Are delusions based on real experiences

[kissesintherain]

Hi, I care for my mum, she's 86 and has Alzheimer's, diagnosed about 9 years ago! I share the care with my brother and we manage in a fashion! I was wondering if the stories she tells, the delusions and fears she expresses on a daily basis are likely to be based on historical experiences! My mum repeatedly talks about an airplane crash in the hillside, being told to get down and hide to stay safe or 'they' will come and get her! She would have been around 8 or 9 at the time of the bombings in Clydebank and lived around 20 miles south of Glasgow! Is there likely to be a connection or am I seeking to make one where none exists? Where do delusions come from! They seem so real to mum! Sometimes she shows real child like fear!
Thanks

 

[BR_ANA]

Delusions are real for who are living them. They can come from some background or some word that was listened, or not.

TV news used to give my mum her most distressing delusions (and terrified emotions), luckily the most common was pets playing on ground ( that she enjoyed and calmed).


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[Kevinl]

Well I wasn't born until the mid 1950's but it was still standard practice to do an air raid drill. Maybe because in 1962 at the height of the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 the alarms sounded and we all had to get under our desks with our hands over our heads.
We were never issued with gas masks but my mum kept them "just in case".
many places got bombed; Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow, Hull (and many more besides) because of they were ports other places for strategical importance.
Whenever I hear the sound of an air raid warning I still want to hide under a desk.
K

 

[Saffie]

A dream can become reality to someone suffering from dementia. People on the television can seem to be present in the room. Even an overheard conversation can be interpreted as reality.

 

[LadyA]

Hello​. Sorry to hear your mum is so frightened by delusions. My husband was also very troubled as part of his dementia by very extreme paranoid delusions and hallucinations.
Sometimes, these delusions are based in snatches of old memories, but whether memories of real events or of, for example, something that was seen in a movie, or in my husband's case, occasionally historical events- often there's no way of knowing. Sometimes, the delusions can be triggered by something innocent. My husband once became very upset about the "men in the attic" who were plotting against him. These men were a regular feature of his delusions, and he was terrified of them. One day he was particularly upset because the"men" were apparently calling to the neighbours and telling them lies about my husband! He said they were plotting. He could hear them calling the neighbour - "Frank! Frank!" (neighbour is not called Frank!). When I went to listen, I heard....... a crow on the chimney pot! His cries of "caw caw" echoing down the chimney DID sound a little like "Frank"!

Other times, there would be no rhyme or reason to the delusions.

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[Jessbow]

Don't know, the thought makes me giggle actually.

My mum had three recurring themes

The airing cupboard being full of firemen

Narrowboats full of partying lesbians mooring the boat in various locations. ( The best of which was 3 floors up in a hospital ward. )

The girl with green hair ribbons that lived behind the washbasin.


To the best of my knowledge they were all 3 pure figments of her imagination. And mother , if your airing cupboard truly was full of hunky firemen, you could have at least shared them!

 

[Grannie G]

My husband was convinced his family was responsible for India`s space mission and that we would go to the celebrations and be given a red carpet welcome.

He had read about it in his magazine and had never had anything to do with space travel other than a life long interest. .

 

[kissesintherain]

Oh my, its sad when the delusions are scary, but the funny ones make me laugh out loud - thank you. Should i get dementia when I am old I would like to believe the airing cupboard is full of firemen too. Mum seems have to let go of some of her earlier funny delusions. She used to believe she knew Mr Dobbie, or Dobbies garden centres, he died over 100 years ago.

But she believed he was her friend and he had told her she could have anything in the shop for free. Once i caught her with hamster cheeks full of pick and mix lindt chocolate balls with smiley chocolate covered lips. I had to go through her pockets as we got to the check out and the staff were quite perplexed when she used to ask if Mr Dobbie was in the shop today! Bless! It's a journey this coping with dementia thing!

 

[Raggedrobin]

My father talked a lot about being in a being in a Greek massacre. It was an event that actually had happened and that he wrote a story about it. However he had not actually witnessed it himself but he was quite tortured by it in his delusions, it was like it was happening over and over again in his mind.

My Mum is also a Clydeside lass and lived through the war there and what you say about it doesn't surprise me at all. Mind you she used to go on and on about a boy who got his private parts torn to shreds after sliding down a bannister and hitting something sharp. She also talked about the rape or murder of a little girl in Kelvingrove park. I never found out if either of these things were true, she had never mentioned them to me in her 98 previous years but they could be true things that shocked her as a child and she ahs somehow dug them out of her memory store and is reliving them. however she also has many delusions which are clearly not based on fact, such as having the queen popping round on regular basis.

 

[LadyA]

William used to talk about someone screaming all night, and believed there were evil men living in dau's bedroom, torturing her to death every night. I think that came from an​ old memory. He had told me once that when he was young, he was traveling by train in Europe, and while in Spain (still under Franco at the time), on a night train, he said there was a woman being "interrogated" and tortured all night in the next compartment. He was so sickened by it, and how helpless he was, he left Spain the next day and didn't go back until he was in his early 70s.

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[Rageddy Anne]

William used to talk about someone screaming all night, and believed there were evil men living in dau's bedroom, torturing her to death every night. I think that came from an​ old memory. He had told me once that when he was young, he was traveling by train in Europe, and while in Spain (still under Franco at the time), on a night train, he said there was a woman being "interrogated" and tortured all night in the next compartment. He was so sickened by it, and how helpless he was, he left Spain the next day and didn't go back until he was in his early 70s.

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That certainly seems like reality revisited when Dementia was messing with his mind, Lady A.
We had to stop watching the news on TV as it so often started Rob fretting over something, convinced it was his problem to solve....something he had actually had to do in his working life. One fraught evening he couldn't settle until I had convinced him I had phoned all the neighbours and made a list of those who could offer accommodation to the hordes of refugees that would soon be coming to our village. He had seen refugees on TV.
When the recent drama on Westminster bridge was on TV the carers in his Care Home were too busy to notice what was on the TV news( big screen high on the wall, with subtitles and the sound turned down low.). Most residents were unaware, but one Carer did realise, and switched to a music channel.
I was worried that Rob would be upset, but his dementia has moved on, and now he doesn't seem to recognise a TV at all. But the older delusion that " we're all DOOMED" as in Dad's Army, still lingers on, and wherever he is, at some time in the day he is sure there's some conspiracy going on, and people aren't to be trusted...I think that also contributes to his resisting personal care.....he can't trust people and doesn't understand why they want him to strip off.

 

[Spamar]

OHs delusions concerned the great train robbery. Certainly unusual in that he was in his 30s when that happened!

Interested in what you say, Kevin, cos I'm a bit older than you and have no memory of ducking under seats doing air raid drill. Though I did live in a pretty sparsely populated area at the time, which may account for the difference. By the early 60 s I was at senior school, definitely nothing except work!

 

[marionq]

My mother's family were bombed out in Glasgow during the war and her younger sister remained a highly nervous person ever after. Mum was already married and had a home of her own but met her parents and siblings in the street covered in soot and with the belongings they had salvaged.

I guess an experience like that may well come back to haunt you in later life. The sister incidentally is now 90 and has dementia so I must ask if she has these delusions too.

 

[olivia1]

Delusions + Kelvingrove​ Park story

My Aunt had dementia, when I went to visit her often in hospital, she was just away to work on a yacht, she was just going to the bus stop or she had just come back. She'd sometimes describe blue skies and blue sea. My cousin said he remembers going to see her at the home and she'd just come back from a cruise. (I worked on a yacht about 5 years before this happened).
My Mum has Alzheimer's (or something like that, we dont know) and was saying she'd been to the Olympics - she had but she was saying she'd competed. (I did compete) but it didn't last she moved on from that. I wonder if she will return to it or not.

I read something someone wrote about Kelvingrove Park - there is a story that was true about a student who climbed up the flagpole at the university (in front of the main building) he lost his grip and ended up sliding all the way to the bottom and unfortunately if you look at the flagpole there are horizontal bars that stick out at regular intervals and that's how he tore the insides of his legs and his privates - that was v near Kelvingrove, not in it though but in that neck of the woods. And it is true because we all knew about it

 

[Princess t]

My mom is now in a care home and since in has told me of the little children in her room. I've asked the carers......no children ever been in her room. And yesterday mom was totally confused and didn't really want to speak, then all of a sudden started smiling saying she had the best day the day before as the people in care home had been fighting and brawling on the floor!!!!

 

[Raggedrobin]

Olivia, re Kelvingrove, well how interesting, maybe my Mum knew of that incident with the flagpole! Any idea how long ago that was? My Mum is 99 so it is a good long while since she lived in that part of Glasgow.

 

[MaNaAk]

A dream can become reality to someone suffering from dementia. People on the television can seem to be present in the room. Even an overheard conversation can be interpreted as reality.

I think this is very true Saffie! Dad started talking about coming back from Malaysia one morning after I asked him if he had had a good night!

MaNaAk

 

[olivia1]

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[olivia1]

further University student story

Just to add the student in the flagpole story was drunk, needless to say

 

[olivia1]

re: Kelvingrove

Raggedrobin, I know the student wasn't the first to try it. So, we heard about it in 1989 but I've no idea when it happened or if it had happened before
Sounds remarkably similar to what she might have been trying to remember - it's amazing when you think about what they have seen in their lifetime
Your Mum's a great age ! Good for her, she must be a strong lady.