Wednesday, June 7

Today I am grateful for:

Getting good sleep.

I talked for a while with Brother T, feeling out the idea of just calling some kind of authority about our sister, and he did not oppose it.

In general, the feeling I have gotten from family is that no one would be horribly angry at me if I did begin some kind of process towards dealing with our sister's hoarding.

I know that ALL OF US are burned out and tired of her pain, since most of it is self-inflicted.

The situation she is in right now is one she created, though it is a symptom of deeper issues. She is aware of that too, and has not sought out help, or made any real movement towards change.

At this time, she does not have water in her tank so she cannot do dishes in her sink, use the toilet, shower, or wash her clothes.

She washes her dishes in a pail using water she hauls from town in a jug. I am gathering that this just means that she tries not to cook or use many dishes at home, so she's likely not eating well.

She showers at our Sister N's, maybe does some laundry there, and uses all of the great outdoors as her toilet.

Yesterday she tried to casually mention that her cats are bringing her dead rats. She is trying to pass it off that the rats are "living in the empty houses around her place", but really. They are likely living on her property, and likely in her hoarded up garage.

So now it's rats. When it gets cold, the first thing that will happen is her trailer, being the only warm place in that whole town, will become absolutely over run with them.

She still doesn't want to leave. She WAS saying she was ready to leave, now she's saying she doesn't want to.

She calls me up, tells me how awful her life is over and over again, and how she wants to be somewhere else, moans about all her shit and how it's ruining her life, but then won't actually DO ANYTHING about leaving.

So, now I'm thinking of at least talking to the RCMP about doing a wellness check, and what kind of social services could be asked to intervene.

It's time. I can't watch her die this way, and I can't listen to her whining any more. No one else in our family, including her own children, have been able to get through to her. We can't help her anymore. If she won't help herself either, then maybe it's time for someone else to get involved.

I don't want to punish her, I just want her to be able to live somewhere...clean. To actually DO SOMETHING about her situation.

Moving on.

I went to see River, and he was SO tired from the heat. Truly, this spring has been scorching hot, and almost no rain. It's exhausting.

I hosed him down, which helps a lot. His poor pink nose was all burned. I do put a high SPF sunscreen on it every time I'm there, but I'm not there every day. It would be nice if R would do it too, but I know she's very busy.

We worked on the patterns for the upcoming show in our lesson, and refined things for the obstacle course. River did pretty well with everything, which is nice.

I let him graze again for quite a while in the yard, in places that don't get mowed. Their pasture is already pretty chewed down.

I came home and let everyone out into their pastures for a while.

I did some dishes, folded some clothes.

I learned a bit about New Sweden: "New Sweden (Swedish: Nya Sverige)[1] was a Swedish colony along the lower reaches of the Delaware River in what is now the United States from 1638 to 1655,[2] established during the Thirty Years' War when Sweden was a great military power. New Sweden formed part of the Swedish efforts to colonize the Americas. Settlements were established on both sides of the Delaware Valley in the region of Delaware, New Jersey, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, often in places where Swedish traders had been visiting since about 1610.[3] Fort Christina in Wilmington, Delaware, was the first settlement, named after the reigning Swedish monarch. The settlers were Swedes, Finns, and a number of Dutch. New Sweden was conquered by the Dutch Republic in 1655 during the Second Northern War and incorporated into the Dutch colony of New Netherland."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Sweden

Thursday, June 8

Today just sucked, really.

I personally am fine.

I spent a great deal of the day on the phone, talking to one group after another, all of whom simply referred me to someone else, or told me that it wasn't their job to help.

The RCMP in her area said it was not a police matter, and to talk to a mental health group. This is great, but I was hoping the RCMP could literally look at her property in terms of being a safety issue, thus a legal situation where she would be required to take steps to make it safe to live in, like getting water hauled in so she could use the toilet, or making it less dangerous to live in.

Nope.

There even is an actual hoarding specialist that would have been FREE for her to talk to, but that person was unable to do anything outside of the small city they are based in.

The local Fire Department was not interested in my concern about the house being a fire hazard, though I know in a city they DO care about that kind of thing.

The best I could do was to find Mental Health support for my sister, if she wants it, for free in a town not that far from her. She would have to want it, but it's there. She always talks about how she needs help with her issues, but I doubt she will call the number I gave her.

So, a whole day pretty much down the toilet.

My family is tired of hearing from me, and most of them don't even think this is that big a deal anymore, after all my sister has lived like this on and off her whole life.

I think the last couple of days has just been a tipping point for me. I've spent the last couple of months working with my Trainwreck sister trying to come up with a workable plan for her to leave that property.

She said she found someone to buy it as is, so she could just pack what she needed and move into a suite at the local lodge.

I really had hope for a while.

Then she said she just didn't want to do it.

So, there you have it. NO local authority wants anything to do with her situation, my sister doesn't want help, and no one in my family has a single fuck left either.

So, all I can do is to just disengage from all of this mess.

I don't know if that means not talking to TW any more, because sooner or later her woes will creep back into the conversation. She will start talking about her shit bothering her, how much she hates living in that trailer, the rats will likely move in soon, and on and on, and how can I talk to her and not feel some urge to "fix" things if she does that?

I did sign up for some counselling for myself today, through my husband's work program. At this point, I want to focus on how to disengage from my sister's issues, and how to stop feeling guilty for me being in a better place in life, thus ABLE to help her, but she doesn't want it. How to just let go.

It's going to be weird. TW is older than I am by 12 years, and her problems in life were already well established by the time I was old enough to be aware of them. Possibly my whole life our family has been worried about her, and trying to help her.

Our family used to help her move every year or so. Every time it was a hoarded up place, she would be evicted and we would all have to go help her move and clean it out.

She has always been on the verge of a crisis, and I guess I've been roped into that drama my whole life too.

I don't even know what it would be like not to be worried about her, or if not her, some other family member who is messed up.

It's kind of a way of life for us.

I would like to do something else now.