Closure?

Maybe it’s because I have made a decision about the future, or being close to the end of the financial year, but I feel like I have left a lot of nastiness behind me and feel like my old self again. At least psychologically. Could this be what some call closure?

Looking back, I realised that there were a few days of complete shock when the GP and Social Worker rang and made accusations that made absolute no sense to me. I was to be investigated as they felt I was putting mum’s wellbeing in danger (she was already unconscious by this time), and there was one meeting. There had to be, by law. After that, the investigation ended and I received apologies from the Social Services department and the Trust who are responsible for the district nurses. Indeed, the social workers recognised that there had been no abuse on my part.

After that, still stunned by the accusations and baffled where they had come from, I obtained all relevant records and talked to various people involved. For nearly two years, I wondered why a small number of individuals had made up lies about me, and why. It took various therapists to work out that I had been a victim of gaslighting and narcissistic abuse. Until then, I’d heard of neither.

Some of the claims made me feel sick while reading them, but that was all part of the narcissists campaign. They make you appear mad, bad and dangerous to know. I was also baffled by the experts who are supposed to be experienced in this area but read some of the accusations and didn’t recognise them as totally unrealistic. For example, the lead of the District Nurses who attended the Safeguarding meeting claimed that I had rung for an ambulance during the evening after my mother had had an enema and persuaded 999 to come, assess her and have her admitted to hospital. If only I had that influence! In the real world, having an enema is neither an accident nor emergency and 999’s call handler would have pointed that out in no uncertain terms. The lead nurse also admitted later that she had not fact checked anything and that she didn’t know if anything was true. Indeed, it was possible that what she had said had been wrongly transcribed and that the two social workers involved with the enquiry had not noticed that she had said something totally different from what was quoted in the minutes.

I also learnt something else. Whenever I asked people how I had put pressure on a carer to give mum Oramorph, no one I talked to had an answer. I now know that this is a major sign that people are lying. The lack of detail. There was one clue. Apparently, I had threatened to give mum the drug if the carer didn’t, and she was afraid I’d give the wrong dose. This all happened at around 4 am and I had no access to the drug as it had been hidden and the key I needed was in the safe box whose code they had changed. So even if I had threatened to give the drug, the carer would have had a lot of time to laugh while I hunted for the drug. Had I been her and she had threatened me, I’d have told her to go ahead. Hours of fun in the dark.

There are no records that she felt that mum was in danger and she actually gave mum the drug. She certainly didn’t while I was with her. Had I been serious, wouldn’t I have stayed to see mum had the Oramorph? And as noted above, there are no records she gave mum Oromorph at any time. So I was allegedly messing with mum’s medication. Well, I have already admitted to giving mum a paracetamol once, as she was crying with pain and that is when I told the two carers who just stood and watched that if they didn’t give mum something, then I would. I crushed a tablet, added water, and left it at that. One paracetamol.

As for the suggestions that I was the great boss and instructed them how much to give and when, that related to lactulose and I just passed on what the GP advised. In short, there was a safeguarding enquiry about me putting mum in danger by giving her half the prescribed dose of paracetamol and informing the carers how much lactulose to give after she had recovered from a gastric upset. What a waste of everyone’s time and money. But while the enablers gossiped behind my back, and the narcissist broke the law (it was he who overruled the GP’s instruction re the administration of a controlled drug – I was there), mum was left in pain. The carers who were not involved with the nonsense recorded her suffering in their notes. They gave her five doses between 2nd 16th May. I had witnessed the pain, a district nurse had, and the agency carers had. One day, I tried to get mum help, but came up against two highly unprofessional district nurses. I flagged up their attitude and after that, their records began including information about me, most straight from the narcissist’s handbook.

Thinking back, you can smile at the distorted view of me which the wicked passed on. For instance, that I was in charge of everything. In reality, I left the carers alone as I didn’t want them to feel that I was constantly checking up on what they did. As for my alleged madness, ie the gaslighting, all knew I was the sibling paying for mum’s care. That is not what uncaring people who want to harm their relatives do. The man from the Trust thanked me, as I had saved the NHS a lot of money. However, that was not a motive. I wanted mum to be at home and have a good death. I failed as regards the latter, but that’s only because I had no idea what was going on behind my back.

Notably, none of the records included evidence. I don’t have the email sent on or around the 12th May to Social Services, but as everything I did see was fabricated and reliant on hearsay/gossip, I imagine that the email was more of the same. Beautifully written.

So there were a few days of complete shock that dominated my life just before and after my mum’s death, but no evidence from records, cctv, the residue left in the bottle etc. Getting the records and trying to make sense of it all took much more time. Plus the threats. And finding out that sibling had ‘fired’ my carer hough I only discovered that on the day before the funeral. On the positive side, the coroner recognised what had happened and was on my side when the GP wanted a tox screen or whatever. Lastly, I now know a lot about gaslighting. If anyone says anything that makes me sound psychologically unsound, I ask them if they are aware they are gaslighting me. They invariably say that they had no idea and apologise.

A few more thoughts. For more than two years, I found it hard to accept that any decent human being would do what sibling and co did to me. One session, my therapist asked what the narcissist would have gained from any conviction. Initially, I had no idea. So she phrased it differently. How much had I gained from mum’s death? I told her. Then she said “double it.” No, I still didn’t get it. She had to spell it out. I learnt that a conviction would have resulted in the loss of my part of the inheritance which then might have gone to my sibling. I still find that hard to accept as a motive. He was/is a wealthy man. Still, he had started to gaslight me six years earlier and had put mum’s health in danger for several years by refusing to wash his hands before touching her tablet or muffin. He never came when he had a cold, but he was a Cambridge PhD so not stupid. Did he really not know that pathogens don’t stay in the air for long and land on surfaces. If you don’t wash your hands, you pick them up from trolleys, light switches, door handles etc. And then you contaminate other people’s things, unless you wash your hands. That’s not OCD. That’s science.

He often came to see mum after he had been shopping. I pointed out the issue of transmission of pathogens that can and do kill the elderly, but he clearly wasn’t bothered. Or was he aiming to make her ill and shorten her life. After the third infection, when she was no longer able to get up the stairs and sleep in her bed, I flagged the behaviour up with a doctor at the hospital where they tried to rehabilitate mum. After that, he and his wife went straight to the toilet to wash their hands. And they would have realised that if indeed, they had dubious motives, that I was in the way. My only other response to his odd behaviour was to write him a letter in which I addressed the hard time he had had in his youth, as an understanding psychologist does, but narcissists typically don’t respond to empathy. And so he continued to gaslight. And more.

So that sums up the journey. I am sad that I lost my family, (the only thing you can do to protect yourself against narcissistic abuse is going ‘no contact’. With them, and those likely to pass on information). I’ve not seen my grand niece. I never will. Other niece swallowed her father’s story, was angry at me when I came round and offered her mum’s pearls and gold jewellery, basically because in her eyes, I had badmouthed her dad. That didn’t stop her asking me for her £25000 inheritance though. (It later came from the estate). I could have gone to court to challenge it all but I see my nieces as victims too. Recently, I’ve felt disappointed that these exceptional people never asked their father for evidence, like the email with the ‘evidence’, and that they were happy to base their views on one person’s story. The abuser’s, not the abused. I had thought they would have been more unhappy about the conflict and if I had been in their shoes, I might have tried to mediate. Families are important. They probably don’t agree.

The deterioration in my health came after two years. A coincidence? Still, I’m back to being the person I aimed to be. Dependable. Trustworthy. Jolly. I’ve been ill since childhood but had the resilience to complete school and obtain a PhD. I walked oddly throughout my life and often felt ill but survived the psychologisation, sexism and medical abuse by the people who ignored the abnormalities on the brain scans etc.

So this chapter of my life ends or that is what it feels like. Dealing with the leukodystrophy would have been easier with support from family but alas. It’s not to be.

I am currently planning my future. All I need now is a fab PA. I shall miss Teddington but I hope to meet super people in my new abode. As mum kept telling me: ‘keep going for you never know what’s around the corner’. Yes, I do mum. A lot of paperwork. And taxes.