Underneath my yellow skin

How dementia ruins everything, part two

I know that I can only change myself. I mention that because I’ve been musing about family and getting frustrated with my parents. Different reasons for each one, but frustration just the same. I don’t bring any of it to my father because he can’t help how he is (dementia), and it’s just how he was before, but worse. Actually, that’s the hardest part. He’s hitting me in all my sensitive spots, but I have to just remind myself that he’s not himself. But he is. But he isn’t. Before I get to that, here’s yesterday’s post.

Here’s the problem. My father before his dementia was a selfish, or rather, self-absorbed person who never thought of anyone else. He was also deeply sexist and said sexist shit to me all the time. Here are some brief examples. He was always scolding me for not putting on a jacket when he was cold. He never asked if were cold, which I rarely was. Now, one of the things he asks about often is the weather. And he gets stuck in the loop of being concerned that I’m cold.

In general, he doesn’t think women can do anything for themselves. Or rather, that’s what he tells himself even while my mother does everything around the house. This was even before his dementia, by the way. He’s been like this all my life. I know it’s a self-protective mechanism, but it’s so ugly and distasteful.

Fortunately, the explicit sexist shit does not show up, but it does rear its ugly head in sly ways. Such as, him repeatedly asking me how I get places. He knows (or knew) that I drive, but he has somehow forgotten that. To be fair, I can’t say that’s for sure a sexist thing, but it certainly feels like it. Also, his harping on my health might be because of the medical crisis, but I have a hunch it’s more a neg than anything else.

That’s the problem with my father–past behavior has shown me not to give him the benefit of the doubt. I know who he was in the past, and it’s hard not to apply that to the present. But he’s not resonsible in the present for…how do I put this? He’s not of sound mind (dunno about body). So he’s not trying to be offensive on purpose, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have a quick flash of ‘not this shit again’.

However. The cruelty of the dementia has far outranked the impatience I feel when he hits one of my buttons. It’s really sad what’s happening to him and since I only talk to him for five minutes (at most ten) at a time, I can deal with the bullshit that comes with it.


The worst part is my mother. It has taken me thirty years (didn’t realize the problems until I was in my twenties) to truly understand the depths of her issues (and I still feel like I’m falling short here and there), and only in the last five years or so I’ve accepted she’s not going to change. I know we like to believe that everyone can change, especially in America, but there has to be a desire to change–which is often glossed over. Many people don’t want to change. They dig their heels in and resist it, kicking and screaming.

You would think my mother who is a psychologist would be all about the change. It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize that she never really wanted to be a psychologist, it was a default choice because she couldn’t be a doctor like her father (sexism, Taiwan in the fifties and sixties) and did not want to be a teacher.

I see so many ways in which she makes things harder on herself. This is with the full knowledge that being a caregiver is a hard and thankless task. Especially as she’s a tiny woman in her eighties. She should not be doing this all on her own. The thing is, though, she doesn’t have to be. I mean, she could put him in a home, but she refuses to do it. I get why it’s hard for her to do, emotionally, but I think it’ll be better for both of them.

This is the part that frustrates me the most about my mother. And it’s something that has frustrated me about her all my life. She is a martyr and she has to make things harder on herself. Even when there is a way to make things objectively easier, she won’t do it. And she has no insight into her own behavior, which is doubly frustrating. She keeps saying she can’t lie to my father, and no matter how much I try to convince her that she’s not lying because my father won’t remember what she says ten minutes later, anyway.

My father’s dementia has intensified the worst of my mother’s flaws. I don’t know if I can blame her for that, but it’s frustrating as hell. She comments about how I’m able to calm my father down with a bit of envy in her voice. I want to hasten to reiterate that I only talk to him very briefly at a time, so it’s much easier. I just tell him whatever he wants to hear, though I have argued with him before. This is one of my flaws, and one that I’m trying to curb with him. He’ll say things like, “You like the heat” and my immediate response is, “No, I don’t”, but I’m able to stifle it from spiraling out of control.

I know my mother has to deal with him 24/7. According to her, he has become incredibly clingy and makes a fuss whenver she is out of his sight. This is one reason I suggest a home, but she is convinced he will die if he’s placed in one. That is another of her issues–she’s convinced that only she can do certain things. It’s part of her martyr complex in general, and it’s never going to change.

I do my best. I try to listen with patience, but it’s hard. Not only because she dumps all her shit on me for like a continuous half hour. I am tired of being her emotional support person, but I have accepted that’s my lot in life until she passes. I don’t want to go completely no-contact because that would be more traumatic at this point in my life (or rather, theirs) than keeping it as minimal as possible.

There is a profound sadness deep in my soul each time I talk to them. I will get more into that in the next post.

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