My great grandmother has alzheimers and I'm wondering if her obsession of me losing weight is because of it. Every time I see her over and over again that same day she will recommend I lose weight and that she will pay for me to do it. This is for a documentary for my media class I would love help.
With dementia comes several rather pleasing/unpleasant effects - all previous traits are exaggerated and so nice people tend to become nicer nasty people .....well you get the picture
I can say the best way to help your sanity is to realize that it can't be helped and is caused by a disease. These people do not act this way because they want to irritate anyone, they just can't help themselves.
However, even knowing that I spend so many hours a day so irritated and upset with the constant redirection and picking up. This is a hard battle and not one that is easy to fight.
Because her obsession is related to you personally makes it even harder to take. If you can try to not make it personal, maybe that will help you. If it wasn't your weight being the focus, it would be something else. Good luck to you!
My mom was terrible. Thank goodness I did not have a weight problem, but she did not like my hair one little bit, and never did. She always wanted to take me to get my hair cut and styled. The last time she ever made that decision for me I was in about 7th grade. She thought getting a perm for my long and stringy, straight hair would be the solution to her dislike. It was awful, I must have cried for two days, finally went to have my hair cut short and thinned significantly. That still did not solve the problem.
I cared for mom 24/7 for four years. At the beginning whenever she and her hubby and I would go anywhere, ahe sould make rude comments about just about everybody she saw that needed to lose weight. That wasn't just mom making comments but her hubby, without dementia, as well. I was able to stop this for the most part by redirecting mom. I could tell when the rude comments were coming so would start to talk about something else. It worked most of the time.
And remember your grandma loves you and may be really concerned. She is not doing it to be mean Alzheimer's will not permit her brain to reason.
When it became difficult for my husband to reach up and turn off his bedside lamp I found an extension cord it could be plugged into and that he could easily turn off. He took it apart several times -- something that required getting on his hands and knees to do. We had this conversation:
"I thought you liked the new way to turn off the lamp."
"Oh I love it! It is the slickest thing I've seen lately. I can always reach it easily."
"Then why are you taking it off the lamp?"
"Didn't you tell me you bought it?"
"Yes. I did buy it -- one for your side of the bed and one for mine."
"Well if we paid for it and I love it, I certainly don't want to leave it here when we leave this hotel."
So ... there was a reason my husband was obsessed with unplugging the cord. It was related to his delusion that we were staying in a hotel (when in fact we were home).
So maybe great-grandmother has a perfectly logical reason to be so obsessed about your weight, in her version of reality. Maybe someday that will be clear to you, but probably not.
If your grandmother has dementia, there is nothing, really, that isn't impacted by the damaged condition of her brain. Is her obsession about your weight (or whatever obsession she may have next week) related to the dementia? Absolutely!