Update on mom in assisted living. I had a hard time convincing my mom to go to assisted living. She was diagnosed with dementia 2 years ago and she couldn't stay alone anymore. I work, have a family she kept wanting them to leave. In March, she went to assisted living. I go twice a week and at first called her every night. I now only call three times a week because she is so negative I cannot take it anymore. When I go to do her hair, she constantly complains. She complains how I do her hair, about the place, about the people, about everything. She keeps asking me "could you live here?" Actually yes. It is brand new, wonderful people and great food. I worn out with the negativity. I have explained to her about her complaints, but she says I am "fussing" at her. Not true, just need some peace. Is it normal for a dementia patient be so negative? I do not want to go visit or call her. It would be so easy to just stop. I am an only child and feel obligated to help her. I feel so much better knowing she is safe and well cared for. She will not bathe or change her pajamas. She doesn't want to get her clothes on. She just wants to complain. She tells me she doesn't eat there, but they tell me different. Her memory isn;t so much the issue, it is her personality change, her inability to care for herself, and her reasoning skills are gone. Oh my, you cannot reason with her at all. When she truly believes something..well, she will say.."well, you are always right and want to argue with me." I want to walk away and enjoy my life without her in it, but I feel guilty for even thinking such a thing. Is all this normal?
I try to think more of those positive types of things -- it doesn't always work -- but I try. She's just so damaged in her ways and now with the onset of dementia, it's a loss. I used to feel really upset that I had friends who could do things with their moms -- you know, like a shopping day or brunch -- and then just thought, OK, the weirdness and the hardships, I think they helped mold me in some positive ways. I've got interesting stories about her, and I have learned as much from her what to do as what not to do. Both have value. Not everybody gets June Cleaver. Biggest help is knowing I wasn't the only one to have an odd upbringing. It would have been nice to find kindred spirits at age 13, but better late than never!
I remember being 11 and she threw up or something or had stomach pains and I asked about it, and she said she had stomach cancer. I was horrified, terrified I'd lose my mom. Then nothing happened, no treatment, etc., and she then in 1995 got osteoporosis and nothing was done for that either, then colon cancer (because they removed polyps), then angina (for some reason), and countless other ailments. The ones that had no basis in fact, she ignored except to make up a story to amuse herself for a day. She used to put her arm in a sling or carry a crutch around to get people to ask about her arm or if she'd twisted her ankle, so it's all attention.
In between she had real problems with blood sugar and would faint. Scared me to no end at 13, because I didn't dare calling an ambulance and risk making my mom furious, and she'd come around in a few minutes. She never did anything for that. Won't tell the doctor about it either. Got mad when I mentioned it to the doctor years later. Another time she ate raw bacon and I mentioned it to the doctor because she got so sick and dehydrated she had to go to the hospital. I betrayed her by sharing a "private matter." Said they were laughing at her and I should be ashamed.
And yet she smokes three packs a day and says her lungs are perfect. When I asked years later why she made up the stomach cancer, she said "I was just being eccentric!"
Sure it's funny now in its ways, but tell your 11-year-old that you're going to die of cancer in six months. It sure wasn't funny then!
Why should the narcissist have all of the independence when the truly independent one can truly live more independent than the the narcissist in independent living?
Dang. Go for as much independence as your heart can be filled with!
I"m glad that you found us and that we can cheer you on and be part of your united, shared trauma and recovery team! Keep moving forward as you are.
njny - I am glad you see it is not too late - never too late to make healthy changes. Your life can vastly improve. Learn to detach, detach, detach!
My favorite word picture for the borderline drama is that they create their own tornado and then step inside of it as if they were its victim.
Indeed, you can expect even count on the tornado of shame to enter the game. It means you have hit their abandonment nerve which is their problem not yours, but they want to make it yours. Don't receive it.
I don't know if you are a person of faith or not, but here's an interesting article about shame.
honorshame/despise-shame/
I am so happy to hear your good news and your grandson's visit "taint" your mom's to mess up by making it tainted!
We are here for you to cheer you on and help keep that inner fire burning which is glowing bright tonight. Stay focused on the joy that freedom holds before you. That focus will help you endure the pain and despise its shame for you have much to gain by getting freedom from the F.O.G. game.
Here's something I just found about despising shame.
"Despising shame means saying, “Shame, you are the shameful fool. You have no voice or power in my life. You threatened, but I will not change my course.”
Take care, keep in touch and remember that you have more for you than you have against you!
The narcissist/borderline person will crank up the theatrics to beyond belief once you start establishing boundaries and being your own person. This is normal, so expect it, and stand your ground. I mean it will get uglier than you might think, so don't use that as a measure of success.
You get to be a real whole person in this life, and the emotional vampires out there with other plans can either get on the program or get "something else" too impolite to print here!
Sounds like you've done step one-develop enough self-preservation to want change. Some people never get to this point.
It helps to regard your time, your energy, your emotional strength as precious jewels to be used wisely. You'll get to a point where you'll truly feel that as nothing you do makes her happy, it'll be easier and easier to pull back and spend the time with your family and friends instead. The changes I've made in my interactions with my mom haven't caused her to change positively, but that's ok because they've made my life and my family's dynamic much better.
I've found that once you start making baby steps, it becomes easier for your family to see how to encourage and help you with this struggle. Just remember...its normal and reasonable for you to have your own separate life.
With the mixture of reading, online support, face to face counseling and keeping alive your inner fire for the journey, I believe you will see the miracle of a new you. I'm glad that you are ordering the book and will call a counselor today.
You more than deserve to live independently yourself. Your fear is normal. You are not alone in that fear. Others have been where you are and have pressed on beyond it. .
It will take baby steps at first like you are already taking. It's a process that goes from very slow to slow, to not as slow to a bit quicker to normal. Try not to be too hard on yourself. Feel good and proud for every part of something you accomplish. Along the way, you will become your own best cheer leader while leaning on your support groups and therapist to cheer you on.
Jude--I am sorry that you have experienced much of what I have described. thank you for your comments and advice. I have gotten to the point where I feel so desperate to change. Maybe a miracle will happen so I won't have to engage I. The difficult work ahead.
Time to go and order the book. I am as scared as I can ever remember being.
Take the step and take the dog back. Of course you can have your own but get one for you something ugly and loveable the ugly to remind you of your mum the loveable to reflect the new you!
XXX good luck darling this step is going to be hard but you can do it xxx
I'm up and reading. Drop the negative self-talk saying what you wrote is a "self-pitying monolog" No! It is a very real cry for help. Help that as my wife learned the hard way does not come even by having a PhD in social psychology from one of the nation's leading universities which she has.
It's not about intellectual stupidity, it has to do with emotional blackmail created and maintained by fear, obligation and guilt from mommy dearest types whose worshipfullnesses demand obedience as queen while also being the wicked witch of the west for they and their captives live in Oz.
The only way out of Oz and back to Kansas is not dancing with them anymore. She's already got you feeling sorry for her as your abuser by saying so much about her rough childhood. Standard approach. She's created the addiction and the fear.
Your mom sounds some like my mother, but a lot like my wife's mother.
I've written two threads about these F.O.G.Y parent types both descriptively and prescriptively which I'll post below.
Basically to experience your Yorktown of freedom like America got from England will require two things. 1. Boundaries. 2. Support from a strong, experienced source like came from France to help the American revolutionaries defeat the strongest military on earth at that time.
As you have already gained self-insight about, your head knowledge alone is not solving things. I mean, I can tell you that you did not make your mother how she is, can't change her or fix her, but need boundaries by which to place yourself on a healthier path in life than she is on regardless of her changing or not.
That's true. But to get from the head to life, is going to need the supporting and guiding help of a face to face therapist.
You said that you tried that. Did you stick with it and with the guidance they were giving you? Did you have a therapist who you really connected with? Not all are created equal nor are all equally able for all situations presented to them. Sometimes, the sex of the counselor makes a difference when dealing with abuse, even if it's not sexual abuse and not all sexual abuse is physical.
Frankly, no therapist can fix it. They can give you the tools to deal with things, set boundaries and support you in moving forward.
I know for I've been there myself.
Right now, I'm trying to support my SIL who while ignoring what her therapist has told her and no longer sees her, continues to complain and now says she's at a breaking point.
Therapy for reaching one's Yorktown of freedom is as Yoda said in Star Wars not try, it is do or no do. People don't really tend to get on with it until the pain of the problem becomes greater than anything else standing in the way of dealing with it.
Get back in therapy, keep working on boundaries, find an online support group for those that have a relative with a personality disorder like your mom, and get your spouse into therapy both with you and separately.
I trust this straightforward reply helps.
Good online support groups for people in these kind of situations can be found at BPDCentral. Borderline Personality Disorder Central.
bpdcentral
From my thread. "The Power of Emotional Blackmailers" These major posts about what it is, how to defeat it and why it defeats so many.
https://www.agingcare.com/discussions/power-of-emotional-blackmailers-176430.htm
1. Who is feeling this?
The person being emotionally blackmailed is the one feeling the fear, obligation and guilt.
2. What it is?
Emotional blackmail is a powerful version of manipulation by making us feel 1. afraid of crossing the person. 2. obligated to give them their way to keep from provoking their anger, and 3. terribly guilty if we don't.
It is a thick and engulfing psychological F.O.G. that blinds us from seeing what they are doing.
3. What is its effects?
Thus, we walk on eggshells around the person and our compliance rewards their emotional blackmail. Every time we reward their efforts by being compliant, we let them know that they can do it again. It eats away at us until it puts our relationship and our whole sense of self respect is in jeopardy. Thus we get locked into an emotional dance of letting them control our decisions and behavior.
Basically, we come to feel insecure, unimportant, unworthy and generally bad about ourselves. We begin to doubt our own ideas and needs. We become isolated. We may have physical ailments or reduced mental health due to the stress. We may even betray and abandon our relationships with other people in our attempts to placate the emotional blackmailer.
We get trained by the emotionally blackmailer to constantly seek their approval, to do our best to avoid their anger and keeping the peace at all costs, and to take the blame that is not ours to take.
Our sense of obligation to them and to keeping the peace becomes so strong that it is more powerful than our sense of self-respect and boundaries of self-caring. Emotional blackmailers work toward this goal and take full advantage of it when accomplished.
4. Who is doing this?
The person seeking to emotionally blackmail us presses our emotional buttons in order to get us to feel fear, obligation and guilt.
Very often this emotional blackmailer has a great fear of abandonment and deprivation. They often feel the need to be the one in control, feel desperate, and are frequently frustrated. Usually, they have been a victim of emotional blackmail themselves; have learned how to do it; and see that it works to get what they want. However, they are so caught up in themselves that they don't think clearly about the reasonableness of their demands. They are skilled at making their demands sound very reasonable although they aren't.
They have different styles. Their pour boundaries leads them to sometimes combine one of the four basic styles with another one.
First, there is the Punisher who lets us know exactly what they want, the consequences we will face if not complied with, and are the most obvious as well as strong. They either express their disapproval in explosive aggressive anger or in smoldering silence. At the most terrifying extreme are threats of physical harm.
Second, there is the Self-punsiher. They turn their threats inward on themselves by threatening what they will do to themselves if they don't get their way. They are drama queens and kings with an air of hysterical crisis which they blame us for creating of course. They often will enmesh themselves with us because they struggle with taking responsibility for their own lives. The most frightening extreme of this is when they threaten to kill themselves if we do not comply.
Third, there are the sufferers who are talented guilt peddlers and blamers. They make us figure out what they want and lead us to conclude that it is up to us to get them what they want, even if they have not told us what they want. They are pre-occupied with how terrible they feel and interpret our inability to read their minds as proof that we don't love them.
Fourth, there are the Tantalizers who will put us through a series of tests and hold out a promise of something wonderful if we will just give them what they want. They are the subtlest blackmailers who promise all sorts of things with the clear understanding that unless we behave according to their wishes, we will not get the prize. Everything from them is seductively wrapped with a web of strings attached. Many will seek to make deals of emotional payoffs, castles of love in the sky, unconditional acceptance, family closeness, healed wounds, and other appealing fantasies whose admission ticket into only requires one thing, compliance. They have not intent on following through with their fantastic promises for once they have what they want, they have won and we are left with broken promises.
People with various personality disorders are predisposed to inflicting emotional blackmail such as persons with obsessive compulsive disorder, paranoid personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, and narcissistic personality disorder. Those with a borderline personality disorder tend to do this more impulsively instead of making a plan like those with a narcissistic personality do.
What they really need deep down inside is legit, but the problem occurs in how they go about trying to meet those needs by being insensitive to the needs of others in doing so as well as being insensitive to how others are reacting to their manipulation or that it is not right to make someone their emotional hostage.
5. How do they do this?
The basic threat of emotional blackmail is that if you don't do what I want, you will suffer the consequences. They know our vulnerabilities and they use that knowledge to shape their threats to give them the results they want, our compliance. Knowing that we want their love and approval, they will threaten to end the relationship if we don't give in or make us feel that we must earn it by being compliant. They will often use money like threatening to change their Will to get our compliance.
They will regularly discount our feelings and wants by calling us selfish when we express them and claiming that we must no longer love them. They will either say or imply that they will hurt themselves, kill themselves, or become depressed if we don't give into their demands.
They create undeserved guilt by blaming us for whatever is upsetting them or for whatever problems that they are having. There are not statue of limitations as they create this neutron bomb that wears away the trust and intimacy that makes us want to be with them.
They spin our conflicts with them into being examples of how misguided and off base we are while they claim to be all wise and well intentioned. They spin any resistance on our part as evidence that we are flawed, not them. Their spin serves to discredit our perceptions of how the situation really is by challenging our character, motives and worth through labeling us as heartless, selfish or worthless which are very hard to withstand when said by a parent.
Others pathologize any resistance from us as an example of our being the sick one or crazy. Being pathologized by a parent or spouse yields a devastating blow to our sense of self and confidence and serves as quite an effective toxic tool which makes us doubt our memories, our judgement, our intelligence, and our character to the point where we may even doubt our own sanity.
6. What are the origins of this.
Emotional blackmailers hate to loose. For them, it is not important how they play their game as long as they don't lose. To an emotional blackmailer, keeping our trust, respecting how we feel, or being fair does not matter. The usual give and take of a normal, healthy relationship does not exist for them for it is all about them, what they want, and their getting what they want for themselves.
7. Why it is so victorious?
When we have an excessive need for approval from others, an intense fear of dealing with anger, an overwhelming need for peace at any price, very deep self-doubt, and a tendency to take too much responsibility for other's lives, we are both easy targets and easy to keep in such an emotional prison.
These traits make it extremely difficult to break free even when we are aware that we are being emotionally blackmailed because their pressure sets off almost programmed responses in you that sends you into auto-pilot and impulsive reactions to comply with our abuser.
Another issue that makes it so victorious on some people is something called co-dependency. This involves putting a lower than normal priority on our own needs while being excessively preoccupied with the needs of others.
The above is a summary from Susan Ford's book, Emotional Blackmail: When People in Your Life Use Fear, Obligation and Guilt to Manipulate You. It also includes some input from my research online.
How it’s defeated.
Defeating emotional blackmail in our lives does not mean changing the person doing the blackmailing, but involves changes inside of the person being blackmailed. Since this involves internal changes, it is a very difficult thing to accomplish and very often requires the assistance of a therapist.
So, how do we stop enabling the manipulator’s emotional blackmail?
1. We must recognize our own part in this psychological/emotional dance that by complying with it we have been rewarding bad behavior.
2. Stop focusing on their behavior and thinking that their changing will make things better.
3. Accept that they are how they are and are very likely not going to change.
4. We did not make the person doing the emotional blackmail the way they are.
We can’t change them nor can we fix them. All we can really do is to place ourselves on a healthier path of living. We can change how we react to their emotional blackmail.
5. Recognize that our experience of emotional blackmail has contributed to our being in an emotional state called the Stockholm Syndrome which enables the belief that our escape is impossible. The Stockholm Syndrome is a psychological response seen in abuse victims where the victim is loyal to and often defensive of the abuser. It is an emotional bond formed between the victim and the person in power as a survival mechanism.
6. Recognize that the belief that our escape is impossible is a false and irrational belief. We are not helpless. Change and freedom can, must and will start with us.
7. Promise yourself to no longer let Fear, Obligation and Guilt control your life.
8. Learn and practice the necessary skills and strategies.
9. Learn from your lapses into being controlled by F.O.G., hone your strategies and refuse to let mistake allow you to give up.
10. Take good care of yourself during this process and acknowledge as well as encourage yourself for making steps forward no matter how small.
11. Remember that the abuse we experience is not our fault. We do deserve to be treated better.
12. Set new and reasonable boundaries for the relationship.
13. Set concrete consequences for if and when these boundaries are broken.
14. Instead of answering or complying immediately, buy yourself some time to think and come up with an appropriate response. For example. “I don’t have an answer right now. I need some time to think” or “I’m not sure how I feel about what you are asking. Let us discuss this later,”
15. Detach or let go of your emotional ties to being controlled and become an objective observer by questioning your thoughts and feelings as well as those of the person seeking to inflict emotional blackmail. This is a process. The longer you have been complying with their demands, the more self-discipline it will take to no overreact or be triggered. Also, focus on the demand at hand and not all of the past history. This is a key area where a therapist can be very helpful.
16. Avoid using defensive communication techniques that only serve to escalate the conflict. For example, “I’m not selfish. How can you say that about me?” or “How about the time I…….”
17. Use non defensive communication techniques to defuse or reduce the conflict. For example, “I’m sorry you are upset.” “I can understand how you might view it that way.” “Really? That’s interesting.” “Let’s talk about it when you feel calmer.”
18. Stay calm, don’t argue, don’t defend, don’t explain, always stay polite, and if possible use humor.
19. Use the suggestions from Susan Forward’s book, Emotional Abuse: When People Use Fear, Obligation and Guilt to Manipulate You, for responding to catastrophic predictions and threats; to name-callling, labeling and negative judgments; and to the deadly whys and hows-demanding a rationalization and explanation for your decisions.
20. Dealing with the person who expresses their anger covertly through silent sulking are quite a challenge. I found the following suggestions for dealing with this type online.
First, don’t expect them to make the first step. Second, don’t plead with them to tell you what is wrong. Third, don’t keep after them for a response. Fourth, don’t criticize, analyze, or interpret their motives or inability to be direct. Fifth, don’t willingly accept blame for whatever they are upset about to immediately get them into a better mood. Sixth, don’t allow them to change the subject. Seventh, don’t let the tension and the anger in the air get to you. Ninth, don’t let your frustration cause you to make threats that you don’t really mean. Tenth, don’t assume that if they ultimately apologize, it will be followed by a significant change in their behavior. Eleventh, don’t expect major personality changes, even if they recognize what they are doing and are willing to work on it.
Instead, confront them when they are more ready to hear what you have to say; reassure them that they can tell you what they are angry about and you will listen without retaliating; say reassuring things like “I know you are angry right now, and I will be willing to listen to this as soon as you are ready to talk about it”-then leave them alone; and accept the fact that you will have to make the first move, most, if not all, of the time.
21. Face the reality that not all relationships can be saved for the person will just continue to break your boundaries and keep trying to emotionally blackmail you.
For the sake of your own safety and health, try hard to recognize early if the relationship is even work working on.
22. Remember that no matter what happens, you can handle fear, you can handle frustration, pain, big losses, anger, sadness, embarrassment, responsibility, and guilt.
23. Don’t expect there not to be some resistance to your boundaries, taking better care of yourself and setting consequences for when and if your boundaries are broken. They are use to having you under their control and they are afraid of losing you and your compliance for without your compliance they are powerless.
24. Change is a scary word for many of us.
25. Change will not come by gaining insights into the various dynamics of emotional blackmail.
26. Change will not happen just because we understand why we dong the self-defeating behavior that we do. Understanding alone will not make us stop doing them.
27. Change will only happen when we change our behavior!
28. We have to take the first step down a new and healthier road!
These suggestions come either from Susan Forward’s book, Emotional Blackmail:When People Use Fear, Obligation and Guilt to Manipulate You, and from various site online on this subject.
For my whole life, as far as I can remember, my mother has been so strong and domineering that I still feel I must have her approval and that i am responsible for her happiness. At my age of 62, and her age of 88, I feel it is "my job." Unconditional love is, and never has been there. My mother told me that when she brought me home from the hospital, the nurse that was hired to help her had to tell her to get involved with me and forge a bond. Perhaps that should have clarified for me what I was in for, My mother had a very tough childhood in many respects. Her mother left when she was 2 and her father, who was wonderful, raised her. However, she had an attachment to a nanny but was ripped from her arms when my grandfather moved. I have heard these awful stories my whole life and I feel for my mother. Very much so. However, having been a teacher and a principal for most of my adult life, I have seen so many kids emerge from so much worse with a remarkable attitude and kindness. I think my mother has narcissistic personality disorder and maybe borderline personality disorder--not sure. I do know that a doctor told me when I was a teenager that my mother would never be normal. So true.
At any rate, my dad was passive and I am the only child. I am Jewish and my mother reminded everyone for the longest time of the mother on "Everbody Loves Raymond." She has to be front and center and uses emotional blackmail very effectively to help me perform like a good puppy. I am continually fearful of disappointing her. My first marriage suffered because of her but we divorced because of his infidelity. My second marriage is a true blessing, but will that be shredded down the road? He is the most wonderful man ever but how much can he take? I know that ultimately my mother is not the problem, it is the way I am not dealing effectively with her, but this is so hard. I am so STUCK!!!
I could write a danged book, and I will eventually get to what finally triggered this entry... But first more background-- My mother is a widow --has been for 14 years. She promptly moved very close to me and I knew at that moment that my life would be forever changed for the worse. Everytime I traveled with my new husband and children and step-children, she was hurt and offended she was not included. She would have ruined every trip because wherever we go, the food is not hot enough or the accommodations are inadequate, and she has to be truly front and center. I would never have been able to pay attention to my husband or kids. She has complained about my leaving her over and over again.
I recently retired, and I am questioning my sanity for doing so. I thought I would be able to help her, take her to the doctor, spend time with her, and also have some fun and relaxed time for me and my family. Instead, I am just depressed as I have ever been. My grandson is flying in tomorrow, and I can't wait to see him, but I wonder if i will even accompany my husband to the airport. I am worried she willcall to tell me she has to go to the hospital or something. Although she hasn't stopped me from going places, I worry the whole time I am gone. I admit I have a huge problem with worrying and anxiety, but it is all about her! I need to fix myself but what is the way out?
So... the meat of the story this time is that we had to put down her little dog last week. She was so sad--so was I--and she wanted another dog. I worked very hard -- too hard--to help her find a new one. We did, and I drove back and forth 2 hours each way, twice, to get things arranged and bring him home. Things are going great, but then the dog really seemed to try to attack a man who had to fix something at my mother's. I was very concerned about the dog's aggression, but she wasn't. I brought my husband over a couple of days later and the dog went beserk again. My mother told my husband to put out his hand to the dog, but he said he wouldn't while the dog was barking and snarling--duh. My mother was offended and said the dog would not bite. I think he might bite--not sure. It sounds like it! At any rate, my mother has now said she may return the dog because I have ruined everything. I scared my husband and now everything is awful. And if she returns this dog, she says she will never get another. This is her all or noithing threat that I have witnessed countless times througout my life. Things were often my father's fault or mine. She tells me repeatedly that she never really loved my father and still blames him for so much. I hate to write this part, but once, my mother was so mean to my father that he walked out of the house. He was gone all night. I went to help, calle the police, etc. The police went over to see what was going on, and they called me back and said they thought he probably left to get away from her,. He finally returned home. She had been so worried --had he been beaten, killed, etc., but then when he was home she said to him, "How could you have been so cruel?" I tried to explain to my father that mhy mnother had been truly worried abvout him and that she loved him, but he sadly commented that she didn't show him that she loved him. END OF PART I. I need to read what I wrote and asee if it makes sense. Then I will start part 2! SAgaoin, thank you to anyone who is out there, willing to read my self-pitying monolog.
I wonder often about the progression of dementia, how it seems to affect everyone so differently. In my mother's case, she can still bathe, dress, prepare meals, feed her dog and let him/out.
Her dog is elderly, and I anticipate that if my mother doesn't have some sort of medical emergency of her own, that the next crisis I will need to deal with is the decline and death of her dog. I know, it sounds morbid of me to dwell on this. I'm not really obsessing, but it's in the back of my mind. Having to handle the logistics of that, as well as her confusion and grief...UGH. Anyway, it'll happen when it happens...
My brother seems to be completely "off the grid." Which is fine. He may have visited my mother and/or called her, but I don't think so. The last time I know for sure he saw her was back in March or April, when she gave him money. I haven't heard from him since right before then. A few months ago, his wife emailed me on FB, sounding out of control, claiming that she had kicked him out and then asked me if I could give her money for a divorce (!!!???!!!). I didn't respond, and decided at that point that I wouldn't accept these people in my life anymore. I haven't heard a peep out of her since, or my brother.
I have a few distant relatives that I keep in touch with in a very casual way on FB. We "like" each other's posts, and that's about it. My mother's sister was the relative in common that we had, and she died a few months ago, so the ties aren't strong at all anymore. I feel a little "family-less" sometimes, but with relatives like this....!!!! It's not so bad :) My husband's parents are awesome and we visited them a few weeks ago, so I feel very lucky and grateful to have them in our lives.
On one hand it's little bits of odd behaviors, or forgetting and confusion, but her doctor seems to think she's mostly fine, albeit a bit dotty, and yet strangers have commented at the bank or grocery store, and once at the DMV, that she didn't seem right.
Now sometimes strangers can have snap judgments, but in this case I think they offered very insightful observations from just a couple moments of watching her. They could see or overhear or just talk to her for a few moments while she's off and notice there is a problem. Sure it's in waves sometimes, but they realize the whole isn't really complete anymore.
There's an interesting observation from JessieBelle about ignoring a dog when she in fact played with it, and mom bringing it up. My mother does that all the time, when I do talk to her.
I know that memories of the past are more vivid (maybe in part because we've had more time to revisit them, since memory is funny that way) but I can't count the number of times I've heard, "Oh you wanted to be such-and-such as a kid, and it was so unrealistic," or "I bought you a little electric keyboard when you were 13 and you never learned to play it," and so on. Things brought up decades later and there's nothing to be done about it. Sometimes things are just brought up as memories or observations, but other times I swear she wants me to apologize for liking to draw a lot as a child and wanting to do something with that for a career, or that I never learned to play the keyboard.
Then other times she'd sign me up for things, like basketball or guitar lessons, without me even being aware, and being angry that I didn't take to something I never even expressed any interest in.
H*ll, for years she was angry I never became a counselor or nurse (I suspect she wanted me to be both to her) and instead got a degree in English because I liked writing and editing. I've worked steadily from my mid-twenties on, always finding work or having people recommend me out of the blue for writing and editing work, and it still was an affront to her, and something to bring up as some kind of slight to her. Why? Because I didn't become what she wanted to be or needed in her life? I never understood that.
It is strongly suspected that an elderly friend of mine might actually have the onset of dementia due to everything that's been going on the past year. Dealing with dad was bad enough, but this other person really takes the cake. So far, two people have actually mentioned dementia with this other person's behavior just from what I described to others in my social life. Putting all of the pieces together, I now can't help but wonder. I may not have dealt with very many dementia patients, so I'm very inexperienced in this field. All I can do is offer what I have faced from my own experience so far. Sometimes when you're constantly around someone a lot, it can actually be hard to spot and recognize early dementia. Now with my surrogate dad, this seemed to come on very gradually over a period of years, which made it near impossible for me to spot or even recognize. I started to suspect something, but no one who would actually do anything at that time as long as he was able to make his own decisions. This left me in a position of picking up the slack where no one else would act because there was no blood family. Years ago his wife died of cancer and his bio daughter died of half heart function. He has actually been through a very hard life from what he described, and most of his friends live pretty far away. I guess that if I live that kind of life as he described, it would be enough to make anyone negative. However, I guess dad never really learned how to not dwell on the past. This can be a struggle, and when dementia hits, life can be near impossible to deal with without the right help.