Neighbor issues

Kevcoy

A little over a week ago my DH came in from being outside and told me the woman who lives across the street from us aproached him and was pointing her finger at him saying, "You work for me."  He assumed she was refering to the time when he was president of our neighborhood association and he would do things for the neighborhood.  He couldn't drop it and for days kept saying things like, "Oh I have to work for her."

So the other night when he was inside watching TV I went outside to do some yard work.  I saw our neighbor and thought I would ask her what had happened.  When I asked her she literally screamed at me that she knows she has a bad dog and is tired of hearing about it.  So of course this made no sence to me at all because DH never mentioned anything to me about a dog.

I tried to explain about the dementia and he isn't the same person he once was.  She then, still in a loud voice, gave the the old excuses are like a___h__s line everyone has one and stormed off back into her house.

I'm stunned.  We have been neighbors for nearly 13 years and have had a friendly relationship with her family.  It's not like they are uneducated, her husband is an orthopedic surgen and she is a pediatrician.  I don't know if I should talk to her husband or just let it go and let this be another story in this life saga I'm livinng in

caberr

About 15 years ago the same thing happened to me.  My neighbor started yelling at me for no reason.  He husband was in a nursing home and I was dealing with my daughter whose husband had just passed away.  She complained that I did nothing for her.  We had been neighbors for almost 30 years at that point and our families were friendly. She would bake us cheese cakes at holidays.  I would give her a bread or flowers. 

I talked to her daughter when this happened and she told me she was bringing up alot of things from the past, which had nothing to do with me. 

Over the last 15 years she would ignore me when I came outside.  About 10 years ago her husband passed.  I went to see her and she told me sometimes she is crazy.  We did talk every so often after that but never had the same relationship.  Bottom line....the past year I found out she has ALZ.  As you know it can take years.  It finally made sense but I feel bad I didn't try harder.  

DrinaJGB

Sounds like dementia on her part.

Cynbar

I would try talking to her husband if you run into him, I wouldn't go out of my way. Explain that your DH has dementia, and try to get a feel on whether there have been any negative interactions between him and the wife. It's possible she is crazy, but it's also possible your DH hasn't told you about all the discussions that have gone on. She may not understand he has dementia and is mad about what he has said. If that's the case, they should be more understanding (and calmer) going forward. It's worth a try.

Ed1937

I agree that talking to the husband might be a good idea. It's possible that she might be carrying a very heavy cross that you don't know about. Or like Cynbar said, she might be a little more understanding if she knew about the dementia. Or like Drina said, she might be fighting dementia herself. I think it's worth talking to him.

Stuck in the middle

Sounds to me like a person who is under a lot of stress.  Her work has to be very stressful in a pandemic year, and who knows what else is going on in her life.  

I am sorry you have to live near her.  Just be glad you're not her husband.

harshedbuzz

Kevcoy-

A couple of thoughts-

1. Most PWD are really lousy reporters of what transpired in any exchange. They lack the ability to take the point of view of others and their short term memory is shot. It's possible the memory is a conflated one where DH recalls the emotional content (anger) but has backfilled the details to excuse his role in it.

2. Pediatricians are probably the single medical specialists who have an excuse to not be intimately familiar with dementia, but as SitM suggested, she is probably just about at the breaking point emotionally.

3. It is quite common for PWD to become fixated with neighbors for real and imaginary offenses. There have been LOs here who have accused them of sleeping with their spouses, stealing from them, and spying on them. Years ago one man here got so stuck on a couple of weeds growing in cracks in a neighbor's driveway, he snuck over there with a blow torch to remedy the situation.

4. It could be he has had some sort of hallucination or a delusion about this woman and her dog and said something inappropriate to her. My dad offended people in 3 states in the early and middle stages of dementia- they became very isolated as a result. 

5. There came a time, fairly early on, where we did not let dad out among others alone because he tended to either creep people out or get into arguments with them. A few times when conversation got away from us, we apologized profusely. You may be at that point soon.

6. I suppose you could reach out to the husband, but he's probably team wife. 

HB