Mom threatening me with legal action, from Laura.

This will be a strange tale. More drama. Here are my previous posts about my mom if anyone cares to read them:

https://www.agingcare.com/questions/my-mom-oh-gosh-i-love-her-but-i-hate-her-and-wish-it-would-end-483975.htm?orderby=recent&page=1�

https://www.agingcare.com/questions/update-from-laural271-re-mom-484815.htm?orderby=recent&page=1�

My mom has been piling on the pressure to come live with DH and me. I have said no repeatedly, telling her we wouldn't be able to stand living with her and that my marriage comes first. Every time this has come up, she has told me that I'm the worst daughter alive and that I am terribly selfish, etc.

I am presently dealing with so much stress with my husband's health declining, and also with my sweet daughter being worried sick about her daughter being diagnosed with schizophrenia. Leave it to my mom to add to the stress. She's good at it.

Mom was very child-like during all my growing-up years when she got sick. Even with just a routine virus or infection, she whined and cried for me to help her; I won't go into specifics but it repulsed me when I was very young. She has always wanted me to take care of her. I assisted her after a few hospital stays during the past 7 years (here and there) and she was never appreciative, just mean as a snake and demanding and foul-mouthed. Nothing I have ever done has ever been good enough for her.

She's 90. She has a pacemaker for bradycardia (slow heartbeat). She has very bad CHF, arthritis, fibromyalgia, sciatica, and pain from neuropathy. It's very hard for her to get around. She wants to live forever and chooses every medical therapy available. She's considering getting an implanted defibrillator. She's in so much pain that she's miserable and uncomfortable. She lives in another state a little over 6 hours from me.

A friend was helping her for a while but from what I can tell, the friend has disappeared. I suspect my mom showed her true self so the friend decided she was done..

Apparently Mom's physical condition has worsened, so she's looked into hiring some help. She refuses to consider leaving her home. She has been interviewing agencies who provide home caregivers. She says she needs someone about 4 hours in the morning and someone else 4 hours in the evening. She then told me that it's much more expensive than she thought it would be. She says her monthly income won't cover the cost, and that she needs help. She wants $1000/month from us, which would be $12,000 a year.

I told her this wouldn't be possible and that she should interview other agencies or consider cutting back on the hours of assistance.

She exploded and started yelling. She told me that she has talked to her lawyer about me. She says I can be seen as abandoning her since I gave up the POA and don't assist her in any way. She also said that in her state I can be sued for failure to support a parent. It would be a Class II misdemeanor. She then said that if I want to continue being a bitch to her that I could find myself in jail. I stayed calm despite all this drama and told her my DH will never agree to subsidizing her and I told her again to amend the assistance she is needing or consider going into a board/care home or ALF, and I ended the call.

I called my lawyer today, and he said that Mom's state does have the ability to bring a criminal penalty for failure to support a parent. The state that I live in has the same law, but he thinks it's reserved for egregious situations such as a parent living in squalor or homeless. He says that he has never seen that happen in our region, but he recommended that I talk to a lawyer in her state.

I already have a lawyer in Mom's county/state since I've had trouble from her before, but he is out of town for 2 weeks, darn.

So my question is - has anyone else heard of this?

Hugs to all.