Sound Off

Too early, again. Stress again. But this time it's not my stress. It is my elderly neighbor's. She is 85 and has been living alone for the last several months.

A few months ago, she got a restraining order against two certain people. But since then, she has continually tried to call these people, and gets extremely upset when they won't talk to her. We (me, my parents, her neighbor on the other side) have told her again and again these people cannot talk to her because of the restraining order and that she needs to stop calling them. She says, "I know." But she still continues to attempt to call them. And within the last week, she has attempted to call these people twice, late at night, and when they won't talk to her, she calls 911 to get the police to help her. Then the police call us to go over and check on her. And we've told her she cannot call 911. And last night the police came over as well and told her she cannot call 911. But I feel certain that she will do it again, simply because she continues to try to call the people in spite of the restraining order. This is getting entirely out of hand. And no one seems to be listening.

We have talked to her son who lives out of state, but he doesn't seem to get it, says he can't do anything because he can't get her declared incompetent. And for all purposes, she does seem to be in her right mind when you talk to her briefly. She knows what day it is. She is aware of what is going on around her. She even knows that she shouldn't be attempting to call these people, and that it's wrong to call 911 about it. But she still continues to do it.

We have told her social worker what's going on, and they haven't really acknowledged that she is making irrational decisions, they haven't responded to that in any way. (There is a bunch of legal stuff going on, and they are responding to that.)

I took her to her doctor yesterday in the hopes that her doctor could prescribe her some sort of anti-anxiety medication so that she will sleep at night instead of worrying about these people not talking to her and calling 911, but her doctor took one look at her legs (she has a major medical issue with her legs) and sent her to the hospital, didn't even take the time to listen to the fact that her anxiety is a problem as well. So I will try to call her doctor tomorrow, and let her know what is going on, hopefully Dr. will make sure she gets some sort of prescription before she leaves the hospital, or maybe even talk to her son and help him see that he needs to do something about this. Because we the neighbors are just about at the ends of our ropes, and there is nothing we can do to help take care of her anymore. She spends the entire day with one or the other of us, and still goes home at night and calls 911. It has to stop. This is beyond our responsibilities as caring neighbors.