Does Anything Good Happen in Dementia?
Okay, your aunt has Alzheimer's.
Your family are beside themselves.
Not only on her behalf but, if they were honest, also on their own.
Secretly, they're all thinking, "Oh my gosh, could that happen to me?" Well, yeah, it could.
Is there anything redeeming in the dementia experience? Finding something redeeming doesn't mean we're saying it's a good thing, okay? I have to say I've seen things come around in interesting ways for people with dementia.
The usual silly jokes people make is that you only need one book, one dvd and one TV program -- and actually there's truth in that.
So, yes, it can be cheap.
More importantly, people let go of unhappiness, perfectionist, control-freak issues.
Consider my dear Stevie.
I loved Stevie.
She was a wonderful, cheerful soul who cared for her eight cats, three dogs and a bunch of freeloading squirrels.
She was happy every day except for encounters with her blaming perfectionist daughter.
I found out from a house-painter friend that formerly Stevie had been a blaming, tense, perfectionist person.
She had mellowed greatly as her illness progressed.
Her daughter was the child Stevie raised to copy her, an angry, tense, perfectionist.
Looking at Stevie, I understood what happened when all that tight and fearful inner life was lost to dementia.
I have often noticed that dementia seems to come into the lives of control freaks.
Do you ever wonder about God's sense of humor? I do.
I've seen that many people who later go on to have dementia had very difficult childhoods.
You may wonder about that, as I have done.
What's the connection? Well, the biggest single factor is stress.
Stress as an infant and child means torrents of cortisol streaming through the developing system.
When aging makes demands on the body system, that person is already operating from an immune system always with intrinsic loss built in from the beginning.
Does bad childhood equal having dementia? No.
We have so many ways now to defuse those earlier issues of loss and tension.
So, it's NOT the initial experience alone.
It's the fact that people don't resolve and release those experiences stored in every part of the body, especially the immune system.
Those nurture-deprived elders are often able in dementia to get the help and support they long needed.
Caregivers are, ideally, good mothers and fathers to those they care for.
Many an elder becomes able to finally relax into trust and caring relationship with a caregiver.
You may think it's not ideal and I suppose illness is never an ideal solution.
However, if you were that ill, you'd want a caregiver willing and able to give you dementia-appropriate care.
That often means, mother-like care.
Yes, our ideal is that no-one has dementia.
Well, get over it, because a lot of people do.
And if you did, you'd appreciate someone who cared for you, amused you, took you out to do fun things in an elderly kind of way and simply accepted you the way you really are and helped where necessary.
Does that seems like something a good Mom might do?
Your family are beside themselves.
Not only on her behalf but, if they were honest, also on their own.
Secretly, they're all thinking, "Oh my gosh, could that happen to me?" Well, yeah, it could.
Is there anything redeeming in the dementia experience? Finding something redeeming doesn't mean we're saying it's a good thing, okay? I have to say I've seen things come around in interesting ways for people with dementia.
The usual silly jokes people make is that you only need one book, one dvd and one TV program -- and actually there's truth in that.
So, yes, it can be cheap.
More importantly, people let go of unhappiness, perfectionist, control-freak issues.
Consider my dear Stevie.
I loved Stevie.
She was a wonderful, cheerful soul who cared for her eight cats, three dogs and a bunch of freeloading squirrels.
She was happy every day except for encounters with her blaming perfectionist daughter.
I found out from a house-painter friend that formerly Stevie had been a blaming, tense, perfectionist person.
She had mellowed greatly as her illness progressed.
Her daughter was the child Stevie raised to copy her, an angry, tense, perfectionist.
Looking at Stevie, I understood what happened when all that tight and fearful inner life was lost to dementia.
I have often noticed that dementia seems to come into the lives of control freaks.
Do you ever wonder about God's sense of humor? I do.
I've seen that many people who later go on to have dementia had very difficult childhoods.
You may wonder about that, as I have done.
What's the connection? Well, the biggest single factor is stress.
Stress as an infant and child means torrents of cortisol streaming through the developing system.
When aging makes demands on the body system, that person is already operating from an immune system always with intrinsic loss built in from the beginning.
Does bad childhood equal having dementia? No.
We have so many ways now to defuse those earlier issues of loss and tension.
So, it's NOT the initial experience alone.
It's the fact that people don't resolve and release those experiences stored in every part of the body, especially the immune system.
Those nurture-deprived elders are often able in dementia to get the help and support they long needed.
Caregivers are, ideally, good mothers and fathers to those they care for.
Many an elder becomes able to finally relax into trust and caring relationship with a caregiver.
You may think it's not ideal and I suppose illness is never an ideal solution.
However, if you were that ill, you'd want a caregiver willing and able to give you dementia-appropriate care.
That often means, mother-like care.
Yes, our ideal is that no-one has dementia.
Well, get over it, because a lot of people do.
And if you did, you'd appreciate someone who cared for you, amused you, took you out to do fun things in an elderly kind of way and simply accepted you the way you really are and helped where necessary.
Does that seems like something a good Mom might do?
