Quote:
Originally Posted by Fishee
Dealing with my dad, who is in... early-mid stages of dementia.
He's starting to become destructive around my parents' house, including last week accidentally setting fire to the living room sofa. The worst part is, he's incredibly defensive or dismissive of his actions as related to the damage caused by his behaviour.
I think the defensiveness is a result of some portion of the brain feeling shame and embarrassment, but it's unable to deal with the hard emotions of admitting that his hands-on fixing and building skills, something that he prided himself on, are no longer there. As a result, in many situations when people avoid hard emotions, they project defensiveness and anger, when truly they're dealing with sadness, worry and grief.
|
My Mom never got destructive, but she lost all filtering before saying stuff, so she'd say completely inappropriate things. But her most bizarre behavior was getting out of bed in the middle of the night and just standing in the living room. She wouldn't do anything. She'd just stand in one place looking around. I used to stay with her when she had an apartment near my sister's place. I'd be sleeping on the pull-out sofa bed and wake up to see her just standing there outside her bedroom. She did the same thing once she moved in with my sister. Eventually she had to be moved into long-term care and the staff there would tell us that she'd wander out of her room at night and just stand in the common area. It's still so hard to think about those days, knowing she was suffering and there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it.