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- Member
Fri Aug 26, 2011 12:06 am
As I was helping Mum to bed tonight she asked me where was her daughter Susan - as usual I said ‘that’s me Mum’ and she said ‘no, she’s a lot younger than you, if you were my daughter I’d have been a child when I had you !’.
It took a while but I did manage to convince her of my identity - again tonight, like other times lately, she suddenly realises that she’s losing her memories; that she can’t do things for herself and, as she puts it, she’s a ‘liability’ and a ‘burden’. She’s frightened that she’s going insane, and no matter how much I tell her she’s not going mad but has an illness that is making her forget things, she won’t believe me.
It is so very sad to see a once lively, intelligent and vibrant woman who could take on the world slowly turning into a mere shadow of her former self; someone who is now frightened of the dark and who can’t even fathom how to dress herself.
So very sad that she doesn’t remember that she has daughters, grand-daughters and great-grandchildren.
So very sad that she is convinced that she is all alone in this world, that her sisters have deserted her and that she has no family.
A lot of the time now she’s living in an alternative reality dictated by the TV programmes she watches so we’re on holiday if there is a programme about another country; we’ve moved to the countryside (that’s after watching ‘Escape to the Country’ or Last of the Summer Wine); she tells me she doesn’t go to auctions (Dickinson’s Real Deal or Flog It) and the news is a real no-no at the moment with all the talk of civil war in Libya.
It’s a bit like living ‘Benjamin Button’ but a lot sadder - an adult fast reverting to a childlike state - those of you who have a relative with dementia will know what I mean.
It took a while but I did manage to convince her of my identity - again tonight, like other times lately, she suddenly realises that she’s losing her memories; that she can’t do things for herself and, as she puts it, she’s a ‘liability’ and a ‘burden’. She’s frightened that she’s going insane, and no matter how much I tell her she’s not going mad but has an illness that is making her forget things, she won’t believe me.
It is so very sad to see a once lively, intelligent and vibrant woman who could take on the world slowly turning into a mere shadow of her former self; someone who is now frightened of the dark and who can’t even fathom how to dress herself.
So very sad that she doesn’t remember that she has daughters, grand-daughters and great-grandchildren.
So very sad that she is convinced that she is all alone in this world, that her sisters have deserted her and that she has no family.
A lot of the time now she’s living in an alternative reality dictated by the TV programmes she watches so we’re on holiday if there is a programme about another country; we’ve moved to the countryside (that’s after watching ‘Escape to the Country’ or Last of the Summer Wine); she tells me she doesn’t go to auctions (Dickinson’s Real Deal or Flog It) and the news is a real no-no at the moment with all the talk of civil war in Libya.
It’s a bit like living ‘Benjamin Button’ but a lot sadder - an adult fast reverting to a childlike state - those of you who have a relative with dementia will know what I mean.
