I’m overwhelmed ...
Dementia makes people do some crazy things. Drives me nuts sometimes
Dementia makes people do some crazy things. Drives me nuts sometimes
Yeah .... mom called my daughter and convinced her I was bleeding to death and in the hospital...
It’s so sad to see her like this.
Oh my.....I could have written this exact post myself.
Lol, I had one family member call human services on me to complain about things I was doing wrong or realistically about how I was abusing and mistreating my grandfather. They investigated me which was very very stressful and then also caused me to be investigated about the situation my children were living in. Of course I was cleared on both accounts!!!
They will not ever understand because they don’t want to. For me, the more I needed help or understanding the more they twisted or ignored the situation and made out it was no big deal. None of them would take care of him for even a week so I could have a break....I put him into respite for two weeks and on the first day my uncle picked him up then refused to take him back and insisted on dropping him off at my home while I was not there. It ended up getting pretty bad and actually tore the whole family apart. They still think I was cruel for insisting that both grandparents went into aged care once they needed physically lifting and full time supervision for everyone’s safety.
You know what it’s like and you will do the best you can so it will be easier for you to start to view your other family members with having the same mental capacity as the one you’re caring for- it was the only way I could peacefully accept their behaviour and beliefs of my reality.
Keep your chin up, you know you are doing what is right and doing it to your best ability which is more than they are doing. A phone call here and there does not give them the full picture that you are privy to.
I found changing the subject to something they still had an interest in worked for me when they both got angry or argumentative about things that were not real or appropriate.
My Nan was easier to do this with than my grandfather.
I know it sounds awful but I did find distracting them (like you do to young kids) to look at a plane or bird or dropping something would be enough to break the cycle of having to reason about things that were unreasonable.
It is horrible to witness the changes in them and so very sad.
Sometimes I just had to take five minutes to have a quiet cry or laugh at the ridiculousness of certain situations really helped me.