I’m back with even more musing about lying. Here’s yesterday’s post on the subject, and about a sprinkling about other things, too.
I talked to my mother earlier tonight, and I was hyper-aware of how she was lying to herself. My father has dementia. My mother knows this and tries to get my father to accept it. That’s good! On the other hand, though, she still holds out hope that my father will get better. Many things she does to/for my father (like massaging his head) are with the intent of making him better.
I’m not guessing this, by the way. She’s flat out stated it. She told me about recent meds that seem promising for reversing dementia. The problem is that they only seem to work with people in the early stages of dementia, and they are very recent. we can’t really know how effective they will turn out to be in the end.
I tried to keep my mouth shut, but I am constitutionally unable to not give my opinion if pressed hard enough, apparently. Not that my mother was asking for my opinion, but she would not stop talking about this miracle drug.
Here’s the thing. I learned, from her, ironically, that giving up false hope can bring you great peace. In my case, it was truly laying down the rope (the hope?) between us. I spend so many decades hoping against hope that there was some way to have a relationship with her. Not even a good one, but one at all.
At some point after my medical crisis, I realized this was never going to happen. Not that it was impossible to happen (in theory), but taht my mother was not ever going to be capable of it.
Side note: She thanked me several times tonight for listening to her. She’s called me her therapist, which I do not like at all. And she’s talked about all these friends of hers who suddenly stopped talking to her. She has no idea why! Which is her lying to herself, but it’s not something I can point out to her.
I also didn’t feel like I could snap back that I really had no choice but to listen to her. Well, I did, but it was a drastic choice. It would mean not talking to her at all. One thing about my mother is that she will push her way until she gets it, and I am not made of strong stuff.
I feel compassion for her as an older person who is on the last leg of her journey here on earth. I feel sorry for her because she has a really rough road ahead of her. I would not wish it on anyone to be the caretaker of someone with dementia. I wish she had gotten into therapy much earlier because maybe these later years would have been easier for her. Not easy because of the dementia thing, but easier.