Getting help for someone mentally ill
I'd met Liza online 6 years ago, in a group forum. We became friends online, and with my moral support, she was able to get out of a 15 yr abusive relationship. When she left her ex, she'd moved into a women's shelter in GA. While in the shelter, she met another man through a dating site, which turned out to be a scammer and used her to move items bought with stolen credit cards.
Liza remained almost 2 years in shelters for domestic violence, when she'd finally gotten a job as a nanny in our state. I was overjoyed that she would be moving so close to us, and that I would finally get to meet her in person. After a week at that live in job, she surmised that the father of the children was a polygamist. She'd called me, frantic, asking what to do because she did not feel she could safely leave. I advised her to call the police and tell them what she'd told me. She did, and they escorted her to a bus stop away from the house, where I'd driven to pick her up.
The plan originally was that she would spend the weekend with us, then on Sunday evening, I would take her to the local shelter, which I'd already contacted. Sunday evening came, and my husband and I just didn't have the heart to take her to yet another shelter, so we agreed she could stay with us until she was on her feet.
I tried to get her to apply for jobs, but she always had an excuse not to. Thinking she was penniless, both myself and my 16 yr old daughter bought her new clothes. We found out later that she had $80 on her.
I got her a job at a hotel that I'd just begun managing, as a front desk clerk. It soon became very apparent that she could not even handle a simple task such as that. She repeatedly makes mistakes, "forgets" how to do the most basic of things, and calls me constantly for advice on how to do mundane tasks. The owners have wanted me to fire her, but I fought to let her keep her job and only use her on slow days.
During all this, my family and I have hit some finanacial stress in which we are struggling to keep our electricity on, find our next meal, get my daughter the glasses she so desperately needs, etc...
Knowing our financial situation, when Liza got her first check she went and bought herself a new iPhone! No offers to help with even gas for my car for taking her back and forth to work, much less anything else! All she does is sit on the couch, talking online to various men she meets on dating sites.
She does nothing to help around the house, offers to pay nothing, and makes a mess.
Recently, my husband and I had to go out of town for a funeral. Liza was scheduled to work, so I left her my car. My son called me late at night our first night away, and told me Liza hadn't come home in my car yet. After 3 hours of trying to contact her, I finally got through. The car had run out of gas, and she was lost. After about 15 minutes of trying to get a straight answer of where she might be, she finally tells me the police were there with her. I had her put the officer on the phone and found out she'd gone 40 miles in the opposite direction to get home, had run out of gas and put oil in my car (thinking that was the problem), and my car was sitting in the middle of the road with a dead battery and no lights at night! The officer agreed to bring her home, and I would send my son the next day to retrieve my car.
When my son went to see if he could fix my car, he found she'd put oil in the power steering pump! He spent $40 of his own money to fix the car and get it home. Liza texted me the following day, apologizing, and saying she'd pay for any damages.
A week later, my son needed that money for gas to go to work. I asked Liza if she had the $40 for him, since he had to use his own money to fix my car. She gave me the $40, saying 'don't worry about repaying me!'
To this date, she still does nothing to help out. She gripes about any shift I've given her to work at the hotel, even though I am the one that has to get up at 5:30am on my day off to drive her there and pick her up. She doesn't offer to pay for ANYTHING. She'll only eat dinner if I fix her plate for her. She doesn't clean up after herself. All she does is sit on the couch, playing on her phone- CONSTANTLY!
I feel bad for her in a way, because there is definitely something not right with her, mentally. Even the simplest, written instructions, she cannot comprehend. When you try to explain something to her, she cuts you off with, "Ok, ok...I've got it" and continues to do things wrong, immediately. At first, I thought it was because of the years of abuse that made her the way she is. I'm thinking now, though, that maybe this is just normal for her. She strikes me as being possibly borderline autistic or something. The officer the night she'd gotten lost even asked me, 'Ma'amm, is this typical behavior for her?'because of how she was acting. She gets frustrated and easily comes undone over any small thing.
Our problem is that we need her to become independent and work towards getting on her feet, of which she seems to have no intent. We don't want to put her out in the cold, nor do we want to be mean and hurt her feelings. Not-so-subtle hints do not work... she simply doesn't get it. Any flat out request is either deflected by her trying to change the subject, or (if monetary) she tells us we don't have to worry about paying her back.. like it's a loan! (And that's if she even thinks she should give us anything at all.)
I'm planning on taking her to the housing authority and food stamp office on my next day off. Other than that, how would we approach the subject of her getting out on her own, with tough love but without being hurtful? We're between a rock and a hard place, here!
(By the way, she's not a young girl.. she is 53 years old!)