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I Should�ve Taken That Left Turn at Albuquerque |
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Hello and welcome. If you're new here, be a dear and Read my Disclaimer. My diary not good enough for you? Fine, be that way. Try these instead: plf
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2000-12-17 - 5:27 pm� I just got back from my grandmother's and my head is swimming. I think she is doing a lot better physically: she is moving around well, she doesn't seem so tired, and she has colour in her face. Mentally though, well, I don't know quite what to make of it. Honestly, I think she has improved all that she is going to improve. She knows enough to know that she is confused and has had memory loss. I don't know that it's particularly good that she is aware of this though. It's made her very defensive, and downright nasty. She's kind of nasty at the best of times, so really, she is not pleasant to be around. In the short time I was there, she must have told me 5 times that her memory was "at least 85% better." Sometimes she would tell me this calmly, other times she would yell it at me. Anytime more than one person was out of the room (my mom and one of my aunts was there too) she would yell at them that she knew they were talking about her behind her back, but that they didn't have to. She would redirect every conversation to be about how much her memory had improved since she'd gotten home. She needed to be the centre of attention, and she needed to be constantly reassured that we didn't think she was insane. She thought everyone was mad at her, that no one loved her. She would almost violently insist that she didn't need anyone to be with her, and then in the same breath tearfully ask my mom why she wasn't spending more time with her. It was horrible to be over there. It's so hard to see someone deteriorate like that, and so quickly, but there is more to it. I don't know how easy this will be for anyone to understand. Unless you know me, and know the entire history of the way my extended family, and my grandmother, have treated my mom, my brother and myself over the years, you probably won't get this. Or maybe you will. A lot of people have really screwed up families. Here goes: my grandmother has been a mean, mean woman to my mom and my brother, and me pretty much since my parents got divorced and we moved in with her. My grandmother, along with most of my aunts and uncles, convinced my mom that when she left my dad, she should move us up to Barrie to live with them. Think of the support system! Everyone would take care of us! Plenty of good male models for my brother! Long story short, once we were up here everyone basically forgot about us. Everyone was too busy with their own lives to actually come through on anything they promised my mom. Everyone except my grandparents. We lived with my grandparents for 3 months. My grandmother was horrible to us during that time. She was almost as emotionally abusive as my father ever was, but she was almost worse because she was always around. My father at least worked nights, and slept most of the day. Not my grandmother though. It seemed that she lived the make our lives hell. She picked and critized everything my brother did. He was seven years old, pretty damned scarred from my father's treatment of him, and all she did was yell at him. Don't sit on my good couch! Lower your voice! Don't talk to my guests! Sit up straight! You don't know anything! Eat with your mouth closed! That's not the way to cut your food! It got to the point where he would practically shake at the thought of dinnertime with her. She was as bad to me, but at 13, I could at least defend myself. Besides, I wasn't used to being treated like crap, and I damn well didn't like it. I would get into screaming fights with my grandmother over the arbitrary rules she set for me, and then the totally fabricated allegations that I had broken these rules. She got sick of the power struggles with me, and eventually started ignoring me. She used to tell my mom that mom was not fit to make any decisions, citing my mom's marriage to my dad as the prime example for my mom's bad decision making skills. She treated my mom like a child, controlled her spending, told her that she was not allowed to go out with her friends. Things did get better after we moved out of there. Over the past 11 years we have been able to have some good times with her, mostly due to my grandfather's intervention, but she has still been to some extent controlling, manipulative, accusitory... generally mean. She'll flat out deny/lie about/twist things we've told her, things she's told us. She'll pull guilt trips about how no one loves her if my mom doesn't go see her on a daily basis. That's why it's so hard to have sympathy and understanding now. We can see that her recent behavior is not normal for her. We are suspecting the eary stages of Alzheimer's-- everything fits the profile. But! All of this is ringing a little too close to home. On an intellectual level we know that she is ill, that she is being meaner than usual, and more manipulative than usual, but on an emotional level it feels like she just has an excuse to be mean now. It also makes it hard to feel compassionate. My grandmother needs to be taken care of. She needs 24 hour a day care. We need to make sacrifices and make sure she is taken of, but I don't think that my mom can be the one to do much of the actual care. Despite everything, she loves her mother, I love my grandmother, but there is so much resentment that has built up over the years. I don't know if this entry has been even remotely cohesive. I know I've been rambling, but damn, it just feels good to get some of this out.
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The big 3 0 - 2006-06-03 Hello again - 2006-05-03 Random stuff in place of an actual update - 2006-03-15 Pictures. Just Because. - 2006-02-23 Christmas 05 - 2005-12-26 Currently listening to: |
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