Lack of empathy
Thanks. The more I hear about how it affects the person the more I understand. I did not realise that dementia people have a lack of empathy. I certainly do now! I think part of my problem is that my mum is not as bad as some people who do not recognise their own family etc. I think I should learn more about the disease and then I wont get so upset when my mum doesn't behave properly. There are various stages of dementia and my mum is in the early stages. My mum lives in a care home and laughs and jokes and makes coherent conversation with the staff and likes to listen to music and read poetry books. (in her young years she wrote poetry as a hobby). I thought if she can still do all that and understand the poetry she is reading I fooled myself into thinking she was ok. One of her other problems and I think this is dementia related, is that she has no empathy for others in her care home. She worked as a school teacher and was university educated. A lot of the other people in her care home had jobs in shops or cleaning or cooking. There is nothing wrong with that. My mum will not talk to them because she feels superior due to her education and job and feels they cannot converse with her in an intelligent way. She therefore isolates herself and tells me she is superior to them. I myself have friends from all walks of life doing all kinds of jobs. One of my closest friends serves in a shop and as far as I am concerned whats more important is that she gets up and does an honest days work for an honest days pay and works hard. It doesn't matter to me that she is not a doctor or a solicitor etc or has been to university. Whats more important to me is her kindness. My mum is a snob. She cant help it its part of her illness and now I realise I don't expect very much more
Parts of this email were so familiar I did wonder for a moment if you and I shared the same mother.
People's dementia can exaggerate the less attractive parts of their personality so you may find yourself grappling with all sorts of emotions you have repressed throughout your life as you see your Mum stripped bare of all pretense. This can be devastating as it is hard enough dealing with the present when you have a parent with dementia that you have very little energy left to deal with festering resentments from your past also.
The head of Mum's care home explained to me that lack of empathy is associated with dementia. My mother was never very loving or empathetic at the best of times and now she has mild dementia it is as though she has stopped making an effort at all to care about other people. She is also a snob who won't speak to other residents in the care home because they are "barmy". This is obviously difficult to witness in anyone but particularly hard in your own mother.
I sometimes have been so upset by my mother's behavior that I have wanted to turn to someone for comfort.
The little girl in me wants my "Mummy" to comfort me but it is my mummy who is making me so unhappy.
This is the thing that has broken my heart over and over again.
After three years of this I have come to understand the following:
- that my mother has nothing to give me and that I just need to accept it. Anything I do get from her (a few happy moments together, a happy memory shared) is a delightful bonus
- that learning to care for her and expect nothing in return is actually quite liberating. For the first time in my life there is no risk of Mum disappointing me because I expect nothing from her
- that if I think of her as a batty old lady I visit in her care home regularly then I can actually enjoy her company quite a bit (she still has a ferocious sense of humour)
- that I can use my humour to challenge her when she it too unpleasant (so when she says things like "Why should I bother to sign that Xmas card for my carer?" I can say "So she might actually think you are a nice person". Mum says "You're horrible to me". We both laugh. And she signs the card.)
I also recognize that there are some times when I am just too vulnerable to visit my Mum. A few weeks ago I lost control completely when I was with her and just sat on her bed and cried. I had had a really bad week at work and when I went to visit my Mum I realized I had absolutely no patience for her constant demands and neediness. She became really worried as I started crying and stroked me and tried to comfort me. It made me so sad to see how helpless she felt that I apologized for my loss of control and explained I had to leave.
It was really liberating to realize that, on the days when I can't cope with Mum, I can just walk away. Those of us with our parent's in care homes have this extraordinary freedom to walk away when we are not able to cope - we just need to allow ourselves to do this without guilt.
This is a long journey and we need to pace ourselves. But in the process we can learn a lot about ourselves too and that can be really valuable.
I don't know if you have children. I don't and one of the reason I don't is the example of motherhood my mother set me. So, when people said "you must be her parent now" I thought "But I never wanted to be a parent".
Then I thought about what my mother
had done for me as a child - how she was always 100% reliable and how she took care of all the practical aspects of my life even if she couldn't show me love in the way I needed. And then I realized I would be a mother to my mother in the way she had taught me to be a mother.
So I administer her life very professionally - spend a huge amount of time taking care of the financial and medical side of her life - and work with her carers to make sure she is being very well cared for. Anything I give her by way of genuine love and compassion is a bonus and a pleasure. Whatever else I know I have fulfilled my responsibility to her in the way that she always fulfilled her responsibility to me.
I wish you all the best.
keep strong
