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BaftaBaby 
"Always entranced by cinema."
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 Posted - 08/11/2007 : 19:42:45
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Originally posted by Chris C
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Originally posted by BaftaBabe
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Originally posted by Beanmimo
Now that's just not helpful at all.
I've lost my thought of train.
Ah! Then THIS should help. 
May I respectfully suggest that you include this movie in your accolade?
Ooh look, I win. 
Merci beaucoup, ChrisC ... how could I have forgotten ... must have lost my train of thought 
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ChocolateLady 
"500 Chocolate Delights"
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Posted - 08/12/2007 : 07:00:01
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| All's wheel that ends wheel! |
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TitanPa
"Here four more"
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Posted - 08/12/2007 : 07:27:27
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| nice caboose |
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ChocolateLady
"500 Chocolate Delights"
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Posted - 08/12/2007 : 08:27:12
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| Don't I wish! |
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duh 
"catpurrs"
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Posted - 08/12/2007 : 15:12:07
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DH and DS and I went over to the folks this evening, to see if we could get Mom settled down. She had called me and was demanding that I return the medical power of attorney to her, that it was some kind of contract with Dad to kill her.
I knew that I wouldn't be able to do anything with her myself; she is somehow, bizarrely, very jealous of me (I didn't sign up for this.) and in a perpetual state of being pissed off at me and Dad.
She calls Dad "old stupid" now. She says we all pick on her, etc. She says we're going to put her into a "black" nursing home. I offered to fetch the yellow pages and have her point out to me which nursing home is "black." (I guess advancing alzheimers is bringing out her underlying racism?)
I said (I was being onery), "Let's say, for the sake of argument, that there is a 'black' nursing home, and it is the very finest one in the nation. Wouldn't you prefer that one to a trashy 'white' nursing home?" She glared at me.
She is a big fan of Tiger Woods and after she had become more lucid, (after DH talked and talked and talked to her), I asked her if a "black" nursing home would be OK if it belonged to Tiger Woods. She did laugh a little.
She's been having lots more delusions and hallucinations, apparently. From the shit she claims that I've been up to lately, I've been even busier than I thought. I actually keep Mom on "minimal contact" because I piss her off, but as she tells it, I have been running over to her house and carryng off her stuff.
I got Dad aside and he is really worn out. He said she yelled at him for two hours last night. He doesn't know what to do.
I feel sad. Mom has always had an adversarial relationship with me. There were times while I was growing up when we had fun together, but whenever I didn't behave like her plastic babydoll, she screamed at me and said terrible things. She even said she wished I was dead. As I feared, it seems that the alzheimers is exacerbating the complications of our relationship.
I wonder what it would have been like to have a mom who could have loved me. However, my cousins had it far worse. Their mom, my mom's older sister, was an alcoholic who took off and left them alone with no care, no food, nothing.
Why do so many women suck really bad at being mothers? Mothering comes so easily to most other species. Heck, even a beef cow is a loving mother. Drive by a pasture, and watch a Hereford licking her baby on the face, affectionately, as if to say, "You're my baby and I love you unconditionally." |
Edited by - duh on 08/13/2007 03:32:49 |
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ChocolateLady
"500 Chocolate Delights"
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Posted - 08/13/2007 : 05:57:14
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| Humans think too much. |
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BaftaBaby
"Always entranced by cinema."
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Posted - 08/13/2007 : 11:25:14
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quote:
Originally posted by duh
DH and DS and I went over to the folks this evening, to see if we could get Mom settled down. She had called me and was demanding that I return the medical power of attorney to her, that it was some kind of contract with Dad to kill her.
I knew that I wouldn't be able to do anything with her myself; she is somehow, bizarrely, very jealous of me (I didn't sign up for this.) and in a perpetual state of being pissed off at me and Dad.
She calls Dad "old stupid" now. She says we all pick on her, etc. She says we're going to put her into a "black" nursing home. I offered to fetch the yellow pages and have her point out to me which nursing home is "black." (I guess advancing alzheimers is bringing out her underlying racism?)
I said (I was being onery), "Let's say, for the sake of argument, that there is a 'black' nursing home, and it is the very finest one in the nation. Wouldn't you prefer that one to a trashy 'white' nursing home?" She glared at me.
She is a big fan of Tiger Woods and after she had become more lucid, (after DH talked and talked and talked to her), I asked her if a "black" nursing home would be OK if it belonged to Tiger Woods. She did laugh a little.
She's been having lots more delusions and hallucinations, apparently. From the shit she claims that I've been up to lately, I've been even busier than I thought. I actually keep Mom on "minimal contact" because I piss her off, but as she tells it, I have been running over to her house and carryng off her stuff.
I got Dad aside and he is really worn out. He said she yelled at him for two hours last night. He doesn't know what to do.
I feel sad. Mom has always had an adversarial relationship with me. There were times while I was growing up when we had fun together, but whenever I didn't behave like her plastic babydoll, she screamed at me and said terrible things. She even said she wished I was dead. As I feared, it seems that the alzheimers is exacerbating the complications of our relationship.
I wonder what it would have been like to have a mom who could have loved me. However, my cousins had it far worse. Their mom, my mom's older sister, was an alcoholic who took off and left them alone with no care, no food, nothing.
Why do so many women suck really bad at being mothers? Mothering comes so easily to most other species. Heck, even a beef cow is a loving mother. Drive by a pasture, and watch a Hereford licking her baby on the face, affectionately, as if to say, "You're my baby and I love you unconditionally."
Oh, sweetheart ... I'm so sorry to read this sad tale. Sad for you, equally sad for your mom. There have been some excellent recent programs about Alzheimers here in the UK, largely motivated by an ongoing discussion about its being what they call a "Cinderella service" within the NHS.
Funding is always the issue ... spending priorities operate in every health care system, but with an increasingly aging population, this horrid disease is getting more attention and, perversely, having to fight hard to make its case.
As to maternal instinct ... there have been many studies over the past nearly 100 years which reveal that while there is definitely an instinct to copulate, what we call maternal instinct is largely a product of cultural indoctrination.
Some intriguing long-term studies were carried out at the Yerkes primate lab among others which showed that mothers who'd had bad maternal role models perpetuated lousy mothering skills to their own kids. It's not 100% but statistically significant.
One zoo gorilla mom was just not getting the idea of motherhood at all. Actually that's quite a common behavior among zoo moms. So the enlightened curator arranged for the gorilla to watch television programs showing loving mother-care among other apes. The gorilla was fascinated, and, when her next baby was born, the difference was amazing.
Sadly, with Alzheimers, it's not merely a matter of releasing inhibitions and repressed hatreds, paranoia, etc. The disease itself seems to distort interpretation of external acts. That's why patients start accusing loving spouses of poisoning food, or stealing possessions.
Some specialists believe there are neural pathways that develop to establish new ways to react to the loss of mental control. The person's aware something's going on but can't accept they themselves are the source of the trouble. So they project on others what seems logical to explain the transition. Sort of like when a person loses a limb but evolves phantom pains because they're partially unable to accept they still don't have their arm, leg, etc.
All of this aside, I'm rambling because I just wanted to reach out and give you a cyber-hug.
Hope today is better for you.
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ChocolateLady
"500 Chocolate Delights"
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Posted - 08/13/2007 : 11:36:50
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quote:
Originally posted by ChocolateLady
Humans think too much.
I didn't mean to be insensitive. My father died from Altzheimers and he was an abusive parent as well. Do yourself a favour - rejoice in the good lucid times you have left with her and remember that the nasty times have more to do with her illness than they do with reality and her real feelings for you. This is far easier to say than to do, but you need to disconnect all the bad stuff of now and try to reconnect with all the good things that are and were.
Here's something I did - try to smile at her as much as you can, and if she asks what you're smiling about, just retell her one of the "good time" stories you have with her (if you only have a few, that's okay too - she won't remember if you repeat them).
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duh
"catpurrs"
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Posted - 08/13/2007 : 13:28:36
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quote:
Originally posted by BaftaBabe
Some specialists believe there are neural pathways that develop to establish new ways to react to the loss of mental control. The person's aware something's going on but can't accept they themselves are the source of the trouble. So they project on others what seems logical to explain the transition. Sort of like when a person loses a limb but evolves phantom pains because they're partially unable to accept they still don't have their arm, leg, etc.
All of this aside, I'm rambling because I just wanted to reach out and give you a cyber-hug.
Hope today is better for you.
Very interesting!
I will talk to Mom's doctor today, and also some social services people for advice.
Thanks for the nice hug.
quote:
Originally posted by ChocolateLady
quote:
Originally posted by ChocolateLady
Humans think too much.
I didn't mean to be insensitive. My father died from Altzheimers and he was an abusive parent as well. Do yourself a favour - rejoice in the good lucid times you have left with her and remember that the nasty times have more to do with her illness than they do with reality and her real feelings for you. This is far easier to say than to do, but you need to disconnect all the bad stuff of now and try to reconnect with all the good things that are and were.
Here's something I did - try to smile at her as much as you can, and if she asks what you're smiling about, just retell her one of the "good time" stories you have with her (if you only have a few, that's okay too - she won't remember if you repeat them).
You weren't insensitive, your remark made me laugh.  I'm going to try your tip about smiling, etc. |
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Beanmimo 
"August review site"
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Posted - 08/13/2007 : 13:53:08
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Why do so many women suck really bad at being mothers? Mothering comes so easily to most other species. Heck, even a beef cow is a loving mother. Drive by a pasture, and watch a Hereford licking her baby on the face, affectionately, as if to say, "You're my baby and I love you unconditionally."
[/quote]
I wouldn't single out mother's here Duh, but then i'm not you.
Alzheimers is a damn curse and the scary thing is that you don't know how aware the sufferers are. When they make no sense it is easier than when they make little sense.
With the little sense they make you can almost feel that they understand but cannot be understood.
This post makes ME feel like the loser. |
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duh
"catpurrs"
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Posted - 08/13/2007 : 18:07:13
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quote:
Originally posted by Beanmimo
This post makes ME feel like the loser.
Ah, but for a brief and shining moment, you were the winner. |
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Puzzgal 
"Not much to say..."
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Posted - 08/13/2007 : 20:34:56
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| This is my first time playing and I'm now the winner. How special for me! |
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BaftaBaby
"Always entranced by cinema."
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Posted - 08/13/2007 : 21:47:18
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Hi Puzzgal ... where've you been?
... oops!
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Montgomery
"F**k!"
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Posted - 08/13/2007 : 22:32:47
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No reason to dwell on past success. This thread asks, "What have you posted for me lately?"
EM :) |
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ChocolateLady
"500 Chocolate Delights"
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Posted - 08/14/2007 : 08:30:34
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quote:
Originally posted by duhYou weren't insensitive, your remark made me laugh.
I'm glad to hear it.
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I'm going to try your tip about smiling, etc.
By the way, if you really have issues with your mother, then the smiling might have the extra benefit. When I did that with my father, and he gots angry and started yelling "what are you smiling about?", I just couln't keep from bursting out laughing.
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Last Fourumite To Post Wins!
