Month: October 2024

The only bag you need for road tripping, date night and more.

The mogul “thought of himself as a king.”

Two ex-Jennifers under the same roof.

In the past months, I have been navigating the rough and turbulent waters of dementia, trying to cope with the changes I observe in my mother’s behavior.

I was oblivious at first – or perhaps I overlooked the signs. I hoped the dementia problem would simply go away or sort itself out. Neither happened, and I continue to battle, question, blame, and at long last, accept what I cannot change.

When I was younger, a friend mentioned their fear of dementia and Alzheimer’s because it ran in her family. I hardly gave it a thought at the time because I knew of no family member who had succumbed to either. I felt relieved and unburdened.

As a volunteer Emergency Medical Technician, I dealt with numerous patients and found it easy to talk with them and give comfort. But it wasn’t until my mother was stricken with dementia that I discovered the number of afflicted and their many facets of dementia.

The hurts and hurdles one must suffer through or go over are challenging both for the person experiencing the problem and their caregiver. It can begin with forgetting, misplacing, and confusing people, issues, and things, and continues forward with accusing others of stealing.

The Road to Confusion and Battles

To the patient, time appears mixed up. They forget when you visited last or who visited and gave them the box of chocolates.

One day, you can become the bad person who hurt them, even if you didn’t. They can watch television and believe something happened to them. Relatives who died may be living in their world. You may be blamed for things you didn’t say or do.

Names and simple information told a minute ago is forgotten a minute later. If a woman is newly pregnant, the person may expect the baby to arrive the next day. Things mentioned one day are not recalled the next day, and it leads to arguments.

The fights begin when one attempts to correct the dementia patient’s mistake. I made these errors at first, but now I don’t argue or make attempts at any explanation. Both of us experienced the discomfort, pain, and humbling experience of futile arguments that went nowhere.

Now I gently accept my mother’s world view and we travel the road together. I learned to take her lead and accept her reality. I was not successful overnight, and I still work on acceptance.

A dementia patient will not remember an experience just because you give reminders or repeat the episode with actions and words. I tried that. It is difficult to jog their memory or push them to deduce something with an array of facts.

Sometimes they are aware of mixing things up, especially in the beginning stages. They hate it more than family members do, but they can’t make it stop.

They may introduce you to people you met before. Say hello and move on. It is quick and simple, and everyone is safe and happy. Keep conversations positive and joyful. Tell stories that are simple to follow and drop any subject that creates fear or annoyance to the patient.

Have a Relaxed Attitude

Caregivers coping with a person who has dementia must try to understand and be patient. They may refuse to choose lunch from a menu because they have forgotten how to do it and are embarrassed.

One woman I knew always chose to have the lunch the previous person ordered. She would say, “I’ll have what she ordered. It sounds good.”

Another woman always stated she wasn’t hungry, so that she didn’t have to order. I always suggest something to my mother and she immediately accepts and feels proud that she ordered dinner.

They repeat news and stories because they don’t recall having said it before. It is easier to listen again or attempt to change a subject to something new.

People who have dementia like to keep precious items with them at all times. It is their survival kit, and without it they feel helpless.

They know things changed, and they attempt to carry their personal world with them. It promotes security for them. They may even take items from your house or a store on a survival instinct.

Allow them to keep items close and overlook the drama or inconvenience. This makes them relax. They are not mean when they accuse you of stealing. It comes from their insecurity of being fragile and helpless.

They don’t understand how to deal with any loss of their items. Instead, the patient lives in a wild world and doesn’t know how to get the items they need.

Remember Your Own Needs

We work at home, have a job or babysit the grandchildren. Now we add the responsibility of being caregiver to an aged parent, spouse, or friend.

But we often get tired and need a break – physically, emotionally, and mentally. We are not robots and our feelings get hurt, especially when we aren’t recognized anymore by loved ones with dementia.

We appreciate who they were as an individual and all the wonderful things they accomplished. But their identity dissipates slowly, and it can be torturing if we let it. We have memories from long ago, to remind us.

At times, there is a spark of the person our loved one once was, and we must grasp that moment of knowledge and appreciate it. For some, the body slips away first, but for others, it is the mind. Don’t beat yourself up when you fail to understand. Just do your best.

Release Fear, Anger, and Guilt

We don’t have many choices with dementia, but we can control our attitude. We can make many short visits or phone calls and express our love to the people we care about. The alternative is to be anxious and angry about what could or should have been.

Guilt can devour us when we realize time has passed and is now limited. Happy memories and precious current moments of pleasure spent with a loved one are not over. It would be a waste if we don’t attempt to connect in new ways with the changed person beside us whom we continue to love.

We can’t know nor control our time on earth, but we can control to whom and when we send our love. The past is gone, so don’t carry burdens of guilt. Live your life in the present.

Let’s Have a Conversation:

What impact has dementia had on your life? Do you know someone who suffers from this illness? How have they changed as the illness developed? What can you tell others who deal with dementia in their family? Please share your thoughts in the box below.

Estrangement – what an ugly, harsh-sounding word. Jarring to the ears, in fact.

The dictionary definition of estrangement is “the state of being alienated or separated in feeling or affection; a state of hostility or unfriendliness.”

Estrangements are shrouded in secrecy and shame. Estrangement is a stigma.

Those who have experienced estrangement, either as the one who cut off the relationship or as the one who had the relationship cut off by someone else, all share one thing in common: a sense of being alone.

Statistics, however, do not bear out this assumption.

According to Karl Pillemer, PhD, in his newly released book, Fault Lines – Fractured Families and How to Mend Them, over one quarter of Americans surveyed reported currently being estranged from a relative – translating into 67 million people.

The Triggers

What leads a person to break off a key connection? There are many reasons, including:

• One is done trying to make the relationship better.
• Lack of desire to further accommodate demands.
• Done overlooking intolerable behavior.
• No wish to keep apologizing for a different lifestyle.
• Done ignoring disrespect for a spouse or partner.

Often one key event usually triggers the estrangement.

Pillemer notes that there has been a dramatic increase in the human life span. Therefore, the amount of time children spend as adult offspring can likely be 30 to 50 years. Thus, our family relationships – whether positive, negative, or both – affect us for many decades.

Past conflicts, violated and/or unmet expectations, the lasting effects of divorce, in-law issues, money and inheritance, unmet expectations, and value and lifestyle differences are all fertile areas of estrangement cultivation.

The Effects of Estrangement

Estranged parties share many of the same emotions. They feel deep sadness and a rudderless feeling of loss which often leads to chronic stress and separation anxiety. The pain from rejection is real and intensified due to the physical absence but psychological presence.

Unfortunately, estrangement does not just stop with the family members intimately involved. The entire family/kinship network often feels the ripple effect. The collateral damage spreads far, wide, and deep.

There is disruption of social capital resources – sources of financial and practical support that family members could tap into if the rupture were not present.

Let’s face it: Estrangement jumpstarts tiny earthquake-like ripples. A tradition of exclusion and isolation ushers in. Family members often have to choose one family member over the other. Nasty damages to generations can ensue – spewing spite and bitterness among the relatives.

Slow-Building Estrangement

Many estrangements spring from the explosive power of a single event, but in fact may have been building up for years or decades as a long history of pain and disappointments. Whether it’s a pivotal incident or an accumulation of hurts, people in estranged situations often echo many of the same thoughts:

• It never stops hurting.
• It’s taken 10-20 years off my life.
• The estrangement is an open wound.
• There is a sadness in me that just won’t go away.
• I lost faith and trust in myself.
• It’s like a death, but with no funeral or closure.

I remember years ago, when I was married to my first husband, traveling regularly from Florida to Ohio with my two small sons to visit my parents.

Saying goodbye after an extended stay in my hometown was agonizing – my mother would cry uncontrollably and lament the unfairness of me living nearby my husband’s family and not my own.

In those moments, all I wanted to do was distance myself from her pain as quickly as possible. And the more miles that separated us, the calmer I felt.

Estrangement Is Toxic

Estrangement between any two family members is a culmination of a long history of tension and disappointment, notes Pillemer. It is significant and widely toxic.

The dreaded phrase uttered from one family member to another: “I never want to see you again,” is a phrase that too often ushers in a formal declaration of estrangement and collateral damage for generations to come.

It, says Pillemer, is a “before and after moment in which everything changes irrevocably.” Angry rumination follows – as does silence, stand-offs, and stonewalling. Past history shifts as it in interpreted in light of the volcanic event.

Is It Possible to Mend a Relationship?

Fortunately, there are those who are able to bridge their rifts. It doesn’t happen because their situations are easy to resolve. Actually, the driving point is the personal benefit of ending the estrangement – of dropping the weight of anger, hurt feelings, and negativity that had plagued them for years.

They do it for themselves.

What Goes into It?

In estrangements, both parties have composed narratives that support their sense of self and the way they think about the relationship. Estranged individuals often disagree dramatically on the meaning of the pivotal event.

Those who are able to reconcile (Pillemer refers to them as Reconcilers) let go of both the need to align the two versions of the past and to agree on the past. Starting from the present is the key. (And individual counseling and therapy invariably helps this process.)

How to Cross the Chasm

First, successful reconcilers change their expectations. They stop expecting the other person to become someone he or she is not. Also, they stop expecting that person to live up to their values.

Both parties have to settle for less than they desire to restore the relationship – moving from seeking an ideal relationship to realistically attempting the best connection possible.

And second, successful reconcilers share common tools. They are able to set clear limits and boundaries, while making sure their own needs are met. They protect themselves by realizing “you can go home again, but it well may be a different ‘home’.”

Whichever it is, it’s definitely worth preserving.

Let’s Have a Conversation:

If you have experienced familial estrangement, what has helped you mend the rift? What advice would you give others in this situation? How can you prevent the breaking-off of relations? Please share your thoughts and tips with the community.