and then not happened because my mother has been throwing a dicky-fit. The fact that my mother couldn’t manage to go down the five steps into the building without help. The fact that my mother couldn’t actually walk as far as the shops a whole two streets away without needing oxygen. The fact that she mainly only wants to go shopping because they don’t want her to. All these things are facts but they have no bearing on the central requirement, which is that the care home manager should not be prosecuted by passers-by just because she’s doing her job.
Then there’s the OH. He has had a suggestive blood test result which will be repeated in a couple of months to see if it’s gone away or not. He might have cancer, he might not. The fact that he has poured pints of beer and wine through his waterworks every day for for fifty years has nothing to do with anything, he shouts. When I said it might, he called me delusional, twice, which, considering my mother actually is, cruising as she currently is outside of Rio and Newcastle simultaneously, was very rude and nasty.
I am so upset at what these people have done to me and are doing every day. Their abusive behaviour and language is tiring me out. I am sick of listening to the diatribes of damaged brains, about how I am crazy or carers are bitches, or other drivers are ****s or ****s. None of these people hear it, and neither should they. Carers are angels without wings and other drivers are considerably better than the person with the road rage. The only person into whose ears the vitriol is poured is just me standing in the torrent of abuse from people who have damaged their brains with alcohol and self indulgence.
The two people I see most of in my life are in a race to the death. I no longer care who wins.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
40 years. I either need a medal or my head read, I’m not sure which.