Perfect question! I need to repot a huge 6" pot packed full about a month ago from WM.....also picked up a varigated rope in an 8" pot at the same time. I'm hopelessly hooked, no excuse. Karen

The situation has deteriorated now to the point that she cannot manage herself. A month ago she called her cousin, complaining of urinary burning. Granny got upset with the cousin when she called my mother. Mom took her to a new doctor (the regular was out of the office), who immediately saw the situation. Mom kept her at their home for two weeks, got the infection cleared and granny in better condition with proper meals. It was an ordeal. She has lost all concept of time, after one night she insisted she had been there for days. Now we have a "sitter" coming Mon-Fri morning to make sure morning meds are taken properly, breakfast, lunch, and prepare an afternoon snack and a supper plate. I stop by at 1:30 PM to confer and check what business I may need to handle, the sitter leaves and I stay for an hour or two. I call to check that she ate the snack, then again on the supper plate. I go there 2 hrs after supper to check her glucose level and get a bedtime snack. Occasionally it works. More typically it does not. I'll call, she'll tell me she ate the snack, or had the supper. When I get there, I find the supper plate untouched. One evening she hid it in the crisper drawer, I didn't see it, reasonably thought she had supper. The sitter found it the next day. Today the sitter couldn't come, was down with a virus. So I went at 8:30 AM (which is tricky when I go to bed at 4 AM after working a night job). The morning went reasonably well. I left her alone for a couple hrs to make lunch at my house (I live about just up the road). Called to remind her I'm bringing lunch in a few mins, she had already gotten into something else, but couldn't tell me what on the phone. I told her not to eat it, leave it out so I can see what it was. I got there, nothing to be found, she claimed it was a snack cup of gelatin/peaches. We got through that OK, she ate the lunch. I prepared an afternoon snack, and a supper plate (same thing as was the lunch, small salad, one chicken tender, about 1/2 cup green beans). I called at 3:40 to check on the snack, no answer. I figured she was doing a bit of yard work. Called again 30 mins later, she claims she had been napping (which she *should* have heard the phone) and had eaten the snack. I reminded her again to eat supper at the proper time so I can check her blood at 8 PM. I called at 6:40 to check. She said she ate the supper (Did you spray on salad dressing? Yes. How was the chicken? It was good.) When I get there to do the nightly blood check and bedtime snack, I found the supper plate, again untouched. She insisted she had eaten a chicken plate, that there were two in the refrigerator. Not possible. Only thing I can figure is she was remembering the LUNCH plate and confused it as having eaten supper. Unfortunately, she got upset, I got upset, and it was a bad scene. I should have GONE there to check on supper, not just called. Her glucose level was low, 89. She refused to have an evening snack, stating that she'd rather die. Crying and absolutely unreasonable. Jump the lake (her term for suicide), throw all the pills away. I left. The sitter is not coming again today, doesn't want to take a chance with the virus. I told granny she'll have to come to my house for the afternoon so I can "make sure she follows the schedule." She said nobody is taking her out of her house. I asked her if I should come or not. She answered that she isn't forcing me to come there. I tried leaving her be last weekend, after a blow-up on Friday evening. The sitter had meals prepared for lunch & supper on Sat & Sun. She called me Sun morn, sobbing that I'm mad at her since I hadn't been there. She had eaten three of the plates, who knows what else and on what schedule. Her glucose was wonky, she was confused on numerous points and details. I'm ashamed to say that I'm at the point that I feel it'd be better if she'd die. Nobody is getting any benefit from the efforts we're putting out. She's resisting with all her might, we're fighting back, and everybody is exhausted. It has been suggested to let her do and eat what she wants. Sounds easy, but the "end" isn't guaranteed so graceful and grand as she believes it'll be. What happens when she has another stroke that results in paralysis or blindness or a complete vegetative state? Who'll take care of her then?

Referring back to the original post, I do think that what tholbrook's SD did ---lying to authorities about her Dad & SM in a potentially very damaging way--- was terrible. It absolutely must be made clear to her that such behavior is unacceptable and that there will be serious consequences when it happens. But I think where you're hearing some divide is over what exactly those consequences should be. Some think it means SD should be banished from the house forever. I and a few others disagree with that. At least at this point. Yes, what SD did was extreme... but it must be properly understood and dealt with for what it was. Everyone on this board I think can more or less agree that she did it for negative attention. Some see that in itself as an offense, the needing of attention. Others see it as a call for help or some other means of resolving the situation. Here's what I think could be appropriate consequences for what she did: -make her write a formal apology letter to the authorities, admitting she lied and apologizing for wasting their time. (If she lies again to them in the future, have her next apology published in the local newspaper.) -make her volunteer every single weekend in a battered women's shelter for a while so she sees what abuse actually looks like and that it's not a thing to lie about. make her tell the employees at the shelter why she's there volunteering so they can help educate her. -make her do her own documentation every day that abuse is not taking place. have her photograph her arms, legs, face and neck every day with the absence of bruises and maintain a folder on the computer with these photos. have her conduct her own daily search of the house, corner to corner and write down every detail in a notebook. -buy her a big fat textbook on abuse and neglect and have her read it cover to cover and quiz her on it. Make the questions as picky as you wish. Until she gets 100% answers correct she will have to re-read the book and be re-quizzed on it every week. -make her go to counseling. make her keep a journal about what she's learning about herself and her feelings and why she felt a need to lie. Don't read it, but set aside an alloted hour each week that she is to do nothing else but write in her journal. You can sit on one side of a big room like the living room while she sits and writes on the other side, or in an adjoining dining room or whatever (so you're not on top of her but you can see if she's writing or not.) Whatever she wants, as long as she's writing something. even if it's total vitriol about you, it will at least be venting and purging it out of her. Then, later she can look at it and see how much anger she has inside and how upset it's making HER as well. -in the meantime, continue to treat her as you had in the past, without making any to-do or guilt trip over it, so that she can see how good she has it and how much of a hassle she caused for herself by lying about mistreatment. Teens will and do lie. Teens do crave attention. Many teens go through phases where they feel as though they absolutely despise their parents, even in the best of situations. Again, what tholbrook's SD did was beyond what the "average" teen might do. If I was in tholbrook's shoes, I'd be livid and deeply hurt myself. But again, the question is what truly is the most appropriate and effective way of dealing with what has been done. In my opinion, simply washing hands of her and shipping her off somewhere else is not going to solve the problem. And even if the thinking is it will at least get her out of your own hair, there is no guarantee that she won't continue to slander you from afar. I won't debate whether some people truly are just bad to the bone... I'm sure some are. (Hitler comes to mind.) But with a minor especially, it's more often the case that such extremes of behavior like this sort of lie is coming from a place of extreme fear, pain, desperation or emptiness. It may not even have anything to do with her parents, but something in her life is causing her to feel that such a lie was the only way to get some need of hers met. If you can try to see beyond your own hurt to see that and address it with SD, you may be able to have a positive impact on who she becomes as an adult, because she is very much still being formed... Basically she just needs to be shown that lying is no way to deal with your problems, and that there are consequences as well as alternatives. On the other hand, if OVER TIME and DESPITE YOUR BEST EFFORTS to talk to her and despite all warnings you give her of a specific appropriate consequence of her doing such a thing again she continues to do it, at that point the idea of switching houses might be in order. But it should be an absolutely last resort, and I think at least her dad (if not you too) should try and maintain some amount of neutral contact with her throughout.

Someone asked on a different thread how it's going. I don't want to hijack the other thread, but it's been WONDERFUL!!! My days are so much less stressful & DH is now spending his evenings in a bad mood, trying to learn 6th grade math (at least the lessons SD is being assigned)~She lied about turning in an assignment & when he told her to redo it to humor him since online shows a zero, she wrote a bunch of math answers on the page & handed it to him, knowing he is not great at multiplying fractions ~ so he asked me to explain one word problem "If you give each cat 3/4 cup of food & you have 16 1/2 cups of food, how many cats can you feed?" SD said 2. so he knew that was wrong & I looked at the page & saw all the answers were wrong, she had written down anything that looked like a math answer & I guess she figured daddy isn't good with math so he won't check it... so he got out the text book & started learning the lesson so he can check it. I thought that was GREAT! and he's getting his mom involved by taking SD everyday during Thanksgiving week, while he's at work. (let her put her money where her mouth is since she has acted like I am just so evil to SD because I don't let her do anything or I won't buy her whatever she wants.... grandma gets to step up & taste it now) SD has to do remedial work for each failing grade. She failed every academic class, except social studies teacher bumped her to a D-, even though she had 54%. (I thought 54% was an F) but whatever, so the school requires her to do 'tutorials' online for each failed grade. MIL is going to have her do them from her house & he will drop her off on his way to work, pick her up on his way home. BM wanted to have her for the weekend to go cut their Christmas tree but DH told her no, she has to stay here to do school stuff because of her grades. I thought that was a great consequence... to miss out on something she really wanted to do since she just acts like she could care less when we take things away or don't do things with her. It's interesting to see DH realize just how much stuff I really did for her... a lot more than he thought! Even stuff like taking care of her bus fee. SD 'lost' the paper at the end of October. I asked her to get another one but she didn't so I didn't pay it. Finally the bus driver told her she had to pay to ride the bus & DH has to wait until he gets paid again to pay it... so he tells me that I am going to have to pick her up from school. NO I'M NOT, YOU HAVE TO. So then he says, well can you call the school & let them know I'll take care of it next week? NO, YOU CALL THE SCHOOL & TELL THEM YOURSELF. I think he's finally getting it... all the stuff I do, but get ignored by SD until she wants from me, lied about to her mom & grandma by SD to try & get me in 'trouble', the power struggle over homework, the daily lying about everything, the stealing... Now he knows why I am fed up & done. I was worried he would resent me putting it back in his lap but I think he's developed a better appreciation. SD on the other hand completely ignores me. She waits until I am giving the baby a bath to come out of her room & ask DH for anything. She does not talk to me at all. She comes to my office after work & sits there pretending to study when I am looking. (others have told me she grabs a book when she sees me coming) and she will talk to my dad when I leave the office for any reason. That part of dealing with her is still unpleasant but I've decided to ignore it & let it go. She doesn't have to talk to me & it really doesn't bother me too much anymore. It used to bother me a lot because I wanted us to have a relationship but she has made up her mind & now I wonder if she has ever really liked me from day 1. I think back to the manipulative things she's tried since the beginning & wonder if the times that we did get along were genuine or fake? But I don't spend too much time thinking about that anymore either. She's a product of her parents & I'm still very sad for her, but there is nothing I could have done to change what her mom puts her through & how she reacts to it. That's my update.