Suddenly being a personal care provider for my mother-in-law with extreme memory issues is simultaneously fascinating and frustrating.
I can't help but compare this to the movie _Memento_. Not that she's forgetting who she is, or where she is, but her mind is still very inconsistent with what she can remember. Often she forgets something she just said, or where she put something she was just holding 5 minutes ago.
It's fascinating to see what someone's "default" thought cyles are.
She is _constantly_ defaulting back to money as the thing she thinks about. How much something costs. How much something is worth. How much she has to pay for some perceived future expense. She behaves like she lived through the great depression, but she's been living a very comfortable lifestyle for 30+ years.
Her 2nd default thoughts are about people who died. Family, friends, acquaintances. Sometimes thinking she needs to talk to someone who is long passed.
And then finally the cycle comes back to grief over my father-in-law.
#dementia #caregiving #thoughts
I can't help but compare this to the movie _Memento_. Not that she's forgetting who she is, or where she is, but her mind is still very inconsistent with what she can remember. Often she forgets something she just said, or where she put something she was just holding 5 minutes ago.
It's fascinating to see what someone's "default" thought cyles are.
She is _constantly_ defaulting back to money as the thing she thinks about. How much something costs. How much something is worth. How much she has to pay for some perceived future expense. She behaves like she lived through the great depression, but she's been living a very comfortable lifestyle for 30+ years.
Her 2nd default thoughts are about people who died. Family, friends, acquaintances. Sometimes thinking she needs to talk to someone who is long passed.
And then finally the cycle comes back to grief over my father-in-law.
#dementia #caregiving #thoughts
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