capacity declaration

a diary of my mother's stubborn resistance to accept help

12 March 2025:

I received a call from a friend of my mother’s. We will call her Lucy. Lucy just happened to stop by, a random visit, to my mother’s home. The doors were locked which is unusual for my mother, who we will call Ellen from now on because she just can’t do the ‘mother’ thing any more. Lucy pounded on the door. Ellen managed to crawl over, and when Lucy entered, she found Ellen on the floor, “in her own filth,” as the ER doctor later told me. Oh, and the gas was on. Lucy dialed 911 and followed the ambulance in her car, promising to keep us informed.

I spent much of the day finding foster care for Ellen’s dog. My husband found a carpet cleaner to head over STAT. We spoke to social workers, the ER doctor, more social workers, the hospital psychiatrist. It’s all so chilling. I vacillated between horror and relief. It was awful. She was safe. We’d only left Santa Cruz 72 hours ago! As one friend, a part of my support team, deadpanned “That was fast.”

I knew something horrible would happen, I just didn’t imagine it would involve poop. Poop makes everything so much worse.

During our month stay, Ellen failed to accept that she would be so much better off with home health aides, and/or moving to assisted living. When she finally called me at end of day, she said, “Well, I guess you heard from Lucy.”

“And the doctor, the social worker, the psychiatrist.” I recounted what I knew, including the bit about the gas being left on.

“That’s not true!” she said.

Again, recounted the entire scenario. “You’re not safe on your own. We must have action plans to move you.” I could feel my hands landing on my hips. My mother always called me bossy.

“Let’s not do this,” she hung up.

…

The psychiatrist spoke to me for forty minutes. She heard the history of Ellen’s suicide attempt when I was five, she heard the history of all we’ve been trying to accomplish on Ellen’s behalf. She heard about denial, distractions, demands. About neglect and trauma. All the stories. And then she said, “Natalie, have you talked to your therapist about your boundaries? About protecting yourself?” And then she said, “I do not recommend that you return to Santa Cruz right now.”

…

And then I learned that somehow in the midst of all this disaster, Ellen managed to rent the little front house on her property to a young family with an infant. Sometime in between our departure and the arrival of the ambulance, they moved in. I know nothing about their history, about payment, about their expectations. I don’t know their names. It is the baby part the makes me feel responsible. If my mother never returns home, which I feel would be the very best thing, this family will again have to move… and it feels so unnecessary. I don’t know, perhaps it is all the thwarted love and worry I have for Ellen that I’m just diverting to these anonymous people with a baby whose life she is affecting with her incapacity.

…

The social worker asked me if I have a Capacity Declaration from a doctor for Ellen, clarifying what she is and is not capable of. I do not. But I do have a capacity declaration for me.

Right now, I’m incapacitated.