Evening all
My inaugural post and it’s one asking for help, I guess a recurring theme here.
My Nan turned 100 today, an event that should be joyous but over the last year, maybe even more she has changed in character. Our once strong family is now divided as the ‘untruths’ she tells are believed by those who’s agenda it suits.
My Nan has always had a careless way with her words and praise is a rarity. However, over the last year or so she has developed a severe paranoia and has started fabricating stories. The stories are so real to her that they are told with such richness and detail that others believe them, why wouldn’t they?
Stories usually centre around the women in our family. My Auntie was the first target - ‘she’s stealing from me, she’s taken my dresses, she wants to put me in a home’. Then it was the turn of my dear cousin (my Nan’s favourite grand child and only Grand daughter) - ‘she has told people that I’m going into a home’. I bore witness to a tirade of abuse that my Nan launched at my Cousin. My Nan even referred to my Cousin as her daughter. My own Mother has more recently come under fire - ‘you’ve stolen my tea service’ (stood pointing to a full tea service in her cupboard), on realising the service was there it changed to, ‘you’ve broken the cabinet’. Now I hear my wife is the latest to be accused - ‘she is stealing things from the garden’. Meanwhile she tells all and sundry these ‘untruths’. The most shocking is her assertion that someone is coming in through a hole in the fence and looking through her conservatory window. She asked a fencer to come and mend the hole, but there wasn’t one there.
Whilst this is going on, my Uncle talks my Nan into setting up a PoA (Oct 18), where he and his son are recorded as Attorneys. This is done without any of the families knowledge and comes after years of my Nan saying she’d never have a PoA.
Recently, my Great Uncle, who lives with my Nan and has late onset Alzheimer’s suffered a nasty infection. My Mum and Auntie provided immediate care and dealt with the District Nurse. The district nurse instructed my Mum to book my Nan a memory test.
The doctor called last week and performed the test. My Nan was found not to be suffering from dementia. I would point out that she is an extremely clever and astute woman when she is lucid.
When I last visited, this Saturday just gone, I witnessed the stories. In some instances I managed to move the conversation or I’d simply nod along. When she asked if I still had a dog I knew she really wasn’t well. My dog passed away in 1997!
The question I have is, why is she concocting all of these malicious stories? What would cause her to do this if she doesn’t have dementia? Is the standard test performed by a GP a suitable measure?
My Uncle and my cousin are unwavering in their view that there is nothing wrong with my Nan. In fact, they go so far to chastise us for even raising a concern about her mental well being.
Any help or guidance with this is much appreciated.
It reminds me so much of my paternal Gran who believed the old gentleman from across the road would break into her bedroom window and run off with clothes from her cupboard, ‘he’s faster than Linford Christie’. This was the late 80’s/early 90’s.
Thanks in advance, a concerned Grandson.
My inaugural post and it’s one asking for help, I guess a recurring theme here.
My Nan turned 100 today, an event that should be joyous but over the last year, maybe even more she has changed in character. Our once strong family is now divided as the ‘untruths’ she tells are believed by those who’s agenda it suits.
My Nan has always had a careless way with her words and praise is a rarity. However, over the last year or so she has developed a severe paranoia and has started fabricating stories. The stories are so real to her that they are told with such richness and detail that others believe them, why wouldn’t they?
Stories usually centre around the women in our family. My Auntie was the first target - ‘she’s stealing from me, she’s taken my dresses, she wants to put me in a home’. Then it was the turn of my dear cousin (my Nan’s favourite grand child and only Grand daughter) - ‘she has told people that I’m going into a home’. I bore witness to a tirade of abuse that my Nan launched at my Cousin. My Nan even referred to my Cousin as her daughter. My own Mother has more recently come under fire - ‘you’ve stolen my tea service’ (stood pointing to a full tea service in her cupboard), on realising the service was there it changed to, ‘you’ve broken the cabinet’. Now I hear my wife is the latest to be accused - ‘she is stealing things from the garden’. Meanwhile she tells all and sundry these ‘untruths’. The most shocking is her assertion that someone is coming in through a hole in the fence and looking through her conservatory window. She asked a fencer to come and mend the hole, but there wasn’t one there.
Whilst this is going on, my Uncle talks my Nan into setting up a PoA (Oct 18), where he and his son are recorded as Attorneys. This is done without any of the families knowledge and comes after years of my Nan saying she’d never have a PoA.
Recently, my Great Uncle, who lives with my Nan and has late onset Alzheimer’s suffered a nasty infection. My Mum and Auntie provided immediate care and dealt with the District Nurse. The district nurse instructed my Mum to book my Nan a memory test.
The doctor called last week and performed the test. My Nan was found not to be suffering from dementia. I would point out that she is an extremely clever and astute woman when she is lucid.
When I last visited, this Saturday just gone, I witnessed the stories. In some instances I managed to move the conversation or I’d simply nod along. When she asked if I still had a dog I knew she really wasn’t well. My dog passed away in 1997!
The question I have is, why is she concocting all of these malicious stories? What would cause her to do this if she doesn’t have dementia? Is the standard test performed by a GP a suitable measure?
My Uncle and my cousin are unwavering in their view that there is nothing wrong with my Nan. In fact, they go so far to chastise us for even raising a concern about her mental well being.
Any help or guidance with this is much appreciated.
It reminds me so much of my paternal Gran who believed the old gentleman from across the road would break into her bedroom window and run off with clothes from her cupboard, ‘he’s faster than Linford Christie’. This was the late 80’s/early 90’s.
Thanks in advance, a concerned Grandson.
