Saturday, February 17, 2001
Perchance to Dream - To LTF
Sub-category a) F(D)IC [Female (Demented) Inner Curmudgeon]:
My mother emerged from her nap this afternoon with the news: "I would be happy living in Prescott if we lived in that house on the corner, you know the one I mean. The one downtown."
The house is a 3 story Victorian with a basement. When my mother decided she wanted to buy a house in Prescott, although this house was not on the market, our realtor looked up the particulars and petitioned the owner on my mother's behalf. The owners were not interested in selling. In the meantime, upon hearing how old the house was, how much work it needed and the flights of stairs involved my mother decided she didn't want it.
The issue of her being happy in Prescott is somewhat deeper than simply her FIC wishing she was in Mesa/Prescott when she is in Prescott/Mesa. When she decided she wanted a house out of the Valley for summers I was surprised she focused on Prescott. For years she hasn't liked Prescott. She connects it with her parents and they bugged her silly about living there and getting involved in her mother's activities in the community (which were numerous; I still run into people who knew or knew of my grandmother). She spent a lot of time up there with them (in 1973 when we all came back to the U.S. Prescott is where we lived until we got our bearings; then, she and Dad periodically stayed with her parents when they needed help) and I know that she still has periods when she sees Prescott through her parents' eyes. Prescott was not someplace I wanted to live either. I adjusted, though, chiefly because my reason didn't have anything to do with Prescott. I wanted to live in the eastern White Mountains. I like Prescott now. My mother, well, sometimes, as you know, she likes it. Sometimes, though, either her FIC activates or her eyes scan back several years and she can't wait to get the hell out and away from her parents' clutches.
So throughout the whole ordeal of buying the house we now own I questioned her repeatedly. She persisted. Once she'd chosen a house to buy I continued to make sure she had plenty of "outs" all the way; until, finally, escrow ensued. Two days before escrow closed she decided she didn't want the house because "it doesn't have enough closet space". I explained to her that this wasn't a legitimate reason, at this point, to refuse to buy a house and she could get into trouble for trying to stop the sale. She called our realtor, announced her decision and he informed her what would happen if she insisted and she insisted. Within an hour we received a fax from the seller's lawyer threatening a suit if she didn't buy the house. After discussing it with our realtor and MMFA (who called a real estate lawyer before he got back to her), both of whom said the only way she could win a suit like this would be to have herself declared incompetent which she wasn't about to do, she decided she'd better proceed with the buy.
You know the rest. Sometimes she loves it up there. Sometimes she can't wait to leave. Sometimes she loves it down here. Sometimes she can't wait to leave.
When she walked out of Dream Land this afternoon dragging this nugget about the house that would make her happy, the tone of her voice and her excitement clued me that she was expecting me to seriously consider this. Normally, even if I know something she suggests is simply not going to happen, I go ahead and play Consideration with her. This time, though, I couldn't do it. The whole buying-real-estate experience was an ordeal even without her last minute decision. It was also an ordeal I went through essentially alone. My mother never really understood, thus never really knew, what went on even though I kept her informed all the way. When I started my attitude was, "Cool! I'm going to DO BUSINESS!" When it was over with, my attitude was, "I'm never DOING BUSINESS again, at least not REAL ESTATE BUSINESS." I told her, and all of my sisters and brothers-in-law that I will not oversee anymore real estate shit for her. What she has now is what she'll have when she dies, barring bad fortune and foreclosure.
So after a really weird argument (my mother doesn't usually argue; when she does she's genteel about it), I said, "Look. This is the situation. If you want to dream about selling the house we've got and buying that house on the corner go ahead. I want you to know that it's not going to happen and the reason it's not going to happen is that I won't let it happen. Period. That's it. End of story."
My mother is not pleased. She didn't accept this the same way she accepted my dictate about putting Taco Bell Sauce on cigarettes and smoking them. I think that this disallowance is going to bother her for at least a couple of days and will probably pop up over and over again as an entirely new inspiration of hers throughout the rest of her life.
When it was all over she trotted off to bed in a snit. That's another new behavior.
Now I'm feeling very strange and sad. I prefer to be able to make everything that she wants possible, one way or another, even if it means she's going to change her mind about it later. When I can't I can usually count on her dementia to transform or bury the particular desire or I can count on her still-functioning reason (which still surprises me with it's prodigiousness and agility) to understand, at least momentarily, why something can't happen or accept that I'm standing in the way and I'm not going to move. This time I guess I can count on her FDIC to continue to insist that Prescott would be okay if we were in "that house". I feel as though both my mother and I have entered an area where we, once again, are going to learn more about dementia than we expected. She is going to become more and more unreasonable. So am I. Her unreasonableness will be flights of fancy which are, at the very least, pleasant for her and sometimes euphoric. Mine will be that I will be saying YES or NO, simply, without reason, from her perspective. I will be the unpleasant part of dementia for her.
One thing I've known for a long time about dementia, it is always rooted in reality and it's not hard, if one is observant, to figure out what the root reality is. I'm thinking now that, since ICs are rooted in illusion, the further into dementia someone travels the more active ICs become. That, in fact, as I think about it now, explains the "Let's Go" phase that often accompanies deeper dementia. MMS and my grandmother both went through that. It is excruciating to experience as a caretaker but it never seemed to be uncomfortable for MMS and my grandmother.
It is not obvious yet that my mother will slip that far into dementia. In the meantime I hope I figure out how to be friends with her IC. Being enemies with it is unproductive. My mother doesn't need to add "sleeping off an argument with Gail" to her many reasons for sleeping. This is weird, LTF. This is just weird.
My mother emerged from her nap this afternoon with the news: "I would be happy living in Prescott if we lived in that house on the corner, you know the one I mean. The one downtown."
The house is a 3 story Victorian with a basement. When my mother decided she wanted to buy a house in Prescott, although this house was not on the market, our realtor looked up the particulars and petitioned the owner on my mother's behalf. The owners were not interested in selling. In the meantime, upon hearing how old the house was, how much work it needed and the flights of stairs involved my mother decided she didn't want it.
The issue of her being happy in Prescott is somewhat deeper than simply her FIC wishing she was in Mesa/Prescott when she is in Prescott/Mesa. When she decided she wanted a house out of the Valley for summers I was surprised she focused on Prescott. For years she hasn't liked Prescott. She connects it with her parents and they bugged her silly about living there and getting involved in her mother's activities in the community (which were numerous; I still run into people who knew or knew of my grandmother). She spent a lot of time up there with them (in 1973 when we all came back to the U.S. Prescott is where we lived until we got our bearings; then, she and Dad periodically stayed with her parents when they needed help) and I know that she still has periods when she sees Prescott through her parents' eyes. Prescott was not someplace I wanted to live either. I adjusted, though, chiefly because my reason didn't have anything to do with Prescott. I wanted to live in the eastern White Mountains. I like Prescott now. My mother, well, sometimes, as you know, she likes it. Sometimes, though, either her FIC activates or her eyes scan back several years and she can't wait to get the hell out and away from her parents' clutches.
So throughout the whole ordeal of buying the house we now own I questioned her repeatedly. She persisted. Once she'd chosen a house to buy I continued to make sure she had plenty of "outs" all the way; until, finally, escrow ensued. Two days before escrow closed she decided she didn't want the house because "it doesn't have enough closet space". I explained to her that this wasn't a legitimate reason, at this point, to refuse to buy a house and she could get into trouble for trying to stop the sale. She called our realtor, announced her decision and he informed her what would happen if she insisted and she insisted. Within an hour we received a fax from the seller's lawyer threatening a suit if she didn't buy the house. After discussing it with our realtor and MMFA (who called a real estate lawyer before he got back to her), both of whom said the only way she could win a suit like this would be to have herself declared incompetent which she wasn't about to do, she decided she'd better proceed with the buy.
You know the rest. Sometimes she loves it up there. Sometimes she can't wait to leave. Sometimes she loves it down here. Sometimes she can't wait to leave.
When she walked out of Dream Land this afternoon dragging this nugget about the house that would make her happy, the tone of her voice and her excitement clued me that she was expecting me to seriously consider this. Normally, even if I know something she suggests is simply not going to happen, I go ahead and play Consideration with her. This time, though, I couldn't do it. The whole buying-real-estate experience was an ordeal even without her last minute decision. It was also an ordeal I went through essentially alone. My mother never really understood, thus never really knew, what went on even though I kept her informed all the way. When I started my attitude was, "Cool! I'm going to DO BUSINESS!" When it was over with, my attitude was, "I'm never DOING BUSINESS again, at least not REAL ESTATE BUSINESS." I told her, and all of my sisters and brothers-in-law that I will not oversee anymore real estate shit for her. What she has now is what she'll have when she dies, barring bad fortune and foreclosure.
So after a really weird argument (my mother doesn't usually argue; when she does she's genteel about it), I said, "Look. This is the situation. If you want to dream about selling the house we've got and buying that house on the corner go ahead. I want you to know that it's not going to happen and the reason it's not going to happen is that I won't let it happen. Period. That's it. End of story."
My mother is not pleased. She didn't accept this the same way she accepted my dictate about putting Taco Bell Sauce on cigarettes and smoking them. I think that this disallowance is going to bother her for at least a couple of days and will probably pop up over and over again as an entirely new inspiration of hers throughout the rest of her life.
When it was all over she trotted off to bed in a snit. That's another new behavior.
Now I'm feeling very strange and sad. I prefer to be able to make everything that she wants possible, one way or another, even if it means she's going to change her mind about it later. When I can't I can usually count on her dementia to transform or bury the particular desire or I can count on her still-functioning reason (which still surprises me with it's prodigiousness and agility) to understand, at least momentarily, why something can't happen or accept that I'm standing in the way and I'm not going to move. This time I guess I can count on her FDIC to continue to insist that Prescott would be okay if we were in "that house". I feel as though both my mother and I have entered an area where we, once again, are going to learn more about dementia than we expected. She is going to become more and more unreasonable. So am I. Her unreasonableness will be flights of fancy which are, at the very least, pleasant for her and sometimes euphoric. Mine will be that I will be saying YES or NO, simply, without reason, from her perspective. I will be the unpleasant part of dementia for her.
One thing I've known for a long time about dementia, it is always rooted in reality and it's not hard, if one is observant, to figure out what the root reality is. I'm thinking now that, since ICs are rooted in illusion, the further into dementia someone travels the more active ICs become. That, in fact, as I think about it now, explains the "Let's Go" phase that often accompanies deeper dementia. MMS and my grandmother both went through that. It is excruciating to experience as a caretaker but it never seemed to be uncomfortable for MMS and my grandmother.
It is not obvious yet that my mother will slip that far into dementia. In the meantime I hope I figure out how to be friends with her IC. Being enemies with it is unproductive. My mother doesn't need to add "sleeping off an argument with Gail" to her many reasons for sleeping. This is weird, LTF. This is just weird.
