Today’s curious question... It does seem that mum is currently ‘favouring’ contact with my brother over me. As some of you will already know, she’s been in hospital for 5 weeks now, and without her phone for most of that time. She does occasionally get permission to use the Ward phone - but she’ll always call my brother, not me. She has to ask them to look up the number - and they have mine too! So I suspect she must be clearly asking to call him, not me.
Now that we’ve got a cheap mobile phone to her, again she’s only calling him! I’ve sent texts, left voicemails (it rang out, then went to message service when I tried to call her). It really has felt for these past weeks that she’d rather talk to him than me.
Now, I’m not asking because I’m feeling all miserable and left out - to be honest, the times she calls my poor brother it’s all quite high maintenance and I should probably be happy that I’m not having to deal with that! I’m more curious as to why it’s happening. When I DO manage to talk to her on the rare occasion the hospital sets up a facetime, she’s always thrilled to see me and we have lengthy catch-ups. So I’m hoping it’s not that she doesn’t WANT to talk to me, it’s just not sort of occurring to her?
The other possible theory is that I’ve always been the one who gives her more of a tough time! Before her hospital visit (and before we knew she had dementia) I’d be the one giving her a bit of a lecture when she said she hadn’t been taking her medication properly or whatever. Whereas my brother was always a bit softer with her I think. So maybe she’s remembering that?! (To reassure you - I’m far from a horrid person! It’s just that I can bring myself to be firm with her when needed, more than him ).
Have any of you experienced similar with your PWD and siblings etc?
Now that we’ve got a cheap mobile phone to her, again she’s only calling him! I’ve sent texts, left voicemails (it rang out, then went to message service when I tried to call her). It really has felt for these past weeks that she’d rather talk to him than me.
Now, I’m not asking because I’m feeling all miserable and left out - to be honest, the times she calls my poor brother it’s all quite high maintenance and I should probably be happy that I’m not having to deal with that! I’m more curious as to why it’s happening. When I DO manage to talk to her on the rare occasion the hospital sets up a facetime, she’s always thrilled to see me and we have lengthy catch-ups. So I’m hoping it’s not that she doesn’t WANT to talk to me, it’s just not sort of occurring to her?
The other possible theory is that I’ve always been the one who gives her more of a tough time! Before her hospital visit (and before we knew she had dementia) I’d be the one giving her a bit of a lecture when she said she hadn’t been taking her medication properly or whatever. Whereas my brother was always a bit softer with her I think. So maybe she’s remembering that?! (To reassure you - I’m far from a horrid person! It’s just that I can bring myself to be firm with her when needed, more than him ).
Have any of you experienced similar with your PWD and siblings etc?