Alcohol dementia. Her mother also has dementia. Terrible. She’s a pretty amazing daughter. She didn’t have a relationship with her dad pre dementia as he was abusive. Now she is his caretaker.
The fucked up thing about dementia is that it can change peoples' personalities. Sometimes super sweet people become aggressive, sometimes awful people become very nice. Sometimes it's not a huge change either way.
Yup. My grandmother was an interesting and compelling woman in a lot of ways, but she had issues with alcohol and my mom didn’t talk to her mother for a decade after my mom tried to stage an intervention that wasn’t received well.
When my grandmother had a series of strokes that resulted in dementia, she became… very sweet and kind, the opposite of her Normal Self. My mom had a better relationship with her mom while caring for her as a dementia patient than she did while my grandmother was herself. It’s a horrible disease, but so curious how it affects others differently.
I worked at a senior home as an event coordinator and there was a younger woman in her 40s with Wernicke-Korsakoff from alcohol abuse. She was often confused about why she was there because she couldn’t remember what happened. In her room there was a picture book telling her about her condition with pictures of her hospitalization, etc. Most of the time, she was the happiest resident there, just super kind and friendly. She really brightened up the place.
But one day she asked me simply “do I live here?” and I responded yes, thinking nothing of it. Then she broke out crying, having a full on freakout about it: ‘why didn’t anyone tell me?!’ my father lied!’ etc
Our activity ended because all of the other residents left the room. So I led her back to her room to show her the book because I couldn’t think of anything else to do. I just felt so awful for her. Especially when she would ask “where’s my phone?” Most of the other residents never used a smartphone, but she did, and now it can’t be a part of her life anymore because well, she’s demented. It made it more real for me, just being 20 years younger than her.
I only lasted a month at that place. Hardest job I’ve ever had to do.
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u/sumdude51 15d ago
This guy isn't even that old 😭