OT: need advice

[Guest guest]

Hi My Friends,

I literally need to get something off my chest, the guilt that I am feeling

for not being able to continue to help my niece with high functioning

special needs. I am so wiped right now I don't know if I can hardly think

straight to be able to say it coherently.

My husband's niece is 20 & is living with Jim's mom. She is getting some

help from the state, ie. meds-soon to be started. The problem is that she

doesn't think she needs any help. She is, again, with an unsavory guy, this

time a man that's like 48yrs old who she met when she was working in the

same grocery store. She can't keep a job for any length of time. She lies

& sleeps around. She's compassionate & wants to help people in need like

the homeless, like almost giving the clothes off her back b/c they need it

more type of thinking, not even realizing that she's living in a nice home

b/c of the assistance she's getting. Her thoughts are immature

(developmental delay, right?)

Grandma is enabling Barbie b/c she doesn't want her to end up homeless, so

even though she nags about table manners & doing laundry etc, she " allows "

Barbie to stay out for days at at time b/c she doesn't/can't put her foot

down & lay down the law & say she can't stay there if she continues to " run

away " & not tell Grandma where she is. She does " steal " credit cards &

small amts of money when her impulsivity hits. She does have health issues

also.

My difficulty is knowing that I'm gonna have to quit helping her b/c I

really can't do anything to change anything. She's legally an adult, no one

has guardianship & she feels she's an adult. I did have her live here at

one point, but I had to tell her she couldn't live with us anymore after she

continued to sneak out & using my daughter's razor blades during the time

she was sleeping with a tatoo artist. She would use other people's personal

items even after being told not to. She has even worn her grandmother's

underwear without asking, lack of property awareness (sound familiar?). At

least with my own daughter, I raised her. Barbie landed on our doorstep

almost 2 years ago having been " raised " by an incompetent mother.

So.....any suggestions on how to deal with this? I hate saying " no " , that I

can't do any more. I feel like I am abandoning Grandma to deal with Barbie

b/c she feels she's the last resort but she won't let Barbie live with her

consequences. She's 80 & is feeling ill from hepatitis C, so I suspect her

health won't allow her to keep this up much longer, so she's prolonging the

inevitable, I guess. I wish I could fix this, but just thinking of trying

to articulate all this to the psych person is stressing me out b/c I'm never

sure if I can explain things or articulate things using the right words;

thought & word retrieval problem.

Thanks for listening! You guys are the best sounding board!

--

Marie A.