Sorry amandalouise, we must have been posting at the same time, so I did not see your post until just now.

Actually, I did call Adult Protective Services at one point. I did not give them my name or the name of my parents, I just wanted to find out what I could do because I was concerned about what was going on and I felt my parents were getting to the point where they needed more help then they were getting. They did not tell me anything that you have posted. If they had I may have gone further, but I was afraid their involvement might make things worse because my sister had been so controlling and angry and all I knew is she was the one that had all the power, more power than even my parents realized they gave her.

My sister's behaviors were getting erratic and mean towards me and actually even towards my parents and I was getting extremely triggered and it's very hard to contribute when someone is so controlling like that and flies off the handle in anger, even rage the way my sister did when I just happened to be there and witnessed my mother have a stroke. Had I left just a few minutes earlier I would have never seen her have that stroke. And, the good thing about witnessing that and getting her to the ER where they did a cat-scan on my mother is they saw damage she had had from an earlier stroke that they did not know was there and this damage was in the area where my mother physically navigates from which contributed to her being off balance and struggling to get around, something my sister was impatient with tbh.

From the moment I moved my mother when she was put in that room with that Hispanic woman at the rehabilitation facility who's family came in and were so loud and using the private bathroom in the room and I could see how that was scaring my mother and that is the last thing she needed because she was still so confused and genuinely struggling with the after affects of the anesthesia and really needed and deserved to have "quiet" and feel safe I crossed a line. You can't do that with my sister, she is convinced HER WAY is always right. Her idea was "this will be good, this will stimulate mother" WRONG, the last thing you do when someone is clearly experiencing trauma from a big surgery and struggling with the affects of the anesthesia where they are clearly showing confusion and stress is to put them somewhere that isn't quiet and restful where they can slowly get their barrings mentally.

What am sharing happened in 2009. My sister and her daughter took over handing the doctors and my father let them take over. When I questioned decisions all that did was make my sister angry and exclude me from even talking to the doctors. That is when my sister also decided to go against the surgeons directions of NOT making the mistake of having my mother see a psychiatrist to evaluate her because she would be misdiagnosed and what she really needed was time to slowly overcome the affects of the anesthesia. My sister did not listen and went ahead and did that anyway and that resulted in my mother being put on Rameron AD and adding more chemicals to her brain to which she responded with complaining of feeling sick to her stomach and not wanting to eat, and I know exactly what she was experiencing because that is the affect Rameron had on me and I just could not take it.

I was already struggling with PTSD myself and struggling with how I needed help and could not afford it as all the damage my neighbor's dog did put me in huge debt and compromised my ability to have what I needed to generate income to handle all the huge debt and cover normal expenses. Every specialist I found on the net was so expensive there was no way I could afford it, some were as much as $300 for each hour session. I tried to handle the growing dysfunction and what I felt were bad choices being made (through my own research I was right that yes bad decisions were being made).

The way my sister handled my mother impeded not only her recovery, but her desire to recover. Somewhere in all that mess my mother had a stroke that caused some damage to her ability to her moter skill part of her brain. I know that you have to be VERY careful about giving the elderly antidepressants because antidepressants can cause a stroke. Could have even happened during or after her back surgery too.

That one day that I stopped to visit my mother and saw her completely change once my sister and my father left the house, actually shocked me.
I watched her go from acting very disabled to dropping her cane and hopping along and very mobile in front of me. I never MADE her do anything, I never ORDERED her around, she was SAFE to be herself with me.

Honestly, I did not know what to do about that. I could not tell my sister or my father because all they would do is begin being hard on her and they ALREADY were being hard on her and her answer to that was withdraw even more. Also, what my mother did not want was to have to go right back to cooking three meals every day for my father and trying to clean the house. That could have been handled so differently where she could have been assured that she would get help and not have to return to all of that which she was getting too old to handle anyway being in her eighties.

That was a HUGE trigger for me in that after a while of witnessing how hard my sister was on my mother, my mother calling me in tears and saying, "she is so MEAN AND BOSSY", and trying to comfort her and knowing if I said anything the abuse would just get worse, is what triggered me to begin experiencing flashbacks from my childhood.

What confused me is that a lot of the flashbacks were of my older brother. What I did not realize at the time, and I had no help to realize was that the reason I was having these flashbacks that disabled me so much was because that is how I protected my older brother who was being badly abused for something he could not help (he had learning disabilities ADHD and I believe dyslexia). I did not "tell" because I had felt that if I did he would only be MORE abused. Also, my sister exhibited the SAME kind of anger and bossiness. I was always kind to my older brother but I could not play with him and be nice to him in front of my sister who ALWAYS hated him and threatened me she would be mean to me if she caught me being nice to him.

I got so I could not even be around my sister, not even hear her voice without being severely triggered and crippled, pretty much ending up being a ball in my bed. I FEEL TERRIBLE about this because this made it so much harder to be THERE for my mother more. What contributed to these triggers becoming so severe is how my sister RAGED at me in the ER in front of everyone blaming my mother's stroke on me.

The more I avoided the angrier my sister got with me too. The holidays were the worst because I could not go along with how my sister ruled the holidays. I could not go to her house or be around her. While I am sharing all this now like this, I did not understand WHY I would end up so crippled or why I was having these flashbacks back then the way I am FINALLY understanding it all now. It's VERY HARD to explain to people why you can't JUST IGNORE your sister and push your way past her etc. It's hard to explain and even understand one's self how what you are REALLY afraid of is getting overcome by a flashback and being crippled and confused for a few days where you can't even function and don't know why this is happening to you.

When I called Adult Protective Services, they did not say any of what you stated in your post amadalouise, and what you stated was really what I needed, a presence that could see the situation from the outside, and assign an individual to independently evaluate and HELP guide in a healthier way rather than what had been getting to a point where my parents were not doing well on their own because their house was getting dirty, it stunk to high heaven, and god only knows how long rotting food was in their refrigerator because that stunk to high heaven as well.

I got to talk to my older brother who himself had been on a major mend because his health had been so bad he had almost died twice in one year. The last time he was even given his last rights because he was bleeding internally and they could not find "where" and what he had and the condition he was in his survival rate was slim. I tried to call him and left several messages and he never answered. Then one day he called me and told me he was sorry but he had blocked me because my sister was harassing him and he had to block her and he had thought that she had tried to bypass that by calling him from my home. She never came here and I had told him that I had not been getting along with her and was at a loss. That is when he got to understand what was going on and he asked if we could meet at my parents house as he was finally well enough and was planning on visiting them to see how they were doing.

I had tried to get my sister to have a meeting where we could all sit down with a lawyer and my parents so that we could all ask questions, understand their finances, what they needed and what my father had set up as far as who he wanted to have the control. My sister would NOT HAVE IT, and instead continued to be controlling and secretive and even trying to tell my parents that what we wanted was their money.

So my brother and I planned to meet at my parents house. I had not seen my brother in 20 years as he lived in a different state and he pretty much went his own way, which honestly was best for him considering what he went through in his past. I have to be honest, I was nervous in that I had no idea if seeing him again would trigger me and the last thing I wanted was some flashback to pop up out of the depths of my mind somewhere hidden in front of him or my parents. He got there before me and when I walked in the door was open and a lot of the windows were open because the house stunk so bad. I had been under the impression my sister was having someone help with that, she did talk about it, but I could see that was not taken care of.

I did not trigger when I saw my brother, and we did try to talk to our parents about our concern and asked how things were set up and we were concerned about what he did set up that he may not realize might not be good. Then my sister came in and next thing I knew the two of them (my sister and my brother) were standing in front of each other with ANGER AND HATE and THAT TRIGGERED ME, because that is how it was when they were children too. My sister literally hated him from the moment he came home as a baby.

My brother told me that he was going to call Adult Services. I did not know if he was actually going to do that or was just so angry he threatened it. I am thinking that maybe he did and that maybe someone did visit. But what happened after that was that my sister got VERY ANGRY and went into full control mode. She had the door locked, put up signs saying the house was under video surveillance, put a sign on the door saying NO VISITORS and that the door would only be open by appointment. And she got even more secretive.

I do not know if someone visited and caught her off guard and advised her in any way. What I do know is that she held true to the words she had said so many years ago where if I played or befriended my older brother she would be mean and not play with me. She got very vigilant over my parents instructing them to never answer the door if she is not there and began bringing them to her house on the weekends so she could always have them under HER CONTROL. She convinced my parents that she is the victim and their other two children are the bad ones in the picture only caring about their money. She drew up a letter threatening that if me or my brother interfered in any way that we would be disinherited and got my parents to sign it and sent it certified mail.

So, my guess is that my brother was not just threatening in anger and that he did actually call Adult Services, and my fear of that making things worse actually came to fruition.

I am at the point where YES, just making a simple phone call to wish my father a happy birthday can be a bad experience for me. That I want to tell him that there is a reason he is not seeing me, because it's CLEAR I am not welcome, but that I love him and I miss him every day. Yet, now they have no way of changing things, because they are at the point where they have become very dependent. My sister has hired help where she has people come to her home to help with my parents when it comes to getting them up, getting them in a program where they move around and these people also bathe them. My sister does keep her own house clean. I saw that when I did get up the courage one day to actually stop and visit my parents while my sister paced back and forth in the back ground, she also times the calls too.

My brother did finally call her and she had mentioned that she was thinking about having my father declared incompetent and would my brother have a problem with her gaining complete conservator-ship over their entire estate etc. My brother replied that he would prefer a third party do that to which my sister emailed him back saying my father was in good health and was calling all the shots. Truth is, she figured out that was the only way she could maintain the control level that she has had.

I did not want my father thinking that he doesn't see me because I don't care about him and love him. The last time I physically saw them was this past time my mother fell and broke her wrist and went to the hospital (my sister did not tell me about it or call me until my mother was moved to the rehabilitation facility). The last time I got to see my father, I wanted to finally give him last years Christmas present I had in my car just in case I see him. When my sister wheeled him in while I was visiting my mother alone with my mother, I tried to go out to my car and get his present only to have a major attack come over me and it was so bad I really thought I was having a massive heart attack. As I mentioned, all I could think of is that I better not have it right there and it would be better if I got to my car. I had to sit in my car in horrible pain with my entire body shaking and there was no way I could have gone back in that building to see my father much less give him his present. I had to think about how to get away and where is the nearest emergency room. As I mentioned, I should not have been driving in that condition. That attack was so unbelievable painful and I could not stop shaking either. So I really worry about even thinking of attempting to physically see my parents which would mean going to my sister's house which would be too triggering for me at this point.