Alicia Witt is an actress, one you may not know by name but would likely recognize from many movie and TV roles. She’s been in Cybil, The Walking Dead, Justified, Vanilla Sky, and dozens of others. But in 2022 she made headlines not for her acting, singing, or writing, but because her parents were found dead in their home, having frozen to death due to a lack of heat. It seemed unfathomable that a successful and wealthy actress would have let her parents die in the cold, knowing she could afford to help their situation. Forced by public speculation and criticism to make a statement, Alicia explained it wasn’t that simple:
“I hadn’t been allowed inside my parents’ home for well over a decade; every time I offered to have something repaired for them, they refused to allow workers into their house. I begged, cried, tried to reason with them, tried to convince them to let me help them move — but every time, they became furious with me, telling me I had no right to tell them how to live their lives and that they had it all under control,” Witt wrote. “It was not for a lack of trying on my part, or the part of other people who loved them.
“I will never understand how or why they made the choice not to tell me this [about the lack of heat], not to let me help them with this. my heart is broken,” she wrote. “And even if i could have had a crystal ball and looked into the future — if i could have said to them ‘you are going to break my heart and the hearts of all who love you with a worst-case-scenario ending if you don’t let us help you’ — i still think they would have made the same choices. they weren’t willing to make different ones.”
News reports note that the home had been damaged by an ice storm over a decade prior and never properly prepared. Neighbors described the couple’s reclusiveness, noting that they would spend time with their daughter on her frequent visits, when she would send a car to pick them up. But they would not let her help them, nor would they, it seems, help themselves.
I can relate.
My parents’ home is about to collapse around them. The floor under the toilet in their bathroom is rotted and squishy; the kitchen sink is unusable due to unspecified issues with its plumbing. There are parts of their ceiling that have fallen in. Hardly anything is done in the way of upkeep, including cleaning. On my last visit, it was the worst I’ve ever seen.
I have offered to pay for repairs. I’ve volunteered my husband to help if my dad would prefer to do it himself. Over and over again, my father refuses. There’s always a reason, though they rarely make any sense. Can’t fix the sink plumbing until the septic tank is fixed, you see. What’s wrong with the septic? I don’t know exactly, but I know it collapsed in on itself – over 30 years ago. And I know that my father has had the money to repair it at least three times: when his aunt died and left him a little money, again when his mother died, and when his mother’s house was sold. It didn’t happen (and why the pipes under the sink can’t be replaced, or whatever, before that’s done, is a mystery.) Who knows where the money went; my guess is a lot of it purchased the camping, hunting, and outdoors equipment he buys from catalogues, which sits unopened in boxes throughout the house. He never actually goes anywhere or uses it.
But I digress.
They won’t let me help, is the point. And the house is barely livable. It is, in fact, unlivable to most normal people. And my dad, rather than fix it or let anyone else fix it, simply sits and watches TV while things get worse. I don’t know if it’s laziness, obstinance, or mental illness; whatever it is, it’s infuriating and sad.
As the “heat dome” settled over much of the country this week, my mom texted me that it was 92 degrees in their living room (the house has never had air conditioning.) I thought of Alicia Witt’s parents; it was the cold that got them, but it could just as easily have been heat. And now, my father was not eating because it was “too hot.” Then he was in bed, throwing up “from the heat.” Worried, I told my mother to make sure he was drinking plenty of water, and asked if my dad would consent to a window A/C unit, something I have suggested many times in the past but which he has never agreed to. He said he would, to my shock, and I immediately had one sent to their home from their closest Wal-Mart. And, under threat of me coming up there and putting it in myself, he actually installed it in their living room today. I was relieved.
At least for now. But what if their 40-year-old furnace goes out next winter? What does one do about elderly parents, still very much mentally and physically competent, who won’t take care of themselves or their home? Ms. Witt pondered this much as I have:
I struggle, as much as I helped, with what else could I have done — short of petitioning the court system for taking control of two otherwise very sharp, very independent, very capable adults… battling them the way I would have had to in order to do this truly felt like it would have destroyed them.
Like Alicia Witt, I don’t see legal recourse as a viable avenue to help. But my parents aren’t retired New England educators, like hers; my dad is a heavily armed redneck. There would be no peaceful removal of him from his home. And where would they even go? Certainly not to my home; none of us would survive that for long.
I feel guilty, sitting in my clean, structurally sound, comfortably air conditioned home, knowing my parents have been suffering. It is not as though I haven’t tried to help. But they are adults, and I am not their keeper. My only obligation to them is one I impose upon myself. That will be of little comfort if something happens to them due to their living conditions.
I’ll stay close, help where I am permitted to do so, and hope it’s enough. And vow that I will never put my children through this kind of thing.
Ugh, this sounds like a horrible situation.
It sounds like a haunted house. He remembers back when he went camping every three weeks. I’ll get back to it. I’ll get back to it. The ghost hovers just out of his vision. “Remember when we went to twin pines… we saw the milky way and drank whiskey by the fire and there was a shooting star.”
Buying camping gear is a way to remember that shooting star. That perfect moment 30 years ago that still haunts him.
You probably remember him 30 years ago and are always a little shocked when you see him. He’s shorter. He used to have Popeye forearms. The second you leave the house and get in the car suddenly he’s taller and his arms are back to the way they used to be.
That sucks.
I don’t know that we have a way to unhaunt ourselves.
I am not in your situation (yet) but constantly worry I might end up there, facing it alone due to both of my brothers living abroad. Thankfully they seem pretty willing and remain financially capable of paying for various things they used to do themselves, and have lately talked about downsizing to a place more suited to their age (not in a way that makes any real sense but at least the thought process is in motion). My grandmother is still with us, living independently and as well as I can imagine anyone at her age, but she may be the exception.
I know once I’m getting up there I’ll happily convert my life to something simpler, for my kids as much as for me.
Anyway I wish you the best of luck, do what you can, and try not to be consumed with guilt over an impossible situation.
I’ve warned my children to expect this from their mother. She’s determined to make bad choices.
I’m not sure what can be done about this. Maybe talk to a therapist? This seems like a mental health issue. That might help you cope.
It’s very hard dealing with self destructive relatives. The big thing is make sure they don’t bring you down too.
I agree it’s a mental health issue. I think my dad is depressed and self-loathing, like he subconsciously believes he doesn’t deserve to live in a nice or comfortable place. And there just seems to be some major executive dysfunction. Therapy to help me deal with it is an option; my dad wouldn’t go to a therapist if they paid him.
Therapy to help me deal with it is an option;
That exactly. If it bothers you (and it does), then you’re the one who needs help.
my dad wouldn’t go to a therapist if they paid him.
My ex is the same. She claims we’re the ones with the problem and she’s fine. She doesn’t want help. She does want enabling but I refuse to do that anymore.
I’ve had the same insane heart rending conversation with her scores of times, so has everyone else in my family. For my own sake I’ve gone “grey wall”, no contact. My girls do the same.
At some point you need to accept this is who they are, who they want to be, and you don’t have the ability to change them.
It’s almost certainly a symptom of dementia. My Mom when through a bit of this in the years before she died. My Dad struggled to get her to go to bed, take her medication, or even eat. Getting her to take care of herself was a daily, draining struggle for him. He confessed that his grief was mixed with a bit of relief that the struggle was over, and he probably still wrestles with that guilt.
Thanks for writing, Em. I’m always pleased to see your name pop up on an article here. Hope things work out for you and your parents.
Dimentia is possible, but there are a combination of interacting factors that make this sort of situation, if not common, than at least not very uncommon, most notably:
1) Ordinary, non-dimentia/stroke-related cognitive decline, which we’ll all go through as we get older, causes, among other things, an increased difficulty in dealing with change or difficult situations.
2) Fixed incomes can make older people extremely anxious, even to a clinically-significant level, about money. You might think this would make people more likely to accept at least financial help, but in many cases, anxiety leads to extremely irrational thinking about the source of the anxiety.
3) Pride: people are often resistant to accepting help from family, especially their children, and when you combine this with (1) and (2), it can lead to refusal of help even in extreme, desperate situations.
This is important to note, because while there may be legal options for dementia patients, there are significantly fewer for just ordinary anxiety and normal cognitive decline (as Em, as a lawyer, of course knows). For the people trying to help, this can be heart-breaking, and I really feel for Em and anyone else going through it, whatever the cause.
In most big cities, and maybe even most smaller ones, there are usually resources available: social workers who specialize in working with the elderly, e.g. They will have experience trying to penetrate the wall of pride, anxiety, and fear of change/difficult situations, or even the dementia.
Agree with all of this. My “almost certainly” is…er…almost certainly overstatement.
It’s probably not dementia. It’s been this way for twenty years, and to some extent my whole life and my dad is 68. My mom is 77 and still works full time. She rants about how she’s disgusted by the condition of the house but feels powerless against my dad to do anything about it. It’s all really stressful and sometimes I just want to wash my hands of the situation.
…twenty years, and to some extent my whole life
Sounds like a personality disorder. My experience is they get worse as they get older.
sometimes I just want to wash my hands of the situation.
Talk to a therapist.
This is a painful story to read Em, thank you for sharing. I thank my lucky stars I haven’t had to face this myself with relatives.
Em, you’re breaking my heart. This is not the first time I’ve heard such a story, and I’ve seen it a couple of times. Each time it’s shocking. I can recall a woman I dated for a few years taking me to meet her family after her mother passed away. Her mother lived in this little house way up in the hills way out in very, very rural Oregon. It smelled TERRIBLE. Stuff didn’t work. She had mobility challenges. It was a visibly non-viable way and place to live.
When my then-girlfriend, her son, and I asked about it to other family members who were close to the situation, the answer was much like you describe. “We offer. All the time. She won’t let us. Says there’s no problem going on that she can’t handle. Gets angry.” They called it “pride,” as in she was too proud to admit that she needed the help. Yeah, maybe that’s part of it. She was clearly not demented, mentally sharp when you spoke with her, she just wasn’t up for maintaining her home and was not about to let anyone else do it for her, even the people who loved her and would have been happy to do it.
Gods, even writing the story breaks my heart, because of the frustration and the likelihood it will sooner or later end in a story like Alicia Witt’s parents. (I haven’t kept in touch with the former girlfriend much, so maybe it already has.)