My grandma is turning 90 in one month, and everyone knows that she has dementia. It's never been something that anybody has tried to hide before.
My non-binary sibling and I (a trans man) volunteered to stay with our grandma to take care of her because she was going to be left alone for a whole month. She's already fallen a couple of times in the past, so that would have been dangerous for her.
Two days before our flight (from Washington to Texas) our Aunt announced that she decided to stay with Grandma. It was too late for us to change our flight so we just went anyway as planned.
During our visit our grandma made many hurtful comments, but that had been something both of us already expected. The problem was that our Aunt being there as well ended up aggravating the situation.
After only 2 weeks of our original 2 month trip, both my sibling and my mental health had declined to a very dangerous place. We decided we needed to remove ourselves from that environment for our own safety.
When they heard we wanted to leave early, above all they (understandably) wanted to know why. I thought it would be best for all of us if I told them the truth, so I repeated everything they had both said while we were there that hurt us.
During the conversation, at one point my grandma was apologizing for things that she couldn't even remember saying, so I tried to comfort her by telling her that we knew it wasn't her fault, and it was because of the dementia.
My aunt interrupted at that point and told me that now I was the one being insensitive by mentioning Dementia. And that now both my sibling and I had apparently mentioned her dementia, and that it wasn't right. She acted offended on our grandma's behalf and said that she hadn't even been officially diagnosed.
Obviously I immediately apologized, because I don't know the proper etiquette when talking about dementia. Whenever anyone talked about my grandma they always mentioned dementia by name, so I just thought they already knew it for a fact.
But then I asked my grandma if me talking about it hurt or upset her and she said it didn't bother her at all, the only thing she was upset about was that we were leaving.
There's obviously much more to this story, but what my aunt said then has been bothering me the most. I called my mom afterwards and told her the situation and she said she didn't see any problem with it since I was trying to comfort grandma, not be malicious, and there was no way to talk to her about her dementia without actually mentioning her dementia.
Both my mom, and my aunt are incredibly different so this might just be a simple matter of difference of personal opinion, but I still feel guilty about it regardless. I want to know if I made a mistake and accidentally said something really hurtful without meaning to.
My non-binary sibling and I (a trans man) volunteered to stay with our grandma to take care of her because she was going to be left alone for a whole month. She's already fallen a couple of times in the past, so that would have been dangerous for her.
Two days before our flight (from Washington to Texas) our Aunt announced that she decided to stay with Grandma. It was too late for us to change our flight so we just went anyway as planned.
During our visit our grandma made many hurtful comments, but that had been something both of us already expected. The problem was that our Aunt being there as well ended up aggravating the situation.
After only 2 weeks of our original 2 month trip, both my sibling and my mental health had declined to a very dangerous place. We decided we needed to remove ourselves from that environment for our own safety.
When they heard we wanted to leave early, above all they (understandably) wanted to know why. I thought it would be best for all of us if I told them the truth, so I repeated everything they had both said while we were there that hurt us.
During the conversation, at one point my grandma was apologizing for things that she couldn't even remember saying, so I tried to comfort her by telling her that we knew it wasn't her fault, and it was because of the dementia.
My aunt interrupted at that point and told me that now I was the one being insensitive by mentioning Dementia. And that now both my sibling and I had apparently mentioned her dementia, and that it wasn't right. She acted offended on our grandma's behalf and said that she hadn't even been officially diagnosed.
Obviously I immediately apologized, because I don't know the proper etiquette when talking about dementia. Whenever anyone talked about my grandma they always mentioned dementia by name, so I just thought they already knew it for a fact.
But then I asked my grandma if me talking about it hurt or upset her and she said it didn't bother her at all, the only thing she was upset about was that we were leaving.
There's obviously much more to this story, but what my aunt said then has been bothering me the most. I called my mom afterwards and told her the situation and she said she didn't see any problem with it since I was trying to comfort grandma, not be malicious, and there was no way to talk to her about her dementia without actually mentioning her dementia.
Both my mom, and my aunt are incredibly different so this might just be a simple matter of difference of personal opinion, but I still feel guilty about it regardless. I want to know if I made a mistake and accidentally said something really hurtful without meaning to.