In my last blog, the first of this new year, titled No New Year’s Resolutions, I laid out the long and complicated series of events that my family has been dealing with, leading up to and after hiring a long time friend to work as my son’s primary aide.
I had written the blog hoping to be able to purge some of the feelings I was struggling with as a result of the poor way this individual had handled a change of schedule, wanting to vent my thoughts and feelings, so that I could put it behind me and move forward, so that I could help my son put it behind him and move forward.
This past weekend, it felt as if we might just have been finally getting over all the nonsense and drama. Then, one month to the day of my last electronic communication with this individual, I received an email from her that included her Doctor’s release to return to work attached to an email to me.
This email took on a very professional tone and started off saying that she hoped my family had a nice holiday season. In the letter, it mentioned that she’d appreciated the offer of the alternate position as back-up and would be interested in it, if her schedule at her other job allowed. She reminded me that I’d offered a letter of recommendation and that she’d still not received it.
To say I was stunned, would be an understatement. She had emphatically turned down the position repeatedly, including in writing. She’d forwarded the letter to the agency we work with, as well. They let me know that they believed this individual and I had worked everything out and we were keeping her on, based on this letter, obviously exactly the effect she’d intended.
I let the agency know nothing could be farther from the truth. She’d not spoken to me since Dec. 21 when we’d met and I spoke to her about my son not wanting to change staff people again. In fact, she and/or her daughter had set about telling people I’d fired her. I was told she’d taken the whole situation personally, though she’d said she respected my son’s decision. I was told she was very angry at me, which was evident by the meltdown she’d had in my home and later, in private messages, where she’d repeatedly said I’d devastated and gutted her.
I let the agency know that we had no intention of using her as a back up since she’d made it more than a little clear she didn’t want the position, and then had told people I’d fired her. I also told them my son was afraid of her, after her meltdown directed at him previously at the bus station and then the way she reacted here when I tried to talk to her. I also let the agency know that I would not be interested in writing a letter of recommendation for her, in light of her thinly veiled suggestion that I’d caused her to contemplate suicide. I could not, in good conscience, put another family in a position of having to deal with that sort of nonsense.
She’d painstakingly written a professional sounding letter, misrepresenting what she’d previously said and done, misrepresenting the way our relationship had been left, misrepresenting the lack of communication there had been for a month, misrepresenting how she’d characterized the outcome of our discussion of Dec. 21.
She’d done this previously, when notifying the agency she would be needing a medical leave. She’d misrepresented the hiring of the back-up aide, by indicating the only aide I could find was available only in the Summer time, telling them she’d moved all her doctor appointments up so that SHE could accommodate me, by having her surgery sooner, even though she’d told me when completing her new hire paperwork that she’d had an appointment for what would effectively be pre-surgery testing in March, offered to have the surgery in June, which is why I’d started looking for a back-up aide. I specifically looked for someone that could work for us from June forward, based on the timeline she’d provided for testing, surgery and rehab.
I have been blindsided by how manipulative and dishonest she’s been. I never knew her to be like this. The deceitfulness of her letter, revising history as she attempted to do, so as to make herself appear the victim who was graciously willing to continue working with my son, though her hours and pay grade had been reduced… AFTER that horribly irrational rant she’d delivered in my living room, and continued online, AFTER she and/or her daughter told everyone around her she’d been fired.
Looking back, she’s been manipulating this situation right from the start of our talks regarding the possibility of her taking this job. She’d made a lot of demands and put off key parts of the hiring process trying to dictate the time table we had to work with. She’d put off starting the volunteer application and orientation; put off getting training – wanting someone else to give up their holiday time to train her when it suited her; made demands regarding hours she had to work for it to be worth her while – not acknowledging that hours available were the maximum allowed, not required. She’s maligned my son, accusing him of purposefully trying/wanting to hurt her by making her late for work, blaming him for her inability to manage her time. Ultimately, she tried to manipulate the agency with this dishonest letter.
No more! I’m tired. I’m going to be 54 years old in a little more than a month. I can’t tolerate, nor do I have time or patience for people who wish to elevate themselves by manipulating, abusing, gaslighting others.
I want to be done with this. My son is happy with his current aide, she’s happy with him. He wanted her to stay on, she wanted to stay on, the other individual was continually stressed and complaining about different aspects of the position and actually thought my son would purposely do things to annoy her… so his decision was clearly the right one for everyone, whether she sees it at this point or not.
My family has to come first. I’m not responsible for anyone else’s life. I thought of her, hence offering her some hours to help offset her other employment, but apparently, she’d expected me to prioritize her and her needs over my son. Not going to happen.
Diary of an Emotional Wreck 