Underneath my yellow skin

Dementia, dysfunction, and depression

Dementia is brutal. I knew this, of course, but I didn’t know this until my father got it. I wrote yesterday about not knowing when it was dementia and when it was dysfunction, and let me throw depression into the mix. Depression for my father because of course the dementia is making him depressed. I’m saying that sincerely, by the way. I’m not being snarky, though it’s hard to know the difference with me sometimes. Ofcourse it would be depressing not to know who you were or what was happening or who was around you on a regular basis. It has to feel so unstable when things are constantly shifting as to what you think you know.

So, yaeh. Of course my father is depressed! And my mother isn’t helping when she tries to insist on reality. I know it has to hurt her that my father doesn’t recognize her (or thinks she’s Ecco, his wife, but not Grace, my mother. Both are her names, by the way. The former is what he calls her in Taiwanese while the latter is her American name), but her trying to correct him over and over again is just making things worse.

This is something that frustrates the hell out of me. She is a psychologist. This is Dementia 101. Don’t argue with someone with dementia. It’s not being kind–in fact, it’s actively cruel. I couldn’t believe I had to tell her this. THat is something even people without psych degrees should know. But, no. She said she could not lie to him, and I got so impatient telling her it wasn’t lying. He wasn’t going to remember it in five seconds, anyway.

When I talk to him, I agree with whatever he says. Even if I don’t like it. This is where it gets tricky for me. He has been nasty all my life about women in general and me in particular. He’s said things like ‘the common housewife can’t figure out CostCo’ and boy did I have several things to say to this. This was the last time he was here. He was not in dementia when he said it so I felt no restraint in arguing with him. I still shouldn’t have because it was pointless, but I couldn’t help it. He’s so good at pushing my buttons, mainly because he (along with my mother) installed them.

Another thing he said that was more pointed at me demonstrated the layers and levels to his manipulation. At the dinner table, he started talking about how he was not a doctor while having that look on his face. It’s hard to describe, but I know he’s going to say something spectacularly out there when he has it on his face. Something that is going to annoy/irritate/anger me because of how baseless/uninformed/mean-spirited it is. This time, it was him rambling about how germs worked. In his opinion, the pores on your skin opens up more when it’s cold.

That in itself is factually untrue. This is not something you need to be a doctor to understand. Steam opens up the pores. Steam is hot. Therefore, the converse is true as well. Cold makes your pores smaller. I said this to my father, and he just sat there with a blank look on his face. I knew the folly of what I was doing, and yet, I could not stop. This was one of my big flaws–I got sucked into arguing with my parents when I knew it didn’t make a whiff of difference. In this case, I didn’t know why he was bringing it up, anyway. The pores being bigger or smaller when you’re cold/hot, I mean. It had nothing to do with what we were talking about, and he had brought it up apropos of nothing.


He went on to say that because of this, it’s easier to catch a cold when you’re cold. Wait, what? He said because your pores open more when you’re cold (according to him), that made it easier for germs to enter your pores when you were cold. I, uh, what? That’s not how germs work. That’s not how any of this works! I was gobsmacked that such an educated man (PhD) was so mindnumbingly ignorant. Willfully so. Or if not willfully, just…lazy? I’m not sure what it is, but he makes up shit in his mind and then decides that it’s true.

Also, it took me some time to realize why he went down this road in this first place. I was so taken aback by how wrong he was about so many things in such a short amount of time, I didn’t see the bigger picture.

Let’s take a step back. My father and I have been arguing since I was a small child about me wearing a coat/jacket when he was cold. Yes, you read that right. He would say, “Put on a jacket–I’m cold.” Meaning that because he felt cold, I had to wear a coat. That’s how narcisstic he was. I don’t get cold. I never have. It turned out that I had hyperthyroidism (Graves’ disease) which was the reason I didn’t get cold. I don’t know why it’s still the case because I’m now hypothyroidic, but still don’t get cold. Anyway, at that time, I truly did not feel cold until it was at least freezing. Even then, I could get away with a fleecy sweatshirt over a t-shirt rather than a coat/jacket.

We had this argument so many times. My father misremembers it as me being mad at him for not asking me nicely to put on a coat/jacket (which may also be true), but the real reason was that I was not cold. If he was cold, he could put on a goddamn jacket and be done with it.

I had to explain this because it has continued to this day. When my parents were here during my medical crisis, I went on a walk with them every morning. Did I want to? No. Was it the easier thing to do? Yes. This started in September and went through the first week of December. You can probably see where this is going. I never wore a coat/jacket when we went out for a walk because I wasn’t cold enough for that. I brought a baclava, gloves, and ear muffs with me in case I wanted to put any or all of them all. Which I rarely did, by the way. Walking at a brisk pace was enough to keep me warm.

My father never directly said anything to me, by the way. At some point, though, my mother started commenting to me during each walk that I must be cold with her dreadful little laugh that told me she was up to something. On the third or fourth day, I snapped, “I’m not cold, and you know that. Why are you asking?” To which she acted all injured and said that she just didn’t know how to talk to me any more. This was her little ploy when I dared to push back on something. I said she did know. I didn’t get cold so why was she suddenly saying that shit? I didn’t say ‘shit’, but I definitely implied it.

It wasn’t until a few days later that I realized what had happened. My father had brought it up with her and probably said she hadn’t raised me right. That’s what he did when he disapproved of something. He knew he would get nowhere by bringing it up with me, so he badgered my mother with it. And like the good little yes-person she was, she dutifully brought it up with me at his behest.

I say all this because that’s what my father was doing with all his rambling talk about cold and hot, pores and germs. He was telling me that I was making myself more susceptible to getting a cold by not wearing a jacket when we went walking. Was that a wild way to get there? Why yes it was. Is that what he was doing? It absolutely was. Which is part of the family dysfunction. My parents doing shit to undermine me without letting me know that’s what they’re doing. I was just expected to realize what they were saying without them explaining it, which, granted, I finally did, but that’s a lot of wasted mental energy.

Leave a reply