My father is getting worse. His dementia, I mean. My mother called last night, and she wanted to complain about him–per usual. I do not blame her because it’s tough to deal with someone with dementia, especially when that person was highly unpleasant in the first place.
That’s not something we talk about when we discuss dementia. I mean, we don’t talk much about dementia in general, but we definitely don’t acknowledge that it doesn’t just happen to good people. My dad is and always has been a petulant narcissist. He’s thin-skinned and judges everything by how it makes him look. He believes women are only there for fucking and men ar ethreats to his masculinity. Oh, I should say this is just Taiwanese people–he doesn’t put any stock in any other people.
My mother is worn-out. She’s taking an anti-anxiety medication because of him, and she has no one to rely on. It’s partly because Taiwan is shitty when it comes to dementia (they consider it a moral failing rather than an actual disease), but it’s also because she has drank the Kool-Aid that she had to keep his secrets. I mean, there’s no need to blab his business to everyone (which she has done in the past), but at the same time, his dementia is not missable.
That’s the thing that he doesn’t get. He accuses her of telling people about it, but it’s very clear that he’s not all there. When I talk to him, I have a hard time following what he’s saying. I want to be fair. English is his third language (fourth, really, but he doesn’t remember his Japanese), and he doesn’t speak it any more execpt to me and my brother.
But his thoughts don’t follow. We were talking about the weather yesterday, and I mentioned that we got snow. Yes, snow in mid-April. It doesn’t happen often, but it does happen. Prince sang about it, and he ain’t never lied.
Then, I mentioned that my mother had said it was really hot there. He thought I meant here and no matter how many times or ways I said I meant it was hot in Taiwan, he did not get it. Another time, we were talking about technology and he kept saying tablet when he meant cellphone. I can usually tell what he’s trying to say, but it’s not a conversation.
It’s so weird. It doesn’t really bother me or I don’t let it ruffle me because…well, to be brutally honest, my father has never made much sense. He has really weird ideas and he has no idea that they are very different than the norm. Or rather, they are very old-fashioned. For example, when it comes to women, he has said to me the following:
1. The way to get a boyfriend was to raise my voice a few octaves, let a guy beat me in a game, and have him teach me something.
2. Women like gifts and weddings (while holding out a gift hee’d been given. I was rightfully confused and didn’t take it. That’s when he said he gave all such gifts to my mother because ‘women like gifts and weddings).
3. (And this is the worst one that happened on his last visit here) Housewives are too stupid to figure out how to navigate Costco. This was after we had gone to Costco. When we came back home, he said, “You know, for people who are smart like you and me (this included my brother0, we can figure out a place like Costco. For your average housewife, though, it has to be confusing.”
I tell myself every time I talk to him just to ignore his bullshit, but my god. THat is so astonishingly sexist, I could not stay quiet. I realized that it was probably projection because he was uncomfortable in Costco, but my god. The sheer contempt was mind-boggling. Also, ‘housewife’? In 2021 (when this conversation happened)?? He was about fifty years too late with that terminology.
In addition,roughly 80% of the people we saw in the Costco were female-presenting. They didn’t look like they were having any trouble finding what they were looking for. I tried to explain to my father that it was just like shopping at Cubs–only bigger. It wasn’t as if they changed their layout every week or anything like that. Yes, they rotated their stock, but the aisles were the same every time. So if you wanted bananas and tehy didn’t have them, you might be unhappy about it, but you didn’t have to wonder if they’d be in a different aisle.
I know it was all about him and his insecurities, but it appalled me. Also, figuring out how to navigate any shopping center/grocery store doesn’t require smarts. Also also, it’s something all sorts of people do all the time. It was just such a shockinngly awful thing for him to say. I mean, I should not be shocked by it because my father is a flagrant misogynist, but I keep thikning there’s a level to which he won’t stoop.
Both my parents are raging sexists, but in their own ways. I can’t tell you how much it fucked me up as a kid to hear this constant drumbeat of ‘you ain’t worth shit because you’re a girl’. It started me on my body dysphoria issues and it’s in part a big reason why I question my gender. “I don’t act like a woman? Fine. Then I’m not one.”
Here’s the thing. I have felt more compassion for my mother in the past few months than I have in my whole life. And the key is that I have to not think of her as my mother in order to reach down for that compassion. If I think of her as my mother, then I just get mad. She has not given me the emotional support that she should have as my mother, but that’s because she couldn’t. I’m giving her the emotional support she should have given to me because I’m able to do it.
I will admit that it’s begrudging. I don’t want to do it. I feel obligated, though, because she’s my mother. But alse because she’s an old womna who should not be living like this in her last years. She should be sipping fruit juice in the sun, her toes dangling in the water. She’s worked hard all her life, and now, she should be able to relax.
But, no. She’s taking care of a selfish, angry man with dementia who is wringing every ounce of life out of her. She’s on anti-anxiety meds to deal with it. She’s having to decide which of his medications to give him and which to withhold. If she gives them to him, then he’ll be less confused, but more agitated. If she doesn’t, then he’ll be less agitated, but more confused. I said I would rather be more agitated and less confused, but I think for him, the opposite is true.
In addition, the doctor and my mother are keeping the information from my father. He doesn’t know what the meds are for–this is common in Taiwan. When his sister had cancer, her family didn’t tell her–but he’s still refusing to take them because he’s vomiting and getting dizzy. When he was here, I had to cajole him into taknig his meds and sitting with him for up to half an hour before he would.
I wish my mother would put my father in a home and be done with him. I know she won’t do it, though, because being a martyr is key to her identity. I used to think if my father died before she did, she could have a few years of peace, but I no longer think it’s true. If my father dies before she does, she’ll just find another lost cause to devote herself to. It is who she is. It’s what she does. I have accepted that about her, even if i don’t like it.