I found out my whole life was half a lie. My mom had an affair on my "dad". My Dad was some guy named Steve. Long story shorter. I found "Steve" and we've talked-texted but never met. I'm 99% he's my Dad. He also believes I’m his daughter. Well, One day I couldn’t get ahold of him so I did a welfare check. Btw he's in Illinois and I in Seattle. Well the cop said his house is HORRIBLE and probably uninhabitable. They took Steve to the hospital and a few days later to a rehab facility where he is now.
I don't know what to do about ANYTHING? He has no friends or family there. He says he wants to give me his house or sell the house and give me the money but I have no clue what I am supposed to do? Some lady representing the rehab place said we need to sell it to get him Medicaid, but someone else said he had both Medicaids. I'm so so lost what to do? It doesn’t help I have no money to fly there and meet my “Dad”.
DNA test concluded 99.99% chance he WAS my father. But, he always denied me to his "real" family. I met him once. Only to look at him to see if I really looked so much like him. It was like a mirror where I'd turned into an older man!
I didn't like him but he did not deny me to my face. I left and never met or spoke with him again.
He died last year. I have no regrets.
My Dad loved me, my Dad who I lost as a child will always be my Dad. The "father" is basically a sperm donor.
With all this said, I'd advise you NOT to get tangled in this persons issues. If you meet try not to have expectations that you will instantly have a connection. Like others have stated, he is a stranger to you. You do not know him, and may not even like him when/if you meet.
In time, after you have lived with this knowledge a while, it will just become something that is, but does not have to be something that takes over your life.
I have been thru the system for my nephew and its not easy. I have had to hire a lawyer to help me because some things u cannot do on your own. You can't help him from a distance of 6 states. Don't go with your heart go with your mind. I found out at 24 Dad was not my Dad. That the man who was my Dad knew about me but chose not to be involved. Right then I knew I would never try to contact him. He very easily could have contacted me because he was a cousin of my Moms BF. Sometimes things are best left alone.
Just tell the SW that this man is really a stranger. You have never met him. That the State will need to take over his care because you are not uprooting your life for a man you hardly know.
If you decide to go ahead with a meeting, keep your expectations low, the timing brief, and your ‘help’ offers well under control. Go away and think about it before getting too involved. Good luck!
We adopted our first child. We told her early on that we adopted her as an infant.
You have a different situation though because your mom had an affair and she was probably confused about what to do. I am glad that you at least know the truth now.
Did your mom give you important information such as your health history on your bio father’s side?
Our daughter has health issues and when we adopted her open adoption was illegal, so she did a 23andme DNA test to see if she could find her birth family.
My daughter found her bio mom, siblings, a grandfather and aunts, but she has no idea who her bio dad is. The only thing that her bio mom told the adoption agency was that he was a football player that she saw when she was in college. Our daughter’s bio parents were university students.
I would definitely recommend 23andme. I have taken their DNA tests and I am impressed with their results. Ancestry is another good company.
Good luck to you with your search for answers. I wouldn’t jump to any conclusions about anything at this point in time. You have no idea what is on the other side. Does this man have any other children? Did he ever marry anyone?
Regardless of whether he is your bio father or not, he isn’t your responsibility. He is being cared for. You can keep in touch with him if things are going well. If not, move on with your life. Are you close with your stepdad? The person who raised you is your dad.
I do understand your curiosity. That’s perfectly normal. I do understand that you would want your health history. Still, don’t get in over your head financially because in the end you will have to dig yourself out of the hole.
Wishing you all the best.
Then, if he really is your biological father, and if it truly is a hoarded house, RUN, RUN, RUN away from taking on this responsibility and stay out of his personal business! Turn it all over to his social worker and become JUST a loving friend. Complete businesses are built on cleaning hoards. Getting involved with a person with dementia is difficult. Dealing with that AND a hoard is overwhelming agony.
I wish you luck, but I hope you'll leave Steve behind and create a life for yourself on your own.
I believe the best thing for Steve is to let the state take care of him. I still do plan on trying to talk to him and send him gifts, like slippers etc. Unfortunately there's no phones in their rooms, and he lost his in his home. As for me, some questioned…I was fired from my job for trying to do the right thing and stop a shoplifter. Tho shall not steal. It’s okay though when one door shuts I go out a window. My next blessing will be I will meet this man Steve and get a DNA test so I will have my answer. Again, Thank you EVERYONE for your time and GREAT advice!
This may be of help to him.
Does he have other "family"?
If so they are the ones that should be making decisions (if he is not decisional) and they are the ones that would be appointed Guardian (if they wish) if there is no wife or other "recognized" children.
If he has no one and you have 100% proof (not 99%) that he is your dad THEN you have some choices.
Being a Guardian is not easy and it is not inexpensive.
Being a Guardian in the same household, or in the same town is difficult I have no idea how you would manage across the country.
If "Steve" is a Veteran you can do a search and see if the Veterans Assistance Commission can come up with service records that will help to determine if he qualifies for any benefits.
Or you can give what information you have to the Social Worker that is handling his case.
You can communicate with the doctors, Social Worker and any other medical staff but unless YOU are indicated on his HIPAA forms as a person that they can GIVE information to they legally can not disclose any information.
One resource that might help you find help and info in Illinois is Elderwerks.org they have a great resource book of information. you can access it on line or you can call 1-855-462-0100
PLEASE do not give up a job, friends, family to come "help" him, you know nothing about him and until he is situated and in a better place physically, mentally do not do anything.
It is not easy getting someone help. You go to one agency, they send you to another and it goes on. Let the State he is in take over his care. They will assign a guardian. That person will work with the agencies to find him what he needs. If its 24/7 care in a facility, then thats were he needs to be. If Medicaid will be involved, any assets he has will be used to pay for his care. His home will need to be sold to pay for care. He cannot promise u anything.
"You have no clue what to do and your lost what to do." Because of this, you do nothing. I so hope u did not tell anyone ur his daughter. You have no proof and believe me you do not want to get involved if you do not understand the system. You will be told there is help out there. Once you walk thru those Rehab doors with him, you will be on your own. There is help but you need to know where to find it and it does not happen overnight and can't be done from 6 states away. Do not consider bringing him to ur state. Medicaid does not go over state lines.
He has Medicaid? Health and maybe "in home"? Longterm care is a different thing with different criteria. If he has home care, it maybe be an easy transition to LTC. The criteria is similar. With "in home" care he has no assets other than his home and SS. Because he is on any type of Medicaid, his home is really not his. Upon his death, Medicaid will place a lien on the home and it will have to be sold to satisfy the lean. And I would bet he has not paid taxes, so he will lose the house for non-payment of taxes. Do not get yourself into a situation you can't get out of. You do not really know this man or his history. If you can't afford a plane ticket, you can't afford taking on caring for this man.
I was told in my early 20s that the man who raised me was not my Dad. He had met Mom when I was 1 and married her when I was 2 and then adopted me. My real father knew of me and chose not to be involved in my life. If I owed anything to anyone, it was the "Dad" who raised me. Not a man ur not sure is your father. Steve is literally a stranger and you need to make that clear to the people who are there who can help him. Who can get thru the red tape. There is a reason he has no family or friends. You will never have a "daughter/father" relationship with him because there is no foundation. You can be a friend. You can allow people who know what they are doing help him. (He can get Medicaid without selling the house. The house is an exempt asset until death.) Even people at a Rehab facility do not know the ins and outs of Medicaid. I always talked to my Moms caseworker.
Please, put your emotions aside and allow urself to think logically, you cannot help this man.
True story. My daughter in law only found out who her “ potential “ father was through ancestry . Only to find out the man had an identical twin . At first they both denied being her father . Then a few years went by and the one finally admitted he had had a relationship with the mother .
This is what can happen when you take the advice of someone you don't know, who isn't an expert, and you can get the same sort of faulty advice from folks on a Forum. Hee hee, that's ME.
But here goes.
This sweet gentleman MAY HAVE supplied the sperm to create you.
But no one can know that at this point; there has been no testing.
Even if testing shows that he DID supply said sperm, he is not legally your father.
You have no obligation here.
Your best foot forward is to call the rehab and ask for a Social Worker.
You can tell the social worker that to the best of your knowledge, Steve has no living family. Whether or not you share with her what you did with us is up to you but it makes no legal difference in the scheme of things.
Tell the social worker that Steve told you his home is just about uninhabitable and that he is a "senior at risk" and needs an APS case opened.
This gives a head's up to the social worker, who likely already DOES KNOW some of this.
She can make Steve, if he needs it, a ward of the state who will look after him. It is then up to the Fiduciary appointed by the courts to manage for Steve as regards the house.
You have no rights here.
You have no obligations here.
You can only interfere and muddy things by getting bad info you already got (you can get medicaid and keep one home).
What you CAN do, if you should so wish, is assume that Steve is a sweet guy and was/is your dad by genetic accident. And communicate, send lovely cards, buy him a pair of comfy slippers and sweat pants, whatever. You may never KNOW the truth if you aren't able to travel and no DNA testing is done. But you can be a blessing in the end of this man's life if you wish.
Wishing you the very best, and Steve as well.
Please know that social services is probably already engaged with your bio-Father. This is as good a development as one can hope for. If he tells them he has a child that will come "help" him, this would be a disaster for him and you. Please stay out of it and let the county do its work in his best interests.
Always assume that the people in touch with you from the facility he's in are lying. If not totally, than at least partially. Social workers and administrators in care facilities are trained to lie because the main objective is to secure that everything a person has will go to their facility.
Since you cannot go there yourself, ask the police to send you a video of what the house looks like. They will do that. At east this will give you some guage on what the place is like.
You cannot afford to hire a laywer, but can "Steve"? Does he have any money anywhere? If not than you or he can contact Legal Aid in either of your states and talk to a lawyer for free. They will be able to advise you both on how you should be moving forward.
Do not let yourself be appointed his POA, Conservator/Guaridan or any kind of 'proxy' because this will force responsibility of him onto you. This is a person you have never met and who you do not know. Don't take that on.
No, nothing about her/him going to "rescue" the bio-Dad will be a solution, ever. The OP will get there and find s/he has no power to help this stranger (who s/he knows nothing about). S/he will go into debt and be sucked into the caregiving vortex of trying to get a hoarder to be someone they aren't and don't wish to change.
Many participants on this forum have experience in dealing with hoarding and demented parents. Please find and read those posts to get an idea of what a bad decision it would be to travel to help this person. The county will be way more successful than the OP ever could be (I've worked with a family member in regards to guardianship, so been there and done that).
Ours cost $3600 but it depends on what he has and where he lives but I think it would cost at least $1K for him to do it. This doesn't sound like a solution for this person and the OP, especially since the Medicaid financial "look back" in most states is 5 years. Plus, that house sounds like a bomb and the OP doesn't even have the money to pay for a plane ticket, no less the clean-up and repair of a hoarder's house.
And I respectfully disagree that the OP should go into debt (buying airfare with a credit card) to get herself involved in a super hot mess for which she is not equipped in the least.
I stand by my advice to stay out of it and allow the county to acquire guardianship. Then she can visit him in a facility all she wants (but will have to pay for a hotel while doing so).
I'm so sorry this was your introduction to this man. We can't chose our family but we can chose whether or not we engage with them. May you gain clarity, wisdom and peace in your heart as your process how to approach this relationship with him.
Also, if he *knew* you existed and never came to meet or visit you, then please don't feel like you own him anything or that there's any sort of real connection (been there, done that myself).
You don't have the funds to fly out to IL and even if you did, Steve is a stranger. If he's the man who sired you, that doesnt make him a "dad". A dad is someone who raises you and loves you from when you're a baby and who you can count on always.
My suggestion is to keep things on a texting basis for now. Don't feel the need to swoop in and save the day or the man. It's a very stressful thing to meet a birth parent or family member for the first time, especially alone. I know. I did it at 43 years old and it was not the experience I was hoping for. It tore me apart, actually.
Steve is living a lifestyle you are probably not accustomed to, in a "horrible" and uninhabitable home. You'll be in way over your head, and then what?? You can't be responsible for choices or decisions this man has made over the course of his life that have landed him where he's at right now.
See how things play out with rehab and if he winds up staying there long term. You can keep your friendship on a casual basis w/o taking on a lot of stress or putting yourself in a caregiving position. It's the best thing you can do right now for your OWN emotional wellbeing. I say that with good intentions for you, dear one.
He can’t give you the house or the money from the sale of the house anyway. The money would have to be used for his care . If he were to gift you that money , Medicaid would ask for it back .
There is really nothing you can do for this man. Let the social worker and the state agencies help him maneuver setting up his care .
Ohio has one such program called Home Choice. Maybe Illinois has a similar program.
Good luck!
I think you need to leave "dad" to the care of the state he's in. You don't sound like you have the wherewithal to take on the care of an elder
Take care of you, please!