My Mother in law has developed a new behaviour; an idea or phrase seems to lodge in her brain and she repeats it ad infinitum. My Father in law tries to respond to what she is saying but without any sign that MiL registers what he says.
He is clearly distressed by the cycle. Is there a more effective way of managing this situation? Distraction doesn't seem to work and although MiL doesn't respond to what FiL says she becomes more agitated if her behaviour is ignored. Also, is there a recognised term for this behaviour?
Hi llamalady - welcome to TP
I think that what you describe is soemthing that I experience frequently with my Mil (Mum-in-law). I also call them 'loops' and I have so much sympathy for your Fil, because they are extremely difficult to cope with - they are very much a 'groundhog day' torture.
With Mil, I find that some are very much routine specific. We have what I call the 'coat loop'. Once she is washed, dressed and breakfasted, ready to go to day care and waiting for the mini bus, she starts to ask 'Shall I put my coat on? Shall I get my coat now? I'd better put my coat on now' over and over and over. I explain that its 'too warm to wear it' in the house, that its better that she waits for the mini bus before putting it on, but often she is asking again before I even finish answering. She resists any form of distraction - cups of tea, asking her to 'tidy the cushions', putting the TV on, trying all sorts of chat - and just keeps returning to 'I'll put my coat on now, shall I?', getting more persistent and cross with every passing minute. I have tried just letting her put the darn coat on, but each and every time she then goes into another loop of getting really agitated, demanding that I open the door so she can go and 'catch her bus/train', worrying she will be 'late for work', she will even quickly go to hammering on the door to get out and will bruise and hurt her hands. The only way I've found to lessen the impact of this one is that we have changed the 'routine' here, husband getting up earlier for work and using the bathroom first, so I can leave Mil in bed longer and it cuts down on the time between her being ready to go and the mini van arriving, leaving less time for the 'loop' to go on for. There are similar loops around other routines - her taking up to 15 minutes to get ready for bed, as she pulls her pull up incontinent pants up and down, so they can be changed and repeatedly asks 'Its it these you want me to take off? These things? Am I to take these off?'. I've yet to find a way to deal effectively with that one, I'm afraid - it drive me mad, but all I can do is grit my teeth and try to stay patient. Its really hard.
Some of the loops are repeated, but not set in stone as to when or what starts them - we can have periods of up to 4 or 5 hours, where she is adamant that she either has to go outside on the patio (even if its pitch dark or if its pouring down) or into the kitchen (where she is not allowed, for safety and hygiene reasons) for a host of frequently varied but always invented reasons. Her determination, persistence and resistence to any form of distraction are incredibly frustrating and hard to deal with. If she pushes me (or the family as a whole) to absolute distraction, then we resort to asking/telling her to go the her room - because even if its a terribly age-innapropriate thing to do, sometimes just a change of environment can stop these loops (and other forms of difficult behaviours too).
I have found that these 'loops' can dissappear, or be replaced by other behaviours over time. Just 4 months or so ago, Mil had a 'lipstick loop' where she would insist on applying lippy anything up to 12 or 13 times before going out - she looked like a Poor Man's 'Baby Jane', but you simply couldn't reason with her or distract - but that seemed to stop really abruptly, for no reason I can fathom, and she rarely bothers with lipstick now.
I don't know if this has been of any use - other than perhaps knowing that others have the same behaviours to cope with maybe bringing a little comfort to your poor Fil. I do feel for him - these loops are just so incredibly upsetting and frustrationg to cope with xxxx
