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What caregiving has taught me so far is that people will say what makes them feel comfortable. We can't know the individual circumstances of people. What is relevant for one parent may not be relevant for another. There are times that we need to take things personally in order to take care of ourselves. An extreme would be if someone with dementia was hitting us with a bat. If someone said not to take that personally, it would be a silly thing. The same is true when it comes to emotional abuse. A caregiver has to protect her/himself. A family caregiver will know the history of the person. If the person was a mean person when they were younger, they will be a mean person with dementia if they have the disease. Then we are left with decisions about what to do based on the circumstances. I don't think there is any real way not to take it personally. I think what that means is not to blame ourselves.
Its so hard. I was and am a hyper sensitive person and I tended to take things too personally while caring for my dad. In my heart, I thought I was doing everything I can to "help" my dad, but my dad was so grumpy after the stroke. I don't think I fully understood how to help him sometimes.
In hindsight, I needed counselling or a support group to talk through all the issues. I felt so alone. I only found this forum after my dad passed. It was too late. Dealing with the grief has been harder than dealing with the day to day stresses of caring for my dad.
Another suggestion is to consider respite care and taking at least a day or two off during the week and just do some things for yourself.
At the peak of my struggle with looking after my mother - during a conversation she didn't want to have - my mother said to me that she wished I had never been born. How on earth does one not take a comment like that personally?
Yes, mom had dementia but she was still very aware that I was her daughter. Insult to injury - I had spent the previous five years killing myself trying to look after her - and my father for the first two of those years. And - there was no end in sight. To use another cliche - the salt in the wound was that mom's golden boy - my brother was getting a complete pass.
I think one would have to either super-human or made of stone to hear your own mother say something like that to you.
Dementia or not - it still cut me to the bone - for one last cliche.
I too wish I had found this site earlier. Or sought counseling while Dad was still alive. I'm a single retired man, and I should have talked to Dad about what he expected when he asked me to move in and help him. Some things happened which caused me to question his level of disability, and the amount of help he needed. And I absolutely took it personal when he accused me of not helping him. I had left my home, and my life behind, to cook, clean his house, work in the yard, maintain the house, make and drive him to Dr. appts and just on scenic rides through the mountains. I helped with PT and OT, did all the shopping, laundry, etc etc. I found my attitude changing when I was cooking dinner and he announced that he would just go driving for a half hour while I cooked. grrrrrrrr!!! I had to help him into and out of the shower, but he could get down stairs, and back up, without help, to smoke when i left to shop or check my house. It was d*mn personal!
I remember how hard this was. I remember saying to myself, it's her story, not mine; from her point of view she is still just trying to make me perfect so she can keep seeing herself as perfect mom and I also had to just detach and provide care in short and sweet visits focused on some little chore I could do for her. I did her laundry and kept the candy dish full. She always had that power to make me feel like a wretch from all the constant criticism, even though she'd brag about me when I was not there!! But, I could do that and be cheery for a few minutes, and once in while come up with something she actually liked.
Another thing comes to mind to me about "just letting it go". My husband has looked after his Dad in our home for the past 13+ years, and my hubby loved his Mother so very much, but FIL decided to bear his sole to him about 2 years ago, and told him of 2 different affairs that he had, when my husband was a little boy, which broke up the family for a time, and for which I'm quite certain my MIL never fully recovered from.
It all seems so unessasary, why he felt his son should be laden with this sort of information, while I suppose, he felt unburdend by revealing it to him.
It definitely changed how my husband now feels about him, and it's never been spoken about against, by Why did he feel the need to expose just a thingc, especially when he never even speaks her name, noright recalls any special memories of her, or ever wants to look at the family picture albums, she so lovingly put together to remember their 54 years together?
I guess it must have been good for him to get it off his chest, but now my husband is the one who has to live on with that memory, which gives him so much more clarity, on why the family is so dysfunctional in the first place! Yea, he took it personally!
There's been so many things my husband has "uncovered", in the time his Dad has come to live with us, none of it good, and most of it makes him resent his Dad all the more. Too bad he didn't have more of this information before we put our lives on hold to care for him! We definitely would have thought things through a lot more!
When I started taking care of my mother-in-law who had Alzheimers & was legally blind due to macular degeneration, I got offended A LOT by what and how she said things. After a few years, I came to realize, that if she suddenly got in her right mind, she'd be MORTIFIED about the things she'd been saying to me and others in the family. So that's how I had to look at her outbursts, rants etc. from then on. I was so glad she didn't realize how terrible she was acting, cause it would've killed her. ♥
Rainmom your mother and my mother sound a lot alike. My mom put my pictures face down so many times that I just took them all away. I say to myself I don't care? but really, it's gut wrenching and hurts because she does know I am her daughter. She has also thrown away 1/2 my wardrobe and personal things. I have to take all my toiletries in a box in and out of the bathroom every day and lock my door to my bedroom even if I step out of my room to get a drink of water. I take it all personal. Trying real hard not to but it's just a front.
There are a lot of things to take personally. Sometimes people talk about getting out photo albums and looking at the pictures. The thing is that there are so few pictures of me in all the albums that it is like I don't exist. There are many of my older brothers, but they stopped taking pictures when I came along. There is a scattering of them. When my younger brother came along and they started going on trips, then the pictures started again. I get bored when I look at the pictures and it makes me wonder why so many of the boys and so few of me. I know the answer without being told. Girls were just girls and nothing special. Kind of a depressing way to grow up.
Jessie, that's very similar to my younger bro, 2 years younger than I am. By time he was born, my mom was single mother with 3 kids. She didn't take many pics of him. I wonder if he's ever noticed it. I have. The younger kids many times have fewer pics, it seems to me. I have a great deal fewer than my older bro, who by far has the most pics of him as an infant and small child.
Those of you who are parents yourselves: Did your young child every say to you, "I hate you Mommy!" ? Maybe that hurts a bit. But usually we realize that the child doesn't even understand fully what that means. They are just frustrated and not yet able to express that feeling more exactly.
Elders with dementia are often in the same situation -- frustrated or angry and unable to express those feelings accurately. So "I wish you were never born" or "I hope you die!" come out. I think maybe in these situations we should give them a pass, for our own sake. Little kids say hurtful things they don't mean. So do persons with dementia.
Being a reasonably intelligent person, my mind understands the disconnect between an emotion and the ability to appropriately express it - in a person with brain damage. I get it.
However, when it is ones own mother - the single person civilized society and the Hallmark store says is suspose to love you unconditionally - trotting out the "that's not mom - it's the disease" can be a bit more of a struggle. It can strike at the core of every insecurity- every moment of unworthiness you've ever felt.
Trust me - I KNOW the rationale. Perhaps I'm just not evolved enough to FEEL it... Or perhaps this is an over simplification of a more complex issue.
I've just read through the comments and I want to say I think that there is a huge difference between a formerly loving parent who has become hateful and a parent who has always been that way, either overtly or covertly. No matter how far you have come and how "mature" your parent child relationships those old scars lurk just below the surface and wounds can easily be reopened. Our minds may understand that dementia may play a role but emotions are seldom logical. ((hugs)) to all
Just to clarify, I don't think the lack of pics of my younger bro is somehow "normal" due to my mom being simply too busy. She made extremely poor choices, put her kids at risk, gave us very little in the way of any feeling that we were worthwhile or protected... quite the opposite. I think my younger bro may have gotten the worst of it. By time he was born, only 3.5 years after older bro and me in the middle, any attention my mom had for her kids was gone, taken up elsewhere either by necessity or choice.
I've long described my situation as "not having parents." I have a mother and father, but I didn't have parents. I said that, understood that, even before I spent past years caregiving and being treated as "not much" all over again. It's hard on a person... it hurts. I don't think I could rationalize that it's "only dementia" if my parents experienced memory loss (they don't at present) and said hurtful things. They both do seem to have personality disorders, mental illness, and my dad has a lowered mental capacity since forever, but knowing those things on an intellectual level doesn't prevent hurt feelings I get due to their words/actions.
Like Rainmom said, I mentally get the idea but my emotions, at this point, have their own language, and my compassion is also worn too thin. Must I always be the giver and they are the takers? I just want away from my parents, just want to put a healthy distance in the relationships for my sake. (And they'll be fine, too.) It is complicated, and a unique situation to the individual. I try very hard to stay out of Pity Party Land and just do what needs to be done, but can't say I succeed much anymore at staying calm about things. I'm weary of one-way endless giving to my dad and SAD about my parents lack of ability to kind or caring. I don't expect "tv parents" (The Cleavers), but just people who care, however imperfectly. They can't seem to do it, never could, never will. That stinks. I also know I'm far from alone with that.
(And sorry for butting in on this thread, hah. I think I'm leaning towards too much indulging in my own story rather than participating in the thread topic, but sometimes... I don't have the words except to say what I've been through, and how I feel about it. One thing I'm most grateful to AC - for teaching me I'm not alone.)
The opening statement I made at my father's funeral You can't make somebody love you the way you want them to. You either accept they love you the best they can, or they Don't, and Live your own life. Hard words to live by but the only way I could survive narcissism.
My mother also told me (many times) that she wished she'd never had children. She said that to me and I said back to her "Well, most of us wish you hadn't had any either" and she was SO shocked..I think to her it was a running theme--kids had ruined her life and it had never occurred to her that maybe we felt she'd ruined ours. At least that comment stopped. AS a parent, it is REALLY hard to hold anger and disappointment inside. To rage at a child when you are angry--but then to apologize and "make it right" is important. No one is perfect. But to hear that all your life--you start to believe you are truly worth nothing. How NOT to take it personally? When it's the MOST personal thing someone can say? You have to dig down deep and work on forgiving. You'll never forget, but maybe you'll learn better parenting skills. Maybe you'll be kinder for it. I don't know. Stop that cycle before it has a chance to go another generation. You have a right to feel what you feel--you're human. I find now that if I call mother out on mean comments, she quits. I think we were just quiet and acquiescent for way too long.
I think that there is a HUGE difference in dealing with a parent who has always shown love and was nurturing and a parent who was one or another abusive. Cwillie is right! I don't understand why an adult child is a hands-on caregiver to such a parent. That is just not healthy. But for people in that situation, how did you handle those hateful comments and actions before the dementia? Before you became a caregiver?
It is MUCH easier, I think, to understand that this is happening because of damage in the brain if it wasn't happening before the brain was damaged.
I'm just curious, jeannegibbs- honestly- not trying to be nasty, just trying to understand other perspectives- but did your mother ever say to you that she hated you or wished you had never been born - or an equally cruel remark?
Apropos of nothing... I'm personally thankful for people as optimistic and loving and practical as jeannegibbs who participate here on AC. She helps me to understand what it could've been like without the hurtful negligence, etc, from infancy. Who wants to be in the "I was a child of abuse" club? Not me! But here we are...
Rainmom, I get you're asking for perspective... I'm just commenting/distracting myself out of an anxiety attack and into, hopefully, sleep. So I butted in. I'm bad about that sometimes. (Hopefully not excessively so!). Hugs to all the sorta sad/sorta resolved adult children of selfish, thoughtless, cruel, hateful parents.
AliBo - poor jeannegibbs, she hasn't even responded and you and I are having a conversation regarding her. Kinda like talking about someone when they're sitting right next to you.
Anyhoo- yes, I am truly looking to understand an opinion or perspective and am wondering about any history that is or isn't contributing to it. I am intrigued by jeannegibbs ability to rise above, forgive, look beyond- whatever it is that has shaped the gracious nature of her compassion.
Maybe it's just a core value that developed throughout her life - that doesn't have anything to do with having first hand experience. But maybe it is from first hand experienced and she is in the blessed minority of people who can honestly "not take it personal" - the topic of this discussion.
Since this thread falls under the "discussion" heading - I'm hoping that it's okay for me to ask the question and explore the origins and motivation - for lack of a better word - behind the answer.
Dementia is an awful disease and even if a person was once sweet they will say horrific things and usually to the person who is there day in and day out trying to make things better or at least not any worst
Yesterday a nurse did an annual assessment for my mom for her long term care coverage - she had met us a year ago when my mom first moved to memory care but spoke to us separately
Yesterday I stayed with mom during the assessment - the nurse had a standard list to go through and one task was for mom to write a sentence - mom asked what she should write and the nurse said anything you like So Mom says, MsMadge is an @$$hole
Now whether or not she believes that - I choose to believe she doesn't - I know it is the dementia talking- But I have to say there were some very bad periods in her demented journey which seemed to last forever and in looking back I'm not sure how we made it through that time
:) It's been a week/weekend for me. I want to talk about it but I don't know how sometimes to get it out, or if I even want to, so I just distract myself with other people's business. I think discussion about these all-important issues is wonderful. I wonder whether or not I'd have lived through the past 5 years of full time caregiving without the open and honest discussion on AC. Who knows, but I'm grateful for AC and I have made it out alive so far... but not really "so good."
Hows about I stop talking about anyone else besides myself? But then I feel self centered for that.
I'm very sad right now. I saw a file earlier tonight, mostly handwritten notes my brother wrote about me around the time just before and just after my grandmother's death in 2012. It was such a hard time, life changing time for me. I feel like I've been trying to prove something to others ever since then. I felt sick to see myself judged on paper by a brother, during a time I was going through the sh!tstorm of my life so far. I suppose I better figure out how to get some distance from it all. It's weird: my daily responsibilities for my dad's care have lessened and I can't seem to let go of anger and hurt. I think I have to truly move on for that to happen. Move on to a career/job, my own life again, maybe even a kind sig other to share it all with.
I'm having the kind of night where benzos don't help all that much. Taking a Valium while your heart hurts -- the med doesn't really help that much.
I know pain. I know self doubt and self criticism and self hatred. I like it when people on AC talk about positive viewpoints. Makes me feel like people aren't really that bad, and maybe I just got a little unlucky, and some others have it so much worse. "Pollyanna"... yeah... What's so wrong with Pollyanna mindset, anyway? G'night. Hugs.
P.s. I take everything about my family relationships and caregiving personally. My family/parents were the first ones to define me in this life, and now I've put myself in the position to allow them to define me yet again. Their definitions hurt. I do take it personally. I wish like heck I didn't. So yeah, it'd be great to know how Jeanne does it -- manages to see the positive and keep giving to others in need regardless of how they treated her.
Ali, I'm so sorry you are having such a bad night. Wouldn't life be so much easier if we didn't care (about anything?) Mind you, I've thought that but then I would have missed the loving relationship I had with my Mom. I guess I am one of the lucky ones who had a loving and kind Mother. I don't think I could have gone through what I did with her if I hadn't had that kind of friendship with her. More power to you if you can. I know my Mom loved me, probably not in the same way I loved her though. She was my everything. Not healthy in a lot of ways. But ah well............it was what it was.
I understand the hurt you feel Ali. Maybe not in the same way. I received my hurt at the hands of bullies all through elementary and high school and then went on to continue it at the hands of numerous, unhealthy relationships I got into because of the low self -esteem all the bullying growing up instilled in me. I've never understood why I was bullied. Probably cause I was ultra-sensitive and plus I was different. At age 11 I had grown to my full height of 5'10" and I was anorexic so very skinny and I had bad skin. So, I was a perfect target for mean kids I guess. Hubs and I rented a movie last night. There was this kid who had autism. His Dad said to him. People don't hate you, they are scared of you cause you are different. I've always been different but I kind of like that about myself now.
Anyway Ali, this is all apropos of nothing. I guess I'm just trying to say I relate to your hurt at the hands of insensitive people. It's sad to say but my Mom's dying wish was that the family would come together and be close after she died. I tried to instigate it a few times in the last two years, but if anything, we are further apart. Partly, cause there is still so much resentment on my part for the lack of caring and help my siblings gave me through my whole caregiving experience with Mom and also cause they just don't seem that interested in keeping up relations. I'm cutting ties with my narc sister cause I just think I'm better off without that energy in my life. As for the rest of them, if they don't want to meet me halfway, well I did my part.
Rainmom, no, my mother never said cruel things to me -- ever, before or during dementia. As far as I know she didn't say cruel things to my sister with whom she lived for a year. She was very confused and forgetful with dementia but it did not change her basic kind personality. So I never had to say to myself, "Don't take it personally, it is the disease talking."
My husband went through a period of paranoia, mostly directed against me. I was holding him against his will. I was stealing his money. I stole his car, and on and on. I knew, and reminded myself often, that he would not be saying these things if his brain were healthy. But it was very hard to hear those accusations, and I'm glad they only lasted a few months. I'm not sure I could have retained my calm if that had gone on the full ten years! Or maybe I would have gotten so used to it that it wouldn't have bothered me. Who knows?
Like my mother, my husband retained his basic personality throughout his journey with dementia, with a few side trips into paranoia and delusions now and then. Even on hospice, he remembered to say thank you when the nurse did anything for him.
So, Rainmom, it is easy for me to say, "Don't take it personally. Your loved one has a damaged brain." I have had very little personal experience with cruel remarks. I have had to rise above a lot during dementia caregiving, but there has really not been anything I've had to forgive.
My mother was kind and patient and taught us to look at things from the other person's perspective. My husband was kind and patient and not remotely abusive in word or deed. I think (how could I know?) that it is much easier to overlook and not take offenses personally when they are obviously out of character.
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Its so hard. I was and am a hyper sensitive person and I tended to take things too personally while caring for my dad. In my heart, I thought I was doing everything I can to "help" my dad, but my dad was so grumpy after the stroke. I don't think I fully understood how to help him sometimes.
In hindsight, I needed counselling or a support group to talk through all the issues. I felt so alone. I only found this forum after my dad passed. It was too late. Dealing with the grief has been harder than dealing with the day to day stresses of caring for my dad.
Another suggestion is to consider respite care and taking at least a day or two off during the week and just do some things for yourself.
I am so lucky that my Mom can have a paid in home aide everyday for a couple hours. I am sure this saved my sanity!
Yes, mom had dementia but she was still very aware that I was her daughter. Insult to injury - I had spent the previous five years killing myself trying to look after her - and my father for the first two of those years. And - there was no end in sight. To use another cliche - the salt in the wound was that mom's golden boy - my brother was getting a complete pass.
I think one would have to either super-human or made of stone to hear your own mother say something like that to you.
Dementia or not - it still cut me to the bone - for one last cliche.
It all seems so unessasary, why he felt his son should be laden with this sort of information, while I suppose, he felt unburdend by revealing it to him.
It definitely changed how my husband now feels about him, and it's never been spoken about against, by Why did he feel the need to expose just a thingc, especially when he never even speaks her name, noright recalls any special memories of her, or ever wants to look at the family picture albums, she so lovingly put together to remember their 54 years together?
I guess it must have been good for him to get it off his chest, but now my husband is the one who has to live on with that memory, which gives him so much more clarity, on why the family is so dysfunctional in the first place! Yea, he took it personally!
There's been so many things my husband has "uncovered", in the time his Dad has come to live with us, none of it good, and most of it makes him resent his Dad all the more. Too bad he didn't have more of this information before we put our lives on hold to care for him! We definitely would have thought things through a lot more!
Elders with dementia are often in the same situation -- frustrated or angry and unable to express those feelings accurately. So "I wish you were never born" or "I hope you die!" come out. I think maybe in these situations we should give them a pass, for our own sake. Little kids say hurtful things they don't mean. So do persons with dementia.
However, when it is ones own mother - the single person civilized society and the Hallmark store says is suspose to love you unconditionally - trotting out the "that's not mom - it's the disease" can be a bit more of a struggle. It can strike at the core of every insecurity- every moment of unworthiness you've ever felt.
Trust me - I KNOW the rationale. Perhaps I'm just not evolved enough to FEEL it... Or perhaps this is an over simplification of a more complex issue.
I've long described my situation as "not having parents." I have a mother and father, but I didn't have parents. I said that, understood that, even before I spent past years caregiving and being treated as "not much" all over again. It's hard on a person... it hurts. I don't think I could rationalize that it's "only dementia" if my parents experienced memory loss (they don't at present) and said hurtful things. They both do seem to have personality disorders, mental illness, and my dad has a lowered mental capacity since forever, but knowing those things on an intellectual level doesn't prevent hurt feelings I get due to their words/actions.
Like Rainmom said, I mentally get the idea but my emotions, at this point, have their own language, and my compassion is also worn too thin. Must I always be the giver and they are the takers? I just want away from my parents, just want to put a healthy distance in the relationships for my sake. (And they'll be fine, too.) It is complicated, and a unique situation to the individual. I try very hard to stay out of Pity Party Land and just do what needs to be done, but can't say I succeed much anymore at staying calm about things. I'm weary of one-way endless giving to my dad and SAD about my parents lack of ability to kind or caring. I don't expect "tv parents" (The Cleavers), but just people who care, however imperfectly. They can't seem to do it, never could, never will. That stinks. I also know I'm far from alone with that.
(And sorry for butting in on this thread, hah. I think I'm leaning towards too much indulging in my own story rather than participating in the thread topic, but sometimes... I don't have the words except to say what I've been through, and how I feel about it. One thing I'm most grateful to AC - for teaching me I'm not alone.)
You can't make somebody love you the way you want them to.
You either accept they love you the best they can, or they Don't, and
Live your own life.
Hard words to live by but the only way I could survive narcissism.
AS a parent, it is REALLY hard to hold anger and disappointment inside. To rage at a child when you are angry--but then to apologize and "make it right" is important. No one is perfect. But to hear that all your life--you start to believe you are truly worth nothing. How NOT to take it personally? When it's the MOST personal thing someone can say? You have to dig down deep and work on forgiving. You'll never forget, but maybe you'll learn better parenting skills. Maybe you'll be kinder for it. I don't know. Stop that cycle before it has a chance to go another generation.
You have a right to feel what you feel--you're human. I find now that if I call mother out on mean comments, she quits. I think we were just quiet and acquiescent for way too long.
I think that there is a HUGE difference in dealing with a parent who has always shown love and was nurturing and a parent who was one or another abusive. Cwillie is right! I don't understand why an adult child is a hands-on caregiver to such a parent. That is just not healthy. But for people in that situation, how did you handle those hateful comments and actions before the dementia? Before you became a caregiver?
It is MUCH easier, I think, to understand that this is happening because of damage in the brain if it wasn't happening before the brain was damaged.
Anyhoo- yes, I am truly looking to understand an opinion or perspective and am wondering about any history that is or isn't contributing to it. I am intrigued by jeannegibbs ability to rise above, forgive, look beyond- whatever it is that has shaped the gracious nature of her compassion.
Maybe it's just a core value that developed throughout her life - that doesn't have anything to do with having first hand experience. But maybe it is from first hand experienced and she is in the blessed minority of people who can honestly "not take it personal" - the topic of this discussion.
Since this thread falls under the "discussion" heading - I'm hoping that it's okay for me to ask the question and explore the origins and motivation - for lack of a better word - behind the answer.
Yesterday a nurse did an annual assessment for my mom for her long term care coverage - she had met us a year ago when my mom first moved to memory care but spoke to us separately
Yesterday I stayed with mom during the assessment - the nurse had a standard list to go through and one task was for mom to write a sentence - mom asked what she should write and the nurse said anything you like
So Mom says, MsMadge is an @$$hole
Now whether or not she believes that - I choose to believe she doesn't - I know it is the dementia talking- But I have to say there were some very bad periods in her demented journey which seemed to last forever and in looking back I'm not sure how we made it through that time
Hows about I stop talking about anyone else besides myself? But then I feel self centered for that.
I'm very sad right now. I saw a file earlier tonight, mostly handwritten notes my brother wrote about me around the time just before and just after my grandmother's death in 2012. It was such a hard time, life changing time for me. I feel like I've been trying to prove something to others ever since then. I felt sick to see myself judged on paper by a brother, during a time I was going through the sh!tstorm of my life so far. I suppose I better figure out how to get some distance from it all. It's weird: my daily responsibilities for my dad's care have lessened and I can't seem to let go of anger and hurt. I think I have to truly move on for that to happen. Move on to a career/job, my own life again, maybe even a kind sig other to share it all with.
I'm having the kind of night where benzos don't help all that much. Taking a Valium while your heart hurts -- the med doesn't really help that much.
I know pain. I know self doubt and self criticism and self hatred. I like it when people on AC talk about positive viewpoints. Makes me feel like people aren't really that bad, and maybe I just got a little unlucky, and some others have it so much worse. "Pollyanna"... yeah...
What's so wrong with Pollyanna mindset, anyway? G'night. Hugs.
I understand the hurt you feel Ali. Maybe not in the same way. I received my hurt at the hands of bullies all through elementary and high school and then went on to continue it at the hands of numerous, unhealthy relationships I got into because of the low self -esteem all the bullying growing up instilled in me. I've never understood why I was bullied. Probably cause I was ultra-sensitive and plus I was different. At age 11 I had grown to my full height of 5'10" and I was anorexic so very skinny and I had bad skin. So, I was a perfect target for mean kids I guess. Hubs and I rented a movie last night. There was this kid who had autism. His Dad said to him. People don't hate you, they are scared of you cause you are different. I've always been different but I kind of like that about myself now.
Anyway Ali, this is all apropos of nothing. I guess I'm just trying to say I relate to your hurt at the hands of insensitive people. It's sad to say but my Mom's dying wish was that the family would come together and be close after she died. I tried to instigate it a few times in the last two years, but if anything, we are further apart. Partly, cause there is still so much resentment on my part for the lack of caring and help my siblings gave me through my whole caregiving experience with Mom and also cause they just don't seem that interested in keeping up relations. I'm cutting ties with my narc sister cause I just think I'm better off without that energy in my life. As for the rest of them, if they don't want to meet me halfway, well I did my part.
My husband went through a period of paranoia, mostly directed against me. I was holding him against his will. I was stealing his money. I stole his car, and on and on. I knew, and reminded myself often, that he would not be saying these things if his brain were healthy. But it was very hard to hear those accusations, and I'm glad they only lasted a few months. I'm not sure I could have retained my calm if that had gone on the full ten years! Or maybe I would have gotten so used to it that it wouldn't have bothered me. Who knows?
Like my mother, my husband retained his basic personality throughout his journey with dementia, with a few side trips into paranoia and delusions now and then. Even on hospice, he remembered to say thank you when the nurse did anything for him.
So, Rainmom, it is easy for me to say, "Don't take it personally. Your loved one has a damaged brain." I have had very little personal experience with cruel remarks. I have had to rise above a lot during dementia caregiving, but there has really not been anything I've had to forgive.
My mother was kind and patient and taught us to look at things from the other person's perspective. My husband was kind and patient and not remotely abusive in word or deed. I think (how could I know?) that it is much easier to overlook and not take offenses personally when they are obviously out of character.