Difficult becomes an understatement of considerable proportions when we apply the word to dementia. Any abnormality poses a challenge, some moreso than others. A personal challenge has to be confronted directly at the end of the day, if it is to be clearly addressed, despite any peripheral advice. One is referring to psychological challenges here. I am afraid that all the books in the world cannot open the pages of your own book. This person has in his youth read everything from Zen through Buddhism and tasted many theosophical texts and all manner of " mind expansion" writings and Yoga and so on. Nothing actually means anything when you are reliant on an outside source, because when the source is no longer there, you are lost, alone and with just yourself. Then, that is when one might discover what you truly are. In caring for someone very close, where the relationship actually feels so attached that everything that takes place registers psychologically, then it is of no surprise when any disruption in that relationship has a marked if not profound effect on you. Dementia is alike a third party infiltrating that relationship. It changes the hitherto ' normality' of that relationship and it does so through the body and soul of the one who you know and love and understand -- and changes everything without any consultation of either you or most significantly, the one whom it now inhabits. So, it then requires recognition of that imposter in all its guises. Difficult. The sudden snappy outburst or glowering expression which invites an instinctive reaction - is it authentic? Or is it the imposter Dementia? Did he or she really mean that? After all l have been striving so very hard to do? Does that remark warrant a reprimand?
There are no blueprints to resolving any of these dilemmas and that remains a raw reality. Every single case is different. We as Carers are different, with our own history, our likes and dislikes, our reserves of energy, patience and domestic situation. Whilst there are drugs and tactics and regimes ( in Care Homes) to alleviate the varied presentations of dementia, the fact remains that dementia behaviour which poses huge challenges for we who willingly take the role of Carer, has to be seen as the " devil in the box" and approached as such, DEVOID of the one it inhabits. Difficult . But to nurture the one in your Care as a prisoner subject to all manner of reluctant behaviour instigated by the Dementia captor, is to recognise that the loved one is completely innocent - despite the tantrum, the screams of abuse, the apparent disregard for your unconditional Care. And when that fleeting moment comes, when the one you know and love so deeply and ' communication ' shines that heartfelt light upon you both in mutual wordless accord, you know that the imposter does not rule neither you nor the loved one, fundamentally because you perceive its presence and its expression and treat it accordingly. The one whom you love and Care for cannot perceive any of that and that is why, however extraordinarily difficult it might be, you learn to treat both imposter and the one it has claimed as its own, with abiding awareness. Then, one wishes wholeheartedly, that you know what to do or what to say or not say at a given moment. Therein lies profund introspection, which can only be a good thing and certainly a good thing for the one you Care for, because you have opened the pages of YOUR own book.