Before Mum’s official diagnosis we were also questioning “is she/isn’t she putting it on”. We understood that she was lonely after Dad passed away, and depressed as anyone would be, but eventually we wondered if she was maybe making herself seem more vulnerable to try and get more attention. She wouldn’t be able to do a simple thing like remember to turn the telly off, but then she arranged an appointment over the phone to have her oven cleaned. These aren’t brilliant examples, my mind is a bit blank today, but hopefully you get the idea. I also thought she may be playing the three children off against each other. She’s said to me before “so-and-so fusses over me”, “so-and-so takes hold of my hand” etc. Another time she said “so-and-so shouted at me”. I had a heads up that time and knew the circumstances but still it was the first thing she said when she saw me.
After diagnosis I felt a definite calm come over me; now I wouldn’t feel frustrated or doubting, I could attribute everything that she did to dementia. But it hasn’t lasted!
Mum was taken to hospital at the weekend after not feeling well with an upset tummy. She was asked if she wanted the doctor and she said no, then changed her mind later, and ended up visiting A&E. She was dehydrated and given tablets and was back home the same day. My sister went and stayed with her overnight.
Two days later she rings up my brother saying she doesn’t feel well. He can’t get out of her what’s wrong so phones my sister. She can’t get out of her what’s wrong either, so she phones me and asks me to go round. So I do and she says she feels better. Still not able to tell me what was wrong, just saying she can’t explain it and trying to avoid the subject by showing me some unrelated paperwork. Put her a meal on, fixed her a drink etc. and stayed for an hour. Called her the next day and still she said she felt fine.
The following day I pick her up and ask her how she’s feeling and she says she feels much better, and I say good. Later in the day she says she hasn’t been very well. I said yes I know and that I’d asked her how she was feeling when we were driving to mine and she says in this accusing tone “no you didn’t ask me how I was”! Later on she said she’d like to go home and asked if I was upset that she didn’t want to stay any longer, but she said it in a way that made it seem like she wanted me to be upset.
None of this probably makes sense, as I said my brain is not in gear. Plus a lot of the time I read things on here such as people thinking they’re being poisoned etc. and wonder what I’ve got to complain about!
In summary, I agree that sometimes you can feel like they are doing things on purpose, or to spite you, and it may be the case but not in a purposeful, conscious way. Maybe it’s more like a learned behaviour – “if I say I feel ill someone comes to see me”. The way we perceive their behaviour is for us to deal with, they’re our feelings and only we can control them, but it’s not easy.
