Yesterday’s visit was so awful that my mother is no longer speaking to me, which feels like a holiday. I rang and spoke to the principle carer whilst my mother’s hairdresser was there this morning. We both think she has had another downward lurch, as she is now threatening suicide to the carer as well as me. But me she hates.
Turning against the principle family member involved with care is to be expected in the course of this disease at some point. It has happened in the past with my mother, though not as vehemently as at present. She had often turned against me long before she became demented; when I got up the courage to face my parents twelve years ago, they both went into denial and my mother lost so little time in turning the family against me that cousins began to appear on my doorstep to see if I had grown horns or a tail. Thinking about it I am surprised my mother’s aggression towards me hasn’t happened sooner.
When my mother-in-law was ill, early in the course of the disease she began to accuse my father-in-law, who was her principle carer, of infidelity. She insisted, he was very upset, but the accusations only lasted a few weeks. I sometimes think that the more outrageous assertions of the demented are a projection of their own fears, so that, for example, my Mother-in-law, aware that she was ill, was frightened my father-in-law would leave her.
The care agency manager says that the carers have not told her that my mother is threatening suicide, though one of the carers said she was this morning. This could perhaps be a fear of dying, the opposite of what she is actually expressing, the desire to die. My grandmother used to take me to church every Sunday, so my mother was certainly brought up with Christian values, though she now says that there is no God because she doesn’t believe in Him. I wonder if she is belatedly suffering from a guilty conscience?
I also spoke to the community nurse, who is going to visit my mother to see how the change in medication is affecting her. The nurse is going to see my mother alone; the day she can go my husband has a hospital appointment but a visit without me there is quite a good idea. My mother has been complaining that doctors speak to me and not to her, so it’s a good chance for her to do a bit of complaining on her own. The community nurse says that medication changes that affect mood can take six weeks or more to be beneficial.
I was feeling low and exhausted until the S&H, back with his beloved, rang to see how I got on yesterday. My child is as lovely in temperament as my mother is revolting.
I have been reading a great deal about adult children of alcoholics and about toxic parents. The trick to making the buck stop with you is early recognition of what the buck looks like. Although I couldn’t have put a name to this particular buck, I did when my child was 12, realise that my upbringing had been abusive and told him so and offered to put right anything I had done wrong. He asked for a raise in pocket money and got it and he and his father were given carte blanche to tell me at any time that I was sounding like my mother. They have done it less over time, so perhaps I am growing apart from my raising. My mother continually says that her father was a difficult person and they were all relieved when he died but she is, without a doubt, ten times worse.
Wad some po’or the giftie gie us tay see ousel’s as other see us. Said Rabbie Burns. He was right, up to the point where you look in the mirror and see your own parent, which usually happens some time after forty, you are their little mirror, all unawares. I am so fortunate not to be the child of my parents and try hard to be a good person. All anyone can do, especially if they come from a family with a lot of nasty people in it, is to keep looking in that mirror and keep looking at their soul.
If you’re frightened to die it’s probably a good reflection of the way you’ve lived your life.
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JaneLaverick.com – tired