Recently, my 87-year-old mother became belligerent with one of her caregivers.\u00a0 It seems the caregiver tried to talk Mom out of visiting her mother, who\u2019s been dead since 1982.<\/p>\n
Swear words were hurled; medications administered.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve come a long way since the time two years ago when my mother literally tried to hit and bite one of my sisters for suggesting we get rid of some old clothing.\u00a0 That was when it dawned on us that our mother needed drugs.<\/p>\n
Sometimes Mom is merely confused.\u00a0 She gathers up all her shoes in preparation for \u201cmoving,\u201d but has no idea where she might be going.\u00a0 Or she insists she\u2019s living in her parents\u2019 apartment from a bygone decade in New York.\u00a0 Or she\u2019s relieved that \u201cthey finally caught the guy who\u2019s responsible for that awful business,\u201d as if I\u2019m supposed to know what that means.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s when my mother is agitated and aggressive that I find I\u2019m really learning something.\u00a0 No matter how personal the attack, the caregivers don\u2019t wonder whether Mom means it or why.\u00a0 They don\u2019t fret about the unique psychology behind her accusations.\u00a0 These lovely women comfort and medicate her, and start preparing dinner.<\/p>\n
Many cognitively impaired people resent the loss of control that goes with needing care; the fact that they can\u2019t be alone, or go \u201chome,\u201d or phone a dead person, makes them angry.\u00a0 So it\u2019s logical that Mom\u2019s caregivers would view her occasional outbursts, and even physical acting-out, as routine manifestations of dementia.<\/p>\n
The truth is, my mother has had lifelong difficulty controlling her impulses and an abiding need to assign blame.\u00a0 As a child, I couldn\u2019t afford to see these qualities in her; in my mind, my father was the identified lunatic.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t face the fact that my mother was unstable, indeed terrifying, in her own right.\u00a0 It took me a long time to metabolize that.<\/p>\n
Of course, even when grown\u2014and even in families with relatively healthy histories\u2014children can\u2019t be as detached from their elderly parents as outside caregivers. \u00a0There\u2019s just too much baggage.\u00a0 Still, I can\u2019t help wondering: what if I\u2019d looked upon my mother as cognitively impaired all along? \u00a0What if her attacks had made me fantasize about pharmaceutical intervention instead of compelling me to interpret, spin, analyze?<\/p>\n
Asking these questions has changed things for me.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat guy did they catch, Mom?\u201d I probe, sitting across from her at the kitchen table.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe guy who did it.\u201d\u00a0 She pauses, confused.\u00a0 \u201cThat terrible thing in South America.\u201d<\/p>\n
I swallow.\u00a0 \u201cMom, are you talking about the earthquake in Chile?\u201d\u00a0 You see, even natural disasters need to be blamed on someone.<\/p>\n
She looks sheepish.<\/p>\n
\u201cMom, people don\u2019t cause earthquakes,\u201d I tell her gently, then can\u2019t resist throwing in, \u201cwith the possible exception of my father.\u201d<\/p>\n
She gets the joke, gives an appreciative laugh.\u00a0 We have that genuine shared moment between us, after which she begins telling me about the new clothes her mother just bought her.<\/p>\n
Published in The Piedmont Post<\/em>, March 24, 2010<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Recently, my 87-year-old mother became belligerent with one of her caregivers.\u00a0 It seems the caregiver tried to talk Mom out of visiting her mother, who\u2019s been dead since 1982. Swear words were hurled; medications administered. We\u2019ve come a long way since the time two years ago when my mother literally tried to hit and bite…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n