My Mom Charlene has mostly lived alone, with a community around her. Most of us kids live in other states far away.
She ran her own Marriage & Family counseling practice in Normal Heights, San Diego, & was active in the community.
That all changed when she had a massive stroke and was forced to retire. initially, she recovered amazingly well and returned home.

When she was diagnosed with dementia, her Daughter moved in to take care of her. As a result of her stroke, Charlene was unable to manage her own emotions, so it was extremely easy to set her off, because her mind was still sharp and she could reason things out. Emotional abuse was her daughter's weapon of choice to get back at her after any arguement.

Then Dementia set in, and Charlene's daughter began to emotionally abuse her and siphon off her money for her own ends. The rest of the family was not aware any o this was happening because Charlene would not mention it when they called. During a visit, I was able to watch Charlene do quite well on her own, displaying none of the erratic fits of rage her daughter kept telling us about. Afterwards, there were reports of Charlene being picked up by police because she was wandering the streets

Fast forward another year, and multiple abuse complaints had been filed with APS that Sheri was abusing Charlene, during this time Charlene's dementia got worse and with it, Charlene's daughter's abuse of her likewise got worse.

After Charlene went to the ER with a minor complaint, nobody could find her Daughter, who refused to answer her phone. I was called by my Aunt, who was called by the Hospital, and I flew out to find out what was going on. Her Daughter was ignoring Charlene completely during the day and complained that the stress was too much. The family had been told a lie, that Charlene's daughter had a financial power of attorney to take care of Charlene. Charlene's daughter had gotten Charlene to put her name on her bank account and had begun years of siphoning off her money for her own use. at one point, Charlene would be wandering the streets and her daughter simply did not care and did nothing to keep Charlene safe. a few more citizen complaints were filed against her for abusing Charlene, & when Police picked Charlene up off the streets, Her daughter pretended to be someone else and lied to the police officers, until the officers realized who she was and released Charlene into her custody.

None of Charlene's other family members were made aware of any of this because her daughter took their phone numbers off all her information so doctors. Police & social workers had no way to contact us. Then her daughter moved out of Charlene's home completely and abandoned Charlene with occasional home health care visits, which stopped after her daughter stopped using Charlene's money to pay them.

Charlene had long term care insurance, which paid for home health care, but at some point Home health care workers refused to enter Charlene's house due to unsanitary conditions. Charlene lived in cat feces & urine, which soaked her bed and all her furniture, drapes and walls. Charlene often wandered, penniless and destitute, because her daughter stopped providing her food, and removed Charlene's access from her own bank account. Numerous times, Charlene was picked up by neighbors from wandering in the streets hungry and confused. Her neighbors were feeding her, the local restaurant waitresses were feeding her, even the mailman confronted Charlene's daughter and her daughters only response was "I don't care." The daughter kept going into Charlene's house collecting rent from Charlene's renters and paying the bills, all while Charlene continued to live in filth. Eventually, things came to a head when Charlene was picked up yelling at cars while walking out in traffic. The EMT's refused to release her back into her house because she had no food, and the house was unlivable. Finally Charlene's assigned APS Social worker called me from Charlene's phone and let me know what was happening. My wife & I made arrangements for her home to be professionally cleaned.

HHSA refused to prosecute, refused to take her daughter, the abuser off of Charlene's trust when Charlene's faculties eroded to the point where she could not make her own decisions. APS & the state fought every effort from Charlene's family to help her. we trie our best to get someone to file charges and get Charlene's affairs back into anyone's hands other than her abuser, but her abuser remains in control of Charlene and we have sacrificed everything in the fight to protect my mom, my home is in foreclosure and & we've run out of funds.

Hope is in short supply. and we're going to be forced to return Mom back to California because her daughter has all legal control, so after we rescued Mom from the hell her daughter put her in, fairly soon Charlene is going to have to go back where nobody cares, and she will quickly die in that situation.

We don't know where to turn!

Willing to witness to others, the dangers of dealing with abusers, the signs, your options etc...