Where is my mom?

My mother had her own house, but she refused to live in it. She was convinced that I had installed eavesdropping devices in order to post her life on Instagram.

A week after her seventieth birthday, she told a neighbor that she was going to Hollywood because she had friends living there who meant well with her and whom she could trust. . Mom loaded up her car and left.

It did not take long, of course, before I had the police on the phone. They had found my mother sleeping on the street. The officers had taken her away and she had made a statement that she had given away her car because I had installed spyware everywhere in the vehicle. She reportedly had been wandering the streets, like a homeless person for more than a week.

Until last summer, mom was living her best life. Finally! She deserved that after all. She seemed happier than she had ever been. After a turbulent life, starting with her father's suicide when she was fourteen, an abusive marriage, and several years of self-medication with alcohol and opiates, 

our relationship was finally healthy. Good even. She had to undergo surgery, which would bring her relief from years of unrelenting pain. The operation succeeded in that. But it cost her her mind.

A few days after the operation, she sent me a message that I should come to her immediately. I dropped everything and jumped in the car. That was the beginning of an ongoing crisis.

I traveled up and down the country, looking for a doctor who could help us. Eventually, a friend of mine referred me to a neurologist who was praised into the heavens by everyone. He told me that we live in a culture of disbelief and that my mother's condition is frighteningly common: postoperative delirium. Most doctors do not treat this condition. If you tell them about it, their eyes turn glassy.

Delirium can be caused by old age, surgery, or an acute disease, and expresses itself as a series of disorders that manifest themselves in confusion, hallucinations, paranoia, disorientation, and memory loss. And worst of all: every day that passes without treatment increases the chance of permanent limitations. If left to fester, the cognitive decline in the long term leads to dementia.

My mother constantly started to wander around, was always upset, and threatened to take everything and everyone to court.

A doctor had prescribed her an antipsychotic, but from there on, she became even more suspicious and she was convinced that I was to blame for her miserable situation.

When it seemed like the only option, I packed up her things and took her to a mental hospital. Letting my mother eat, bathe, and everything in between became too much for me. She never slept and making her take her meds was like running the gauntlet. I was constantly subjected to rampant tirades. She kept arguing about anything and everything and at night it all got worse.

Sometimes she even tried to kick me out of my own house, and the doctor stopped answering my calls. She needed more help than I was able to provide. It seemed like my mother was always stuck in a bad acid trip. I tried my best to comfort her, but it didn't help and only made things worse.

I had hoped that she would get better in the hospital, but it got worse there too. Her delusions continued.

When I went to visit her after a few days, I found her with a face red with anger. A nurse was yelling at her that she was bonkers. She screamed that my mother was absolutely crazy. I tried to calm my mother down but she wouldn’t let me near her. A few days later, the caretaker of that facility called to tell me that my mother had tried to escape and that they had transferred her to another hospital.

She had contracted a bladder infection, and that didn't make things any easier. I've spent so much time researching everything to do with my mother's symptoms, and what I've learned is that as we get older, our brains become less and less able to cope.

All the other patients on my mother's hospital wing were somehow confused. The nursing staff told me it was normal and they were all terminally ill.

Because my mom lived in the hospital, the bills piled up, and I couldn't keep up with them. I didn't have the money for it. I learned that the best solution for people with delirium is to put them back in a familiar environment, where they can move around in a world that is a little less confusing. So I decided to give it another try at home.

My mother cheered up a bit. Unfortunately, what I didn't know at the time was that the drugs that were administered to her and helped her would only make it worse in the end.

After a few "good" weeks, mom decided she didn't need any more medication. She stopped taking them and became manic and uncontrollable. I had never seen her that bad. I was no longer allowed to close the doors in the house, even the front door and the refrigerator had to be left open all the time.

The more manic she became, the more disillusions she expressed. Some revelations were beautiful, others terrifying. Then she would withdraw, lethargic and apathetic, staring blankly into space for hours on end.

Mom destroyed her whole house. She put everything in garbage bags and decided she did not need anything anymore. She refused to eat or drink and stopped showering. When she managed to get out, she would wander the neighborhood and become violent toward people who tried to help her. Sometimes the police took her home or brought her to the hospital.

She often locked herself in the bedroom and hid under her bed, yelling that I put her in a prison She kept trying to escape. It became clear that I had to look into long-term full-time care.

Mom became increasingly frustrated and deceitful. She gave me long shopping lists with lots of alcohol on them. Over and over she decided she didn't need any medication. She started telling her doctors that I was abusing her. She stabbed herself with needles or whatever sharp objects she could get her hands on. Then she said I did it. She also called the police once to say that I had tied her to the heating pipes. She called the emergency services endless times to tell them that I had installed spyware everywhere.

I tried to make peace with the fact that she might never "come back". She only got worse, but I did not have the money to pay $400 a day for the hospital. Her paranoia prevented her from getting proper care, and I was unable to take good care of her and protect her from herself.

When I started writing this story, I had no idea where my mother was. I knew she was drinking and that she was hiding somewhere.

Once, when she went to buy a bottle of vodka, she was convinced that the liquor store manager had a crush on her. She started stalking him and was eventually arrested. She spent her seventy-fifth birthday in jail, telling her lawyer that I ordered the guards to come to beat her in her cell at night.

She was released. When she got into my car, she said she wished she could disappear. And she did: she disappeared from my life.

I applied for conservatorship. For the next few months, I paid until I was blue in the face, for lawyers to convince a judge that I should manage my mother's finances.

I lost. Believe it or not, the judge decided she was fit to live her own life.

I still have no idea where my mother is. I hope she is safe...