Dementia 'fantasies' - what's been your most 'fantastic'?

[Witzend]

I thought I was well enough used to them - the usual sort of thing - my mother utterly convinced her sister had stolen their mother's house, my fil telling us the housekeeper he didn't have was a prostitute. Night after night he'd found her in bed with a man. Realized later that after a stay with his other son he'd imagined their house was his own, his dil who cooked and cleaned was the housekeeper, and of course while wandering about at night he'd found the brazen hussy in bed with a man - his own son.
Took some working out, though.

However, the most fantastic (and distressing) was probably after I'd made the mistake of watching Who Do You Think You Are? with my mother. She'd apparently been enjoying it (as far as she could enjoy any TV) but the person in question had run some ancestor to earth in Venezuela, only to find that they'd been put in a pauper's grave with no headstone.

In the middle of the night I found my mother up and terribly distressed. She was utterly convinced that she and her cleaning lady had taken my father's dead body (he'd died at least 12 years previously) in the cleaning lady's car to a graveyard 100 miles away, where her parents were buried. And there they had simply dumped my father's body.

I knew at once that she'd had a bad dream triggered by WDYTYA. In vain I told her over and over that I'd been there when my father died, I'd been there when the undertakers took him away, I'd been there at the funeral. None of it made a scrap of difference. In the end I phoned the cleaning lady - could she just tell my mother whether she'd ever taken her anywhere in her car? (I knew she hadn't - didn't mention the body!)

Even when she spelt it out, my mother was still convinced. It wouldn't have mattered except that she was so terribly distressed about it.

No matter what anybody said, it was a good 48 hours before the conviction started to fade, and even then she insisted that someone had come to the door and asked her to get rid of a dead body! I did actually say, come on, maybe that might just happen if you were a gangster in a rough area, but who is honestly going to come to your door - a total stranger - and ask an old lady of 89 to get rid of a dead body?

'Well, I don't know, but they did!'

[Grannie G]

I think it might seem disrespectful to refer to delusions and confusions as fantasies, for these experiences are very real to the dementia sufferer and sometimes frightening.

They can also be very difficult for the carer to manage.

My husband thought his family was responsible for India`s mission to the moon and for months planned how we would go to India when this mission returned to earth. He was convinced we would be given red carpet treatment and we really did have to go along with his plans even though it seemed bizarre.

[Christin]

Hello Witzend, I am so sorry to read about your mother. This must be extremely upsetting for you all.

I really just wanted to pop in a link to some AS factsheets here, incase you haven't seen them.

Unusual Behaviour

Very best wishes to you both x

[chucky]

My dad used to have some quite bizzare delusions, but as grannie g says, i wouldnt call them fantasies as they were very real to him. He used to get really upset with certain things he'd seen on tv so i had to vet what was on that day and make sure he didnt see the programmes, the bill being one as he thought the house was full of police and it really frightened him. There were times though that i saw humour in some things and it helped to lighten the load, one example was a western film was on tv and i seen dad "dodging bullets" and eventually he ended up behind the sofa. It was so sad but i admit it did make me laugh too. Another was he was utterly convinced i worked in a brothel and he took great delight in telling people, that too was funny but if it was strangers he was talking to i was mortified. Its ok to laugh sometimes but it is hard when we see our loved ones in such distress and utterly convinced that what they see is real. I try not to dismiss his thoughts as fantasy and go along with his train of thought as it occurs. Somedays its totally irrational so i try distraction and other days i go along with it.

[Delphie]

On an average day, I'd say that about 70 to 80% of what my mum says isn't based in fact or reality. I too try to go along with it, to enter her world, but find it exhausting. 2 or 3 hours of talking about how I've taken the roof off my house (never have) or what we used to do in 1953 (I wasn't born then) and I'm mentally drained. What's particularly tricky is that she can snap out of it briefly and unexpectedly and gets cross with me for talking rubbish as she calls it, so I'm always on the back foot, expected to have a conversation about made up stuff while walking on eggshells.

The most fantastic was something I've posted about before. Mum though I was dead and was quite cross with me when it turned out that I wasn't. She kind of still clung to the idea of me being dead and blamed me for it. It was funny and horrible all at the same time, especially as she was more cross than distressed!

[alicejude]

Hi Witzend,

It is very distressing for the carer and the dementia patient, it broke my dads heart to see my mum like this and mine too.

My Mum believed she had two husbands, the nice one and the horrible one.

She was very aggresive, both mentally and abusive, to the horrible one, and nice as pie to the other. The "stranger" one would sleep in mum's bed, take all her money, and threaten to kill her or me. We had to tell dad to leave, get out of the house and go home, poor dad, felt so very sad for him. Then minutes later he would walk back in from the front door and she would say "there you are, where have you been"?, and sit on his knee and cuddle him, asking how he managed to get a black eye! It was heartbreaking.

Alicejude xx

[KatieB]

My mother lives in a fantasy world. She is confined to bed so she spends all day with the TV on being cared for by carers and I. A few weeks ago on a visit I asked her how she was - she launched into a tirade about the awful situation in Syria. She had all the facts, I was gobsmacked. BBC News had been on all day so something in her picked it all up. I sat on the edge fo her bed while she told me everything that was going on in Syria and how innocent people were being killed, kidnapped, tortured. I couldn't speak. I said nothing. I was totally shocked. Then, with another intake of breath she then went on to tell me that she and my father had had their portraits taken by a Royal photogrpaher that day. Apparently the Queen wanted them for her Jubilee celebrations!
Katie

[Sue J]

I think it might seem disrespectful to refer to delusions and confusions as fantasies, for these experiences are very real to the dementia sufferer and sometimes frightening.

They can also be very difficult for the carer to manage.

My husband thought his family was responsible for India`s mission to the moon and for months planned how we would go to India when this mission returned to earth. He was convinced we would be given red carpet treatment and we really did have to go along with his plans even though it seemed bizarre.

I totally agree Sylvia, I know the things I experience are not 'my fantasies' if they were I don't think I'd be frightened of them it's because I know they're not that they are very frightening. I know I can't 'manage' them and know they casue distress to those close to me.

[Lucy Lastic]

Some times there is a little bit of truth in what my Mother believes to be true, for instance she often tells the care home staff that her daughter has gone back to live in South America, it's not true, but I did live in South America for 3 years, so not too far fetched.

One tale that she came up with a year or two ago I can't come with any explanation for. She suddenly came up with a story about Reg Varney, how she knew him (and his wife) years ago and that he invited her up on stage to dance with him to "Tiptoe throught the tulips". She then went on to say that he had died and a solicitor phoned her to say that he had left her a house. She was quite surprised at this apparently and decided to give it to "children with walking difficulties".

She told me this tale, without much variation, for quite a few weeks. Sometimes she would cry when she told me of his death. One day there was a repeat of "On the Buses" on TV, so I put it on, but she showed no recognition of her old friend!

I've always wondered how she came up with that one.

[Witzend]

I think it might seem disrespectful to refer to delusions and confusions as fantasies, for these experiences are very real to the dementia sufferer and sometimes frightening.

They can also be very difficult for the carer to manage.

My husband thought his family was responsible for India`s mission to the moon and for months planned how we would go to India when this mission returned to earth. He was convinced we would be given red carpet treatment and we really did have to go along with his plans even though it seemed bizarre.

No disrespect intended, Grannie G - as per my post I'm all too well aware of how real they can seem to the sufferer. Just didn't know what else to call them. Normally I would go along with them, but in that particular case, when my mother was so dreadfully upset, it wasn't exactly an option.

[Onlyme]

Mum told me that George Osborne lived next door and that she had looked after him as a child. She told me how his mother used to go shopping with her. All I could do is nod. She then asked after her son David who is the Prime Minister - David and George knew each other as they grew up as nextdoor neighbours.