Making up stories

UncleZen

Registered User
Dec 24, 2019
92
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So, I get that people with Alzheimer's can't remember what happened a few minutes ago, but can often remember the distant past with clarity.
But what about making up stories from the past that never happened, e.g.

Today she said she's been to the Donnington rock festival not once, but twice. In over 30 years of marriage she's never seen fit to mention this before (and as rock music is my thing you'd think it would have been mentioned at some point). When asked who the headliners were, she couldn't remember, probably because she wasn't there.

The other day we were speaking to a dog owner in the street who was telling us that she'd had the dog castrated. My wife went on to tell her that all our previous dogs had been castrated (not true) then in the next sentence says we used them at stud (true)!

Anyone else encountered this?
 

Bod

Registered User
Aug 30, 2013
1,958
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Yup.
Pretty much standard.
The stories my father came out with, I’d never heard before, got better with each telling, often twice a visit.
The short term memory goes, but the long term stays much longer, but as it goes, memories are made up to fill the gaps.

Bod
 

canary

Registered User
Feb 25, 2014
25,018
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South coast
Hi @UncleZen

This is classic dementia and is called confabulation.

What happens is that the subconscious brain is aware of gaps in the memory and tries to fill them in order to try and make sense of the fragments that are left. So it takes old memories, things seen on TV, stuff heard in conversations, fragments of truth and a big dollop of imagination or wishful thinking, all mixed up, taken out of context, stretched and cobbled together to form false memories that seem to the person with dementia to be real memories. They have no control over this process and are not even aware that it is happening. You cant argue with them, or try and reason with them, because, you see, they remember it!!
 

Joanie1947

Registered User
Oct 23, 2021
30
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This is one of the things that upsets me most.Husband with LBD. It especially worries me as in my mind, telling lies is a minor crime. I know he can't help it and I go along with it but find it difficult
 

SeaSwallow

Volunteer Moderator
Oct 28, 2019
5,553
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This is one of the things that upsets me most.Husband with LBD. It especially worries me as in my mind, telling lies is a minor crime. I know he can't help it and I go along with it but find it difficult
@Joanie1947 Try to tell yourself that he is not telling lies, because as far as your husband is concerned he is telling the truth. This is particularly true because your husband has LBD which can be a difficult type of dementia for both the PWD and the carer.
 

Lawson58

Registered User
Aug 1, 2014
4,333
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Victoria, Australia
My ex husband was always a storyteller and he would inevitably exaggerate details just for the sake of entertainment and loved to make others laugh.

In his later years. these stories ventured so far from the truth that they were outrageous but as we heard them all numerous times before, we found them quite amusing.

At the end of the day, it didn’t really matter and I don’t think that any of us should be too concerned when people do this. Though it may really bug you, in itself it’s not really important except as an indication of her illness.

As canary has said, she is filling in the gaps probably because she is feeling anxious and insecure, a projection of who she thinks she is, was or would like to have been.
 

Jaded'n'faded

Registered User
Jan 23, 2019
5,259
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High Peak
My mother excelled at re-creating our family, both who was in the family and our history.

Sometimes it was fine because I knew the truth, so when she 'invented' various siblings and I knew she was an only child, it wasn't a problem. When she said her husband (i.e. my dad!) was an alcoholic and a womaniser and would go out drinking all the time and putting all their money on the horses, I knew it wasn't true.

However, when she told me about someone in the family who abused her as a child.... I had no idea. It might have happened...

So yes, if you can't verify what you are being told it can be quite unsettling. Mum would also tell me lots of unimportant things that didn't happen either, like, 'There's been no food all week, not even a cup of tea!' so mostly I'd go along with her and agree it was terrible or say I'd sort it out.

Although I learned not to take anything she said at face value without checking, it's those things they say that are plausible or concerning that you worry about. I remember mum saying all the carers pinched her or slapped her if she didn't do what she was told. That worried me for ages simply because we all worry what carers do behind closed doors...
 

Anthoula

Registered User
Apr 22, 2022
2,218
0
Hi @UncleZen

This is classic dementia and is called confabulation.

What happens is that the subconscious brain is aware of gaps in the memory and tries to fill them in order to try and make sense of the fragments that are left. So it takes old memories, things seen on TV, stuff heard in conversations, fragments of truth and a big dollop of imagination or wishful thinking, all mixed up, taken out of context, stretched and cobbled together to form false memories that seem to the person with dementia to be real memories. They have no control over this process and are not even aware that it is happening. You cant argue with them, or try and reason with them, because, you see, they remember it!!
I can most certainly identify with this. When, on the odd occasion, I have questioned a tale being told by OH I am given this long withering look as much as to say that I am the one with the memory problem!
 

imthedaughter

Registered User
Apr 3, 2019
944
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My dad is a master of confabulation. He usually believes he is on a military base somewhere waiting to be called in for an exercise, but memorably was on a submarine '5 miles down' once when his Dr visited. He piped her aboard (I think he sang?) and was most interested in how she got on board considering they were underwater. He is as he says, an RAF man, but has never been a submariner.
When I saw him in June he was convinced there was something wrong with 'the gas pipes in his room'. And then only recently he was inventing something for a box to 'keep the sides up'. (Although the other day I was fighting with the top flaps of a box and I wish I had whatever idea dad had.)
'Pike day' was pretty interesting too - early in the morning he claimed he'd just returned from fishing and sent the pike to the kitchen (as if it was a country pile, in reality the kitchen is smaller than the average family bathroom). I am 90% sure some fishing programme was on TV that morning and the care home staff are amazed at how long the confabulations last.
They were having fish for dinner as it happened and when a lady resident asked what kind of fish it was dad piped up: "It's pike! Caught fresh this morning!"
They are very much stories but I don’t really see them as lies, just alternate realities. His continued imaginary service in the forces gives him a sense of pride and purpose, so I even think they have a positive effect.
 

CAL Y

Registered User
Jul 17, 2021
632
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My late husband spent 30 years in the police.
He loved Midsomer Murders and was convinced that he had been in all the old manor houses in the programmes .
He had also conducted many interviews in the fictitious Causten police station.?
He almost convinced me that I was the one going mad.

Only when he was diagnosed did it all become clear to me.
Nearly drove me bonkers.
 

Lawson58

Registered User
Aug 1, 2014
4,333
0
Victoria, Australia
My mother excelled at re-creating our family, both who was in the family and our history.

Sometimes it was fine because I knew the truth, so when she 'invented' various siblings and I knew she was an only child, it wasn't a problem. When she said her husband (i.e. my dad!) was an alcoholic and a womaniser and would go out drinking all the time and putting all their money on the horses, I knew it wasn't true.

However, when she told me about someone in the family who abused her as a child.... I had no idea. It might have happened...

So yes, if you can't verify what you are being told it can be quite unsettling. Mum would also tell me lots of unimportant things that didn't happen either, like, 'There's been no food all week, not even a cup of tea!' so mostly I'd go along with her and agree it was terrible or say I'd sort it out.

Although I learned not to take anything she said at face value without checking, it's those things they say that are plausible or concerning that you worry about. I remember mum saying all the carers pinched her or slapped her if she didn't do what she was told. That worried me for ages simply because we all worry what carers do behind closed doors...
And I couldn’t agree more about checking up on the caring issues. Stories about non existent past events are one thing but statements about care should be watched. We know that PWD are predisposed to making accusations and we need to be sure that everything is as it should.
 

Tambo26

New member
Jun 30, 2022
2
0
My mother comes up with the craziest stories. If you didn't know she has AD you might think they were true. They're true to her so we just acknowledge and move on. Funny thing is that she repeats a lot of them. They have become permanent memories. The theme to most of her stories is typically dark: " so and so died in that house.", "They found two people murdered inside that camper." "The neighbor posted on Facebook that he thinks I'm a Jehova's Witness and he's going to do something to me." (???) "So and so's wife found out he has a crush on me..." Good grief AD is a trip.
 

wurrienot

Registered User
Jul 25, 2023
162
0
Dad has an incredible story about what happened at the dentist when my brother took him . Apparently because they have the same name, the dentist took impressions from my brother by mistake that being the reason dad can't get his dentures in. Then he had to go down the steps of a lecture theatre so the trainees could look at him. One of the trainees was having a tooth extraction and dad has to hold the bowl to catch the tooth... It goes on. Needless to say, none of this actually happened.
 

Bugs

Registered User
Aug 27, 2020
192
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We had a saying in the family that my mother never let the truth get in the way of a good story. I grew up being fed lies with I completely swallowed as the truth and when I discovered that the stories were actually lies it affected me very badly. As my mother got older her stories became more erratic and I could see through them but it seriously affected my relationship with her. It was only after she died and my husband developed dementia that I learned about confabulation. It explained so much. Fortunately for me my husband has not really started with fairy tales but he does get confused and mixes different stories together so I guess that’s the start
 

liz4

Registered User
May 31, 2023
19
0
Interesting to read these stories of confabulation. My husband with AD has lost almost all his language, sadly, whereas my mother who died in 2019 had a huge storytelling ability and used to entertain us in her final 90th year with tales of taking the England cricket team on tour etc. We’d go along with it and say what a busy day she’d had! I miss those cheery fantastic tales which we used to laugh about with her 🥰
 

jay6

Registered User
Jun 25, 2023
964
0
Strange how the brain works!
Mine now tells stories. Mainly of how tough his life has been.
One is of his terrible childhood with a father always 'picking on him' news to me and his 2 sisters (younger than him) who can't relate saying if dad was so bad why did he not leave home before us and wait until he was 28. The stories I now hear on his terrible childhood. Some of the tales are like watching out a T.V. program or the news.
His first wife 'picked on him' and tried to tell him what to do. (20 years married) and now its me who's the one making his life hard and 'picking on him' all the time. poor chap!
They really do believe what they are saying. You can't argue otherwise.
 

whoknkows

Registered User
May 16, 2023
68
0
The brain is a marvellous and also a scary thing, we have had many stories, some in the present accusing people of awful things, and others that we couldn't work out at all. But I did read about the mind filling a void. One time my MiL went on a horrid rant to DH who has been her most caring and present son,I think sadly the person they are closest too often gets the worse of it. I suspect that her years of reading non stop crime and murder mystery books have caused some of the confusion and dark thoughts- she has also had a slightly paranoid view and said something to me last year that I thought could be true and now am not so sure, it is not the sort of thing I can ask anyone without causing huge family upset. It will have to remain a mystery. Current obsessions and stories have changed, and worryingly now accusing another resident at the care home of nasty behaviour - luckily we know it isn't true, but I could see that some people who don't understand this disease, could be taken in. My aunt told similar strange stories, but also did have an unusual life, so again some of her stories may have been true - we will never know. It is a learning curve for us all indeed.