Category Archives: relationships

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Not Dealing with Dementia

 

June and Ward Cleaver (Barbara Billingsley and...

June and Ward Cleaver (Barbara Billingsley and Hugh Beaumont). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Television moms and dads are kind, generous, clean, independent, and a source of wisdom. Real life moms and dads can be mean, self-centered, critical, and looking for a handout.  Such is the cards some children are dealt.

 

Dementia

Dementia (Photo credit: Fulla T)

These abusive moms and dads don’t miraculously turn into saints as they age, either. Most of the time the dysfunctional behavior they’ve exhibited worsens, rather than improves, as they age. If they’ve abused drugs, alcohol, or neglected their health, they may get much worse.

 

What to do when bad mom or bad dad (or both) are no longer functioning well at home alone? I don’t mean the not able to shovel out their driveway or lift the air conditioner out of the window type problems. I mean when they think strangers are coming in through the drainpipes and they think one of the intruders stole their gun. That scary not functioning well may be dementia.

 

Dementia is a broad term used to describe difficulties in the areas of language, judgment, behavior, thinking, and memory. Some causes of dementia, such as metabolic disorders and tumors, can be reversed. Other causes of dementia, such as Alzheimer’s disease, can only be slowed down, not cured. Repeat, not cured.  Pay careful attention to the part of the happy pharmaceutical commercials that caution,  “All patients will get worse over time, even if they take wondrous dementia drug.”

 

If you’ve had a great relationship with your parents, filled with mutual respect and assistance, it’s easy to say you’ll do whatever it takes to keep mom and dad safe. Even if it means moving them out of the home they’ve lived in for the last thirty years. Even if it means hiring someone to stay with them so they don’t burn the house down. Even if it means hiding the car or car keys to prevent them from driving to their favorite store that went out of business twenty years ago. Even if it means taking time off from work to accompany them to doctor’s appointments or leaving work early to rush home to deal with emergencies.

 

But if you haven’t had a great relationship with your parent, maybe haven’t even talked to them in five, ten, fifteen, or twenty plus years, what’s your responsibility when the neighbors start calling with their concerns? Do you forget the past and hope they’ll become nice? Put on your martyr uniform and hope for the best? Make an anonymous call to Elder Services and wash your hands of it?

 

There is no easy answer to these questions. Letting your conscience be your guide doesn’t mitigate the guilt that comes with the decision to keep your distance from a demented parent. If you decide to re-engage with the parent, there will still be the resentment that comes with putting your own life on hold to care for a parent who never cared for you. It’s an intensely personal decision that each adult child must wrestle with and decide based on all of the myriad considerations and individual details of their life. If you do decide to ride to the rescue, don’t expect the parent to be grateful for your efforts. Age doesn’t make people any less dick-ish, nor does dementia.

 

As someone who has wrestled with this issue, rest assured I don’t take my abandonment of my parent lightly. There’s a better than average chance that I am the best suited of my siblings for understanding and navigating the complexities of having someone declared incapable of making decisions to pave the way for admission to a nursing home. Not just because I’m a nurse, but also because I’m the oldest. Unfortunately I can’t forget or forgive the toxic parent-child relationship that ultimately ended with my decision to stop speaking to my parent over twenty years ago. I can’t let that go, even though part of me says it’s my duty and part of me feels incredibly guilty that I can’t caretake this person who can no longer caretake themselves.

 

I won’t deny that seeing my parent in their current state, even from a distance without saying a word or them being aware of my presence, breaks my heart. I wish I could find it within myself to soften, bend, and do what some would insist is the right thing. But I can’t.

 

And as much as I salute those who can, I acknowledge that there are those of us who can’t. Age and infirmity doesn’t turn a toxic parent into a saint, it only turns them into a old, sick toxic parent. Don’t judge me for turning my back.  It’s like they say when you fly, if the oxygen mask drops down, you have to put it on yourself before you can help someone else. Unfortunately my parent has demonstrated that they would suck up all the oxygen in my world if they could. As bad as I feel about their condition, I won’t let them.

Day 3: flight to Yazd - inflight safety card

Day 3: flight to Yazd – inflight safety card (Photo credit: birdfarm)

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Toilet Paper and the Not Quite Empty Nest

English: Toilet paper, orientation "over&...

English: Toilet paper, orientation “over” (Photo credit: Wikipedia) Correct placement of roll.

The Christmas holiday has bestowed the gift of my adult children at home for a week as well as two additional dogs and a cat. Yes, it’s a little chaotic and crazy here.

My mother always says that fish and house guests stink after three days. I’m unsure if it is a cautionary tale meant to keep your house cold or to ensure there’s adequate Febreeze, but so far the stench has been minimal. Other than discovering one of my dogs is allergic to one of my daughter’s dogs and that when everyone in my family is in front of the wood stove for a picture, the wood stove pipe will spontaneously disconnect from the chimney, things have been surprisingly pleasant.

Except for the toilet paper.

English: Toilet paper, orientation "under...

English: Toilet paper, orientation “under” (Photo credit: Wikipedia). So incorrect it hurts me to look at it.

There is a right way to put on the toilet paper roll and a wrong way. You would think these two children that I raised would know this. In our house, the toilet paper roll has always unfurled on the front. Always. Trust me, anytime a visitor or passing toilet user has made the mistake of loading it backwards, I’ve promptly remedied the mistake. My lifelong dedication to this principle is unwavering.

Why then, does my youngest daughter replace the toilet paper backwards? Why would she think that dangling the end of the roll down the back of the holder is acceptable? Has she learned nothing from me all these years?

Of course my mother always told me to never go outside with wet hair or I’d catch a cold, and I do that all the time.  She also cautioned me against putting ice in red wine, but damn it, I like my red wine chilled.  My grandmother told me never to put hot meat on a cold plate or it would be shocked into toughness. I ignore that on a regular basis, too. But all of their recommendations were based on superstition, and the correct way to hang toilet paper is based on common sense and science.

Isn’t it?

And, not only that, but I forgive my children for so many other things. I don’t mind when they don’t squeegee the shower walls after bathing. I clean the hairbrushes without complaint (though wonder which one of them left gray hairs in there). I cringe inside, but shut my mouth, about the half filled beverage glasses left on side tables and the carelessly kicked-off shoes that create a mine field near the front door. I forgive so much, but, toilet paper? I suspect even Jesus would have a problem with that.

In case you’re curious, let me assure you, as a hostess, I am top notch. Their favorite meals (three bean chili, my special turkey stuffing, bread bowls) are consumed with satisfaction. The house is kept tidy and clean, in spite of four dogs and a cat. My television remains tuned to shows I would never watch (Jersey Shore, My Big Fat Gypsy American Wedding, and Catfish to name a few). I provide adequate outlets for their myriad electronic appliances. My car? Please, take it. It’s clean, maintained, and full of gas. All that I provide seems sufficient to ensure a guest would have no problem complying with my one, small request to put the damn toilet paper in the holder correctly!

Let me take one deep breath to center myself.

Okay. In their defense, they have shoveled snow, washed clothes, rinsed dishes, and even fed my allergic dog the 18 pills he must now take daily. The fact that one daughter, in an attempt to entice my dog to chew his fish oil gel cap, bit into the capsule herself and ended up with a face full of fish oil is a Christmas memory I’ll savor. Their thoughtful Christmas gifts (including an Ipod adapter for my car and a hot spot for the houseboat) illustrated how well they know me and my needs. Waking up to them shuffling around the house like zombies as they prepare their morning cups of coffee brings back memories of college breaks and the remembered happiness of having them here, tempered with the relief of knowing they would leave.

And, even though fish and house guests may stink after three days, the emptiness of my children’s leaving will last for many more. For a week, we dance around trying to get this new relationship right. We bicker, and pick at each other, and roll our eyes. We form and reform alliances over movies and music. We hide our resentment and disappointment. Then we hug it out and whisper i love you’s and i miss you’s and i wish you didn’t have to leave so soon. But, that’s what happens when children grow up.

Someday they’ll have families of their own. They’ll create their own holiday traditions and, I hope, I’ll have a place in them. Each holiday reminds me that this will always be their childhood home, but it isn’t the place they call home.  It reminds me that my time for making their rules has ended and now they make their own, and if that includes putting the toilet paper in backwards, there’s nothing I can do about it because I can’t turn back time. I can only turn around the toilet paper.

Empty Nests

Empty Nests (Photo credit: Sterlic)

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Facing Your Fears

English: Ocean Beach Pier at sunset.

English: Ocean Beach Pier at sunset. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

The End of the World (yes, it feels right to capitalize it) provokes two distinctly different feelings in me. On one hand, I tend toward hunkering down with a year’s worth of food and my Kindle (and yes, I’ve a plan to keep that powered after the world ends). On the other hand, I wonder whether this isn’t the best time to cast off my fears and head out to parts unknown.

 

Fear keeps me sitting here at the keyboard.

 

My theory is that the longer you live, the more you fear. As a child, before we’re taught what and when to fear, the world must be a magical place, full of possibility. Then along comes mom and dad and everyone else to introduce the words “no” and “don’t.”  Don’t touch this, do this, eat this, lick this, pat this – the list of things children have to learn not to do is overwhelming. When my younger daughter was five, she put her entire hand on the stove top because it was red and she wanted to touch it. Her bad mother hadn’t remembered to tell her don’t touch the stove. In her early teens, she filled the dishwasher with liquid dish soap because we were out of dishwasher powder. Yep. Once again, I’d neglected to tell her that was a big no. My favorite, expensive vacuum cleaner died as she attempted to vacuum up the suds that covered the kitchen. Oops.

 

My children are not stupid or lacking in common sense. Their only crime was to think that I’d covered all of the important information in life’s owner’s manual and I hadn’t.

 

As they grew older, my incessant instructions led to my receiving the family nickname of “Master of the Obvious.” Even so, they continued to push boundaries, explore new activities, and generally leave me with a sick feeling in my stomach as I swallowed my fear and let them make their own mistakes.

 

For the record, sleeping in a public park in Europe is something you don’t share with your mother until after you’re safely back in the States.

 

The braver they got, the more scared I became. My comfort zones shrunk. My willingness to drive in big cities vanished. My ability to make decisions as simple as buying a new air purifier became mired in the obsessive reading of Consumer Reports and Amazon reviews. I questioned every decision.

 

I noticed the same thing with my older relatives and patients. They worry about icy sidewalks and driving at night and vague aches and pains. The world becomes a dangerous place, full of vandals and disease. No matter where they look, there is danger out there.

 

And so they retreat into the cocoon of their home and huddle fearfully under blankets. The television hisses with malevolent news in the background while they eat bland foods and wait for death to come. Fearful.

 

The end of the world, the end of the year, or the end of the work week are all arbitrary measures we employ as our lives slip away, but we can choose to constrict or we can choose to expand.  Give in to fear or give in to the possibility that whatever is out there is wondrous rather than terrifying. And if it’s terrifying, well, like roller coasters and natural childbirth and getting married, there can be wonder in terror.

 

When faced by an endless onslaught of demons, Angel, vampire with a soul, explains his big plan as “I kinda wanna slay the dragon.”

Career coach and author Tama Kieves says “It doesn’t matter where you enter the stream. It doesn’t matter how you begin. Just jump in.”

 

Here’s to doing the things we fear. I’ll let you know if there be monsters out there.

 

Angel_5x22_001

 

 

 

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If Women Can Shut Down Rape, Can Men?

English: A television news program simulation ...

English: A television news program simulation image. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I avoid watching the news on television. The days of objective journalism are long gone and if I want to watch someone with an axe to grind, I can turn to my community television channel and watch a City Council meeting.

Newspapers are no better. I can read the Upper Valley paper which portrays my working-class town as drug-addicted, uneducated idiots or read the local papers where religious zealots explain that homosexuality is a sin and that abortion shouldn’t be an option because you should “pay to play.” Really.

Usually I can get through google news and learn a little about what is going on in the world without becoming overwhelmed with the idea that the zombie apocalypse might not be a bad thing. Until today.

Zombies as portrayed in the movie Night of the...

Zombies as portrayed in the movie Night of the Living Dead (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Today even google news pissed me off.  Superior Court Judge Derek Johnson‘s on why he didn’t think a woman in his courtroom was physically damaged enough to prove she was raped.

“I’m not a gynecologist, but I can tell you something: If someone doesn’t want to have sexual intercourse, the body shuts down. The body will not permit that to happen unless a lot of damage is inflicted, and we heard nothing about that in this case,” Johnson said.

Is 2012 the year of men equating women’s vaginas to Fort Knox or an armored truck? Are there panic alarms that sound when women are sexually assaulted? Do large steel gates descend from our vaginal walls and lock out intruders or do razor-sharp teeth erupt, ready to mutilate any penis that enters without an engraved invitation? Do I have a small pistol hidden up there that I can shoot at will? This year, I’ve had to ponder those questions and ask, is this crap taught in sex ed classes or in the back pages of porn magazines?

new favorite magazine

new favorite magazine (Photo credit: cloois)

As the mother of two daughters and aunt to two nieces, I despair that I live in an age where information is so readily available, yet men cling to idiotic, unsupported-by-reality ideas about women’s bodies. And, if women have these magical superpowers, what about men?

Is it possible to rape a man or will his body “shut down” and prevent entry. The only way to tell would be to send Judge Johnson, Todd Akin, and a few others with similar beliefs to a men’s prison for a week and see what happens.

Please, don’t get me wrong. I don’t think anyone who is sent to prison deserves to be physically or sexually assaulted. The fact that an estimated 9.6% of former state prison inmates report being the victim of sexual assault one or more times is sickening.  But, if being sexually victimized in prison helped to change the hearts and minds of idiots who blame woman for either “asking” to be raped or “not fighting hard enough” to prevent a rape, I could live with it.

Not politically correct, I know, but that’s how I feel.

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Mother Knows Best

Scratching

Scratching (Photo credit: ☺ Lee J Haywood)

 

My mother has always been a blunt, no-holds-barred giver of advice.  Her circle of friends is small, her capacity to remember slights limitless. To say she’s a little on the suspicious side is an understatement. She believes there’s two kinds of friends, friendship and friendshit. Her favorite saying concerning friendshit is,  “If you lie down with dogs, you get fleas.”

 

When you grow up with a cop for a mother, there’s not a lot of sympathy for stupidity.

Since I’m not psychic, I can’t tell at the start of a relationship where it will end up. Like courtship,  the beginning phase of a friendship is all about showing off our good sides and covering up our imperfections.  There’s that unquenchable hope that this time someone finally gets me.  The passage of time, though, can wear down the patina of initial niceness.  A cheap person can only buy a round of drinks so many times before they stop offering. A dishonest person can only fulfill their obligations as long as they can stave off their basic impulse to lie. A self-centered person will try to act like it’s not all about them, but in the end, they’ll insist it is.  That’s the point when you realize you’ve been lying with a dog and the itching you feel isn’t your new hand soap or poison ivy, it’s fleas.

 

Most of my life, I’ve followed my mother’s advice and steered clear of unsavory or people liable to get me arrested. Unfortunately those around me have not. One contractor friend of my husband’s has proven to be a persistent little puppy. During the initial phase of the friendship, he installed outside stairs, remodeled our bathroom, roofed our house, and installed replacement windows.  His rates were reasonable. We knew him. My husband counted him a friend. You’d think that would guarantee a job well done. Wrong.

 

Yes, we knew the contractor’s past jobs included  a string of small claims cases and customer complaints.  Yes, I balked at how he always wanted half down to start the job (which basically consisted of his taking the money and parking some equipment at our house) and seemed to be running a Ponzi scheme to pay for supplies and help. Yes, his initial job (a stairway) didn’t meet code and his second job (replacing a roof) started a year-long saga to find the leak we didn’t have until the new roof was in place. And even though he didn’t have a clue as to how to install a corner shower, it didn’t stop him from doing it. No amount of caulk has stopped the leaking in the subsequent two years.

 

Did I mention it takes superhuman strength to close and lock the replacement windows because they don’t quite line up? It doesn’t take skill to do a shoddy job, but it takes a special kind of incompetence to create new problems. Small wonder that when I finally took charge of hiring contractors, his name didn’t make the list.

 

Bad Carpentry!

Bad Carpentry! (Photo credit: Yuba College Public Space)

I still do a slow burn every time I enter the bathroom and realize I’ll eventually need to hire someone to pull out the shower and start again. I get a little hot under the collar when I watch part of the roof lift up and vibrate during windstorms. I curse loudly every time I have to hang on the lower window while pushing the upper window up to try to latch them for the winter. Giving him multiple opportunities to do something right became the punishment that keeps on delivering. If I’d heeded my mother’s warnings, after the first job I would have moved away from him as far and as fast as humanly possible.

Instead, I let myself become lulled by excuses and didn’t take appropriate action when I identified him as friendshit. If I had washed my hands of him early on, I wouldn’t have to walk around my house now and see the equivalent of toilet paper on my shoe everywhere.

But, just like you can’t blame fleas for biting you, you can’t blame shady people for taking advantage. Even if you think they’re friends. Which leads me to another lesson from my mother: Screw me once, shame on you. Screw me twice, shame on me.

Ignore my mother’s advice at your peril.

 

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He and the Boys Aren’t Playing (Instruments) All Night

Small Paul at Canobie Lake Screemfest. KISS on the short side.

You have to love Canobie Lake Park in New Hampshire. In October, a month not known to be kind to New England amusement parks, Canobie Lake keeps the grounds filled by having two events:  Screemfest and Oktoberfest. This year I returned, once again lured by the presence of Mini Kiss, a KISS tribute band, at the Oktoberfest tent. (Well, also lured by the haunted houses and rides, but Mini Kiss is a consideration.)

Mini Kiss is always a great time. They cover Kiss songs as well as some other notables such as “Sweet Child O’ Mine” by Guns and Roses. I’m not sure if it’s the quantity of beer being served or the novelty of having these mini men singing, but the audience joins in on every song. While singing along with the song “Beth,” I pondered the reality of the events in contrast to the sanitized, love ballad version.

At the time Beth was recorded in 1976, cell phones didn’t bulge in every pocket. Beth was relegated to (probably) standing in her kitchen on her landline phone hoping someone would answer the payphone at the recording studio. Since there was no caller ID, there wasn’t a foolproof method to duck the calls of curious, demanding girlfriends or wives. Some poor sap, a roadie no doubt, would have to physically pick the phone up and figure out who was on the other end of the line. Then he’d have to holler into the recording studio to call Beth’s boyfriend to the phone. I can only imagine the reaction of the band to Beth’s calls looking for an estimated time of arrival on her beau.

And, as if his staying out late and not giving her a heads up didn’t rankle enough, listen to his excuses in the lyrics:

“Beth, I hear you callin’
But I can’t come home right now
Me and the boys are playin’
And we just can’t find the sound
Just a few more hours
And I’ll be right home to you
I think I hear them callin’
Oh, Beth what can I do?”

You can almost hear his band mates crack imaginary whips and call out rude comments  as Beth’s man frantically tries to shush them.

And what’s with Beth?  He asked “what can I do?”  He didn’t mention he was handcuffed to his instrument or being held at gunpoint.  It’s his choice to stay with his friends “a few more hours.” Instead of listening silently through her tears, Beth could have said,  “Come home in the next fifteen minutes or I’ll throw your stuff out on the street.” It’s domestic warfare, baby, sometimes you have to make threats. But not Beth, the date-able doormat.

When she calls again hours later,  her boyfriend can’t even come up with a new excuse.  Now, maybe he isn’t very smart or maybe he’s impaired by drugs and alcohol, but at least try.  If I was Beth, I’d be happy to hear your absence was because one of your band mates overdosed on drugs or two of them had a fist fight over writing credits and now you’re waiting for the cops to show up. When it comes to relationship lies, I believe go big or go home. But no, instead he tells her:

“Just a few more hours
And I’ll be right home to you
I think I hear them callin’
Oh, Beth what can I do?”

I’m calculating it’s around midnight at this point. If you’ve ever taken one of these calls in a relationship, you know he has no intention of coming home until he’s ready to pass out.  The best thing Beth could do for herself now is to take a sleeping pill and go to bed. Be fresh for the big fight when he staggers in at daybreak. But no, she continues to burn up the phone lines.

By 3 AM, the band has had enough. No one else’s girlfriend is calling. No one else is ruining boy’s night out. Time for the truth.  Now  he tells her:

“Beth, I know you’re lonely
And I hope you’ll be alright
‘Cause me and the boys will be playin’
All night”

Because at this point he realizes that Beth isn’t going to get dressed and come down to the recording studio and she isn’t going to stop calling. Telling her he won’t be home tonight might not stop the phone calls, but it will put an end to the whip cracking sounds from the band.  Anyway, after he hangs up a helpful roadie will leave it off the hook and Beth can listen to a busy signal for the rest of the night if she desires.

The next morning, boyfriend crawls home, hungover and tired, expecting a nice breakfast from Beth before he drags himself to sleep. She probably makes it for him because back in 1976 that’s the price you paid to be with the band.

I don’t miss 1976 that much. Now songs empower us to get our Louisville Sluggers and let our men know exactly what we think.  I’d love to hear Kiss sing a song about how quickly the studio empties out after that.