How could my grandmother use me like a slave, lying to get me to allow her to remain home?

Cobrafang, your grandmother took you for a fool. I understand that it's insulting that somebody else pays your bills for you, but at least the bills do get paid! - it's a mixed blessing, but it is a blessing of sorts. And now that your grandmother has passed away, it's for you to prove her wrong.

You have the freedom to choose your own occupations and routine, so forget about feeling mad with 'undeserving' family members and concentrate on finding what you're good at and what you enjoy. I hope you'll be able to build a happier life. Best of luck x

I think you need to see a good psychotherapist to help you deal with this hurt & anger. You may have to try out several before you find one that you "click" with. But believe me it will really help.

If she bought you a $185K home and the utilities are paid, she IS taking care of you, even in death. Be thankful for what you have, honor her memory, others have walked away with nothing. You have a roof over your head and lots more years to pay into SS so you can collect.

I am so sorry you walked into this but it was your decision. Those decisions made based on money unfortunately don't always work out.

Find a good therapist to talk this out....forgiveness is the best gift you can give yourself. Now to dust yourself off and take charge of your own life.

Dwelling on "stuff" you can't change won't help your situation at all! Best of luck!

There may be some reason you haven't disclosed that you are being taken care of rather than having access to cash. I get it that you're mad, but this sounds whiney. By the way, if you are making money online you should be reporting your self employment on your tax returns, thus earning credits for your future Social Security benefits.

What would a caregiver have charged? Caregivers don't pay rent or for food - that is included in their wage,but a caregiver 24/7 is paid between $150 and $420 per 24 hour day, plus meals and a place to sleep.
And if a caregiver doesn't get 5 uninterrupted hours of sleep a night, then you pay by the hour, which is $15 - $19+ per hour. And were all her expenses paid? Did mom pay for her health insurance? Contribute to a retirement plan for her? Pay social security taxes? Your sister have a claim that must be resolved. Perhaps agree to the low end of the scale - $150 per day

M T W T F S S Total
Total 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 84 hrs X $8 = $672
Reg Hrs 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 63 hrs X $12 = $756
OT Hrs 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 21 hrs X $16 = $336
-----
$1,764
$448
-------------------------------------------------------
$2,212
Caring for someone with Alzheimer's disease or dementia can be a long, stressful, and intensely emotional journey.
As your loved one's cognitive, physical, and functional abilities diminish over a period of years, it's easy to become overwhelmed and neglect your own health and well-being. The burden of care giving puts you at increased risk for significant health problems and an estimated 30 to 40 percent of dementia caregivers will experience depression, high levels of stress, or burnout. Nearly all Alzheimer's or dementia caregivers will at some time experience sadness, anxiety, loneliness, and exhaustion.
Caring for a person can often seem to be a series of grief experiences as you watch your loved one’s memories disappear and skills erode. The person with Alzheimer's will change and behave in different, sometimes disturbing or upsetting ways. For both caretakers and their patients, these changes can produce an emotional wallop of confusion, anger, and sadness.
As the disease advances, your loved one’s needs will increase and your caregiving responsibilities will become more challenging. At the same time, the ability of your loved one to show appreciation for all your hard work will diminish. Caregiving can literally seem like a thankless task.

A moral duty may also arise if the Deceased’s conduct created a bona fide expectation to receive a benefit.
Take, for example, a caregiver who is providing 24-7 care for mom. While I am not an advocate of anyone working 24-hours a day, 7 days a week, many families and workers choose to have someone overseeing mom all the time.
The first matter to address is the classification of the caregiver as an employee or an independent contractor for income tax purposes. Before the employer can know how to treat payments made to the caregiver, the employer must make a critical determination as to whether the caregiver is an independent contractor or an employee.

Furthermore, if the caregiver is an employee and not an independent contractor, state law may require that the caregiver be covered under workers’ compensation. In some states, the failure to provide workers’ compensation coverage is a criminal offense. If the caregiver sustains a work-related injury, then there may be liability on the part of the employer, homeowner, and person with the disability. In general, a homeowner’s insurance policy does not cover a caregiver for an employment related personal injury. For example, consider the situation where a caregiver ruptures a disc while lifting a person with a disability. The situation may not be covered by the homeowner’s insurance policy, and the employer, homeowner, and person with a disability may find that they are personally liable to the caregiver for the personal injury. This type of liability can be substantial.

The law considers many facts in deciding whether a worker is an independent contractor or an employee. The relevant facts are behavioral control, financial control, and the relationship of the parties. Facts concerning behavioral control show whether the employer has a right to direct or control how the worker does the work. A worker is an employee of a business if the business has the right to direct and control the worker. It doesn’t matter how much control the business actually exercises, just that it has the right to do so.

Facts concerning financial control determine whether there is a right to direct or control the business part of the work. Since caregivers do not have a significant investment in their work, this factor favors them being classified as employees. Also, caregivers do not have the opportunity to make a profit, indicating that they are employees.
The employer can be liable for failing to file Forms W-2 and 1099. A trustee of a special needs trust may not be liable to file a Form 1099 because the trustee is not engaged in a trade or business. However, out of an abundance of caution, a trustee may want to file the Form 1099. Under the Small Business Job Act of 2010, the employer can pay penalties of up to $100 for failure to timely file a correct information return with an annual maximum penalty of $1.5 million. In addition, there is another penalty of $100 for failing to timely provide a correct payee statement, with the annual maximum penalty of $1.5 million. The employer could be liable for $250 per payee if the employer fails to timely file and timely provide each payee with a 1099 or W-2.

If the caregiver is an independent contractor and is paid $600.00 or more in one calendar year, then the employer would be required to give the caregiver a form 1099-MISC, which is a miscellaneous income reporting of what has been paid to the caregiver. The caregiver would be responsible for paying his or her own income tax and self-employment tax. The employer would not have to withhold taxes on the caregiver. However, the employer is required to file copies of the 1099-MISC with the Internal Revenue Service.

Why Do Elders Turn on the Caregiver?
My take on this is, unless the elders are people with personality disorder – which is a mental illness – they "turn on" the one adult child who is showing the most love by doing most of the care because they feel safe enough to do so. They don't consciously abuse this son or daughter, but they are frustrated and need to vent this frustration about getting old, having chronic pain, losing friends, having memory issues, being incontinent – all of the undignified things that can happen to us as we age. On a gut level, they trust that this caring person won't leave them.

Caregivers can easily be placed at risk for illness, injury, financial devastation and serious legal problems because of abusive elders. While women are most usually the victims, men can also be victims of abuse by a care receiver.
Not all our seniors are sweetand loving, and not all parents were good parents. The advice we so often read that we should be glad to care for our aging parents because they cared for us when we were small is often very bad advice. Yes, the Christian Bible does admonish us to honor our parents. It doesn't demand that we directly care for someone who places us in legal jeopardy or is likely to injure our mental or physical health.
Seniors who are abusing their caregivers will rarely stop on their own. However twisted, the abusive senior is receiving some kind of emotional reward for bad behavior. Whether the cause is dementia, mental illness, or simply a lifelong history of nasty behavior, we must be the ones to take steps to improve our situation.
Parents who are abusive are wholly self-centered and do not know what is in their best interest. Nothing you do will ever be enough, and you cannot sacrifice your health to save them from aging. The only thing we can change is how we respond to an abusive situation.
With every road we take there comes a time when we must decide whether we should continue on the first path we chose, or whether we should choose another route. Most people who are caring for an elderly person will eventually ask themselves the question. Each one of us will ask the question at a different point on our own individual road.

As caregivers we tend to avoid even asking the question until we're so worn out and exhausted that we can hardly move.
Is Care giving Affecting Your Mental Health?
Is Care giving Destroying You Financially?
The process of aging has only one ultimate outcome. If you destroy your own financial security in order to provide care, the end result for your senior can at best only be delayed. In the meantime, you will have destroyed your own senior safety net and bequeathed the cost of your care either to your children or to the State. Neither is a fair or a reasonable choice. Look for other options.

If you answered "yes" to any of the above questions, it is time to look for other care options now.
Under the best of circumstances caring for an aging parent can be difficult. When you face the possibility of having to make huge emotional, physical and financial sacrifices to care for someone you don't like very much, it can be simply awful.
Do you have, or will your parents give you, Powers of Attorney to manage their affairs if and when they aren't able? You will be making a great mistake if you move in to care for an aging adult if you do so without the legal ability to make important decisions in the future. Do not move in without having these documents completed before the move. A reluctant parent who says, "We'll take care of that after the move." is likely to never get around to it, no matter how much you push. Responsibility without authority should always be a deal-breaker.
If your loved one has always been quick-tempered and hard to get along with, angry episodes will probably not be anything new. When someone who was always sociable, agreeable and downright easy to be around turns angry, impossible to please and nasty, it can come as a very painful surprise.
Having an intellectual understanding that many mental changes, including anger and paranoia, can arise from an illness is one thing. Living with these behaviors is another. Although we all hope that we're rational beings, sometimes our instinctive reaction is to lash out in return. Which, of course, makes us all very human but doesn't help much.

Many of these angry, ugly behaviors arise because the illness is encroaching on the part of the brain that regulates judgment and impulse control. The frontal part of the brain handles these functions. When it is affected by a brain-altering disease, angry outbursts, impulsive actions and socially inappropriate behavior can result. Some of this behavior can be immensely hurtful.

The pain of being the target of this awful behavior can build to epic proportions. If you've reached the point where you can't "just get over it" and swallow your feelings any more, you're not alone. As a matter of fact, we worry far more about caregivers who deny ever having "bad" feelings about their nasty family member. These are the caregivers who are more likely to snap one day and do their family member or themselves harm.
Once the amount of care needed at home grows to more than 5 or 6 hours a day it begins to be less expensive financially to look for alternate living arrangements.

We'll lots of perspectives on this one...all I can say is THAT is why this forum is so valuable so others can avoid similar pitfalls.

When you enter into caregiving, you need to understand the the sacrifices you are willing to make, economically, physically, and emotionally. It's not always clear on the outset and circumstances are continually changing and evolving for caregiver and caregivee over time -- so everyone has to adjust expectations.

I would advise anyone entering into full time care to sit back and take stock of what you both want. DONT ever take anything for granted for example inheriting wealth or property in the end...if it's not explicitly spelled out in writing and legal then don't count on it. Likewise, even if property and money are promised "in the end" there may not be any "in the end" should the loved one need skilled nursing care or have to be placed in a facility...

So, if one needs income, financial security, etc in exchange for care -- have the discussion and get it done legally up front. Don't blame the loved one, family, etc because you feel short changed.

Sorry, I'm cynical, but I'm seeing too much of this and in the end a loving caregiver is left without a home, no income, no benefits, no insurance and no employment prospects.