After five years of watching my mother descend into the belly of dementia, I cannot get use to the behaviors that appear before me. Her descend has been slow but always noticible, at least to me.
I’ve witnessed her threats, her cursing my life, her paranoia, her screams, her nightmares, her stripping naked, her cries for help and her calling for the police. But none have the effect or rattle me as her calling out for her mother. She lost her mother well over 65 years ago, but her mind cries out for her mother to help her and comfort her as if her mother were in the next room.
Usually we medicate her to calm her, but she’s in the hospital suffering with pneumonia and cogestive heart failure and they feel she is overmedicated with what we give her at home. So here I sit, listening to the hell that she lives in, wondering, is this what it all comes to? Is this going to be my destination at some point in time. What a cruel and unusual punishment to have handed down to my mother. Had she not suffered enough before, during and after the camps?
I’m angry and I don’t know who to be angry with. I want to kick, spit, scream and cry out to give my mother her sanity back. I was never very close to her but she is my mother and I would never turn my back on my responsibility as her child. Afterall, she brought me into this world and for that, I am grateful.
If my mother can’t be “sane” and enjoy her life, then all I want for her, is to be at peace. Dementia is eating away at her like vultures and she’s dying a slow death in quicksand.
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May 1st, 2008 at 11:47 pm
Believe me, I understand where you’re coming from. It’s the helplessness as you watch the descent, knowing there’s so little you can do for her, and knowing that she deserves a better life in her sunset years than this insanity taking over her mind, that makes you angry.
One is often at a loss for words to describe a phenomenon that hits so close to home. But you have described it well and also your feelings about it. Hope it has helped you to put it down in words. Better than holding it all inside and then exploding only to hurt others. I’m here to listen and so are others who have been down this road too.
May 2nd, 2008 at 4:25 pm
It is a shame you feel that way. True the mother you knew and loved is gone. Now you have a new friend with problems. Try to look for the positives and I am sure you can find at least one. She has a beautiful smile. She tells us lovely stories. She has a voice like an angel. She is just so sweet when she sees people. Could you go with any of these. If not, think hard and think of something good.
by Susan Berg author of Adorable Photographs of Our Baby-Meaningful Mind Stimulating Activities and More for the Memory Challenged, Their Loved Ones and Involved Professionals a book for those with dementia and an excellent resource for caregivers and healthcare professionals.
You may visit my website at http://www.alzheimersideas.com
or my blogs at http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/dementiacare/
http://dementiaviews.blogspot.com
May 4th, 2008 at 5:00 am
I’m catching up on my reading here and just noticed this. You’ve mentioned the dementia before, but I never really knew how it affected you. For the past couple years I’ve had concerns about my dad “slipping away” is what I’d call it, but it’s nothing like what you’re going through!! I’m so sorry. Hugs, Kim