Delusions-you can't make this stuff up!

Doby

Hi Everyone.

I've been inspired by the "Found What Where?" thread and thought I'd start a list of my DH's delusions over the past few years. I don't typically post but think it might be a good time to start. My DH has a tentative diagnosis of Posterial Cortical Atrophy, but Lewy Body Dementia is also still on the table. Since 2017 he has been extremely paranoid and delusional. Here are some of the things delusions we've been dealing with over the past several years. 

Someone has hacked into his cpap machine and talks to him through it at night. The things this person says are always threatening or demeaning. He talks back to them too!

Says that I have been cheating on him for years. At first I was seeing a medical professional from one of our local hospitals, then it was a realtor, then it was a game warden, then an athletic trainer from a local high school. 

People drive by our house repeatedly at night and they must be stalking us or tapping into our wireless network. He says that he sees them from the bed (but you literally cannot see the road from where our bed is positioned). 

Sometimes the people who repeatedly drive by our house switch out their license plates and/or vehicles so we don't catch on to them. They also change their hair color and facial hair to throw us off the track.

When one of our stomachs gurgle at night it's someone hacking into our Wi-Fi.

Several men were climbing up the side of our house one night. Evidently I was helping them climb into our 2nd story bedroom window. They have also thrown rocks against our bedroom window.

Men are coming into our house at night. They come into our bedroom and move things around to mess with him. They also say sexual things about me so I must be involved. He says that I get up sometimes to help them. One time he said that there were coming in from our bedroom closet.

I have sex with the men who come into our house at night. He knows because he's seen it.

DH gets very angry with me when I don't agree with him. I usually let him go on and on and on and respond occasionally with an "mmm hmmm" or "that sounds terrible" but he is becoming increasingly frustrated that I'm not doing something to stop these people from harassing us.

Does any of this sound familiar?

DrinaJGB

The first year after my DH had acute brain injury he would not sleep but had nighttime hallucinations. He would just suddenly shout in the middle of the night things like

 "there's a man in the house with a shotgun!!"; ask me if I was his mother (wife 30 years)--- and my all time favorite: Look at all that blood coming down the railroad track"!!. That'll get your eyes open in a hurry.

David J

My Dear Wife was friends with a woman for several years, but the friendship ended when DW’s dementia started. DW and I had been extremely supportive of this woman when she lost her husband, and hell d her financially. When DW needed help and friends at the beginning of our dementia journey, the “friend” abandoned her. 

Cut to phase 3/4 and my wife was sure that this woman and her children were stalking us, breaking in to the house, screaming at us from their car in the driveway, etc. None of this was true, of course, and I tried to convince her to no avail. I promised to call and warn her off, and actually called and discussed the situation with the woman. I suggested a lunch meeting to patch things up, but the woman never followed through. After that, my wife continued to have the delusions, but now I was part of it, apparently having thrown the woman out of our house and told her never to return. But she came back in the delusions, with the twin daughters born after the passing of their father. In her delusion, the daughters were still youngsters, even though they were in college by then. Nothing made real sense, but was very real to my wife. Luckily, time and antipsychotics made me his entire issue go away, but it was a daily discussion for over a year. We’ve moved on. 

Cynbar

My DH has an older sister he is close to and he was also close to her first husband --- they were married when my DH was still a little boy, and he spent many happy times with them. They later divorced and went on to marry other people (although my SIL has been single now for many years.) In his later years, the brother-in-law had dementia and was placed in a nursing home. Eventually, he died. Well, out of nowhere, my DH got the idea that the man wasn't dead at all. The story was that the nursing home staff felt sorry for him and conspired with DH's sister to kidnap him and take him out of the nursing home to her house. They then told the second wife that he had died, and she was so uncaring that she didn't notice there was no body. DH believed that his sister kept her first husband in the (finished) basement and they lived happily ever after. No one else could know or see him because then the second wife might find out the truth. This delusion popped up regularly for a couple years ---- but it at least was a happy delusion for him. Apparently he was still disappointed about their divorce many years ago. Some of his other delusions were not as happy.

harshedbuzz

Doby-

My dad suffered with a lot of delusions even before his hallucinations began.

In the midstages he ascribed a lot of unsavory behavior to my mother and myself. Early on it felt as if he was rewriting family history in ways that credited me with awful things my sister and his had done. They both had mental health and substance use issues and were neglectful parents; he accused me to leaving my kids in a bar to go off with some man and him having to come get them for instance. He accused my mother of all manner of extra martial shenanigans when he'd been the unfaithful partner. As awful as it was to be accused of something we didn't do, it was worse to see him suffer the delusions as his reality.

Later, as he entered the later stages, he would subsume all manner of things that happened to others either in real life or on TV. For instance, he claimed he'd had his knee replaced and showed me a spot on his elbow claiming it was his scar. FTR, mom had TKR. He also used to glom onto the plots of my mom's crime dramas and tell me the next day how he's been kidnapped and murdered by bands of thugs. It was odd- he couldn't remember what he'd had for lunch but CSI and Law & Order made an impact even the next day. He also was upset by TWC and segments of historically dangerous storms or weather in other places; he might try to stop me driving home because of the blizzard even when it was clearly sunny outside the window next to his chair. We eventually blocked certain channels that were a problem for him and did not put a TV in his room when he went into MC.

When dad was first diagnosed, he was hospitalized with psychosis and the things he believed were just amazing. For instance, he told me that his attending neurologist was the secret leader of the free world and that the medical students and residents who trailed him were enthusiastic followers who held rallies and sang in the halls of the neurology unit at night when I went home.

HB

Iris L.

Many PWDs' delusions are triggered by television images.  Be wary of the internet and social media too.

Iris

Lcpsurry

Sounds like my husband. He “ hears “ people talking about him wherever we go. We were on a plane last April and he was sure the man in front of us was suspicious and was going to cause trouble. My DH was agitated and wanted to warn  the crew. Took me a few minutes to convince him to wait til we landed. I told him just to be quiet and pretend he hadn’t noticed because if the man knew he was on to him the man might pull out his gun and shoot us. 

Earlier today he was looking at my rocking chair and talking to me. I was in another room but he “ saw “ me in the chair.

He thinks there are children in our living room during the night. I told him just leave them alone, they probably feel safe here.

He sees people in the trees outside watching us. 

So many delusions and hallucinations!

The progression is so gradual that I forget what he used to be like. I see videos of him 10 yrs ago and realize how much different he is now. So sad.

Stuck in the middle

Iris L. wrote:

Many PWDs' delusions are triggered by television images.  Be wary of the internet and social media too.

Iris

Roger that.  TV shows like Criminal Minds give me nightmares.  DW loves cop shows but I limit it to silly ones like NCIS.  Nothing remotely believable.  

June45

Stuck in the middle wrote:

Iris L. wrote:

Many PWDs' delusions are triggered by television images.  Be wary of the internet and social media too.

Iris

Roger that.  TV shows like Criminal Minds give me nightmares.  DW loves cop shows but I limit it to silly ones like NCIS.  Nothing remotely believable.  

Hey, I love NCIS! My husband is enjoying Monk...the OCD former detective.  If needed, you can speed through the "unfortunate demise" and the rest is funny and sometimes touching when Monk talks about his wife Trudy. I record the 3 episodes that come on Hallmark channel, Mon-Fri.

1962ART

DH does not have delusions, but he has to repeat the plots of all shows to my daughter at breakfast.  The entire plot.  Every detail.  I stay in bed and sleep in.

Sometimes he will tell a story with him as the main character, but it was really something that happened to me that I told him about.

I ask my daughter what is with his obsession with watching all three hours of his favorite morning television talk show?  She says they are his new friends.  I stay in bed with the covers over my head.

harshedbuzz

1962ART wrote:

I ask my daughter what is with his obsession with watching all three hours of his favorite morning television talk show?  She says they are his new friends.  I stay in bed with the covers over my head.

My dad did something like this earlier in the disease. He kind of adopted the fictional family on Blue Bloods and became very ingrained in their comings and goings. More so than those of his real family. If he really thinks he's buddies with Hoda and Gayle, that may rise to the level of delusion. 

Doby

Hi friends. I hope you all had a good holiday weekend. Same old same old here....young boys in our house at night, big men in our house at night. On Friday night DH woke me up ranting about the men and I heard him say something like "he would rather shoot them with a gun than use his baseball bat." I locked up all of his guns over a year ago for fear of what might happen, so now he keeps a baseball bat at the side of his bed!

DH got really mad at me on Sunday when we were working in the yard. I wanted to move our trash and recycle bins to a nice little corner inside the back yard fence, but DH insisted that people could use the cans to climb up into our 2nd story bedroom window. So I put the cans back in their original spot.

DH is currently sleeping while I post before work, but I think he's mad at me again. He was saying mean things to me in the middle of the night as usual. He uses an emergency flashlight to check things out when the strange men come into our house. Last night he used it on me instead. My favorite is the red flashing emergency light. I put the covers over my head and he kept saying "Is this bothering you?" He was being definitely being a jerk last night!

I purchased some wireless earbuds to help me talk with my 90 year old mother who has hearing loss and was just diagnosed with cancer. Having the earbuds will hopefully allow her to hear me so I can multitask around the house while talking with her. Of course, DH is angry about the earbuds because people can hack into the Bluetooth and I might use them to do things he doesn't like. He has something against pod casts. He thought I was wearing them in bed last night and my reassurances that I was only wearing earplugs didn't help.

Sorry for the long post. It's my early morning vent!

Lcpsurry

My husband does the same thing with the flashlights! Walks around the house shining it toward the ceiling to find the “ hidden speakers” and cameras. He sees people looking into our windows, on the second floor and shines the light at them. I had to hide a battery lantern because he was signaling people for help. He couldn’t find his way out and thought he had been imprisoned.

Iris L.

Doby wrote:

DH is currently sleeping while I post before work, but I think he's mad at me again. He was saying mean things to me in the middle of the night as usual. He uses an emergency flashlight to check things out when the strange men come into our house. Last night he used it on me instead. My favorite is the red flashing emergency light. I put the covers over my head and he kept saying "Is this bothering you?" He was being definitely being a jerk last night!

Your husband is very ill with dementia and has delusions.  He needs help.

Iris L.

Doby

Iris, yes, I agree and I am trying to get my DH on a medicine to help with the delusions. The problem is that his current primary care provider is a nurse practitioner who won't prescribe those types of meds. His neurologist won't prescribe them either. I found a local gerontology practice that offers the whole range of support services including primary care, psychiatry, social workers, etc. Problem is that my DH is only 54 years old and the practice is only for 65 and older. I have a special request in to them to see if they'll make an exception.

I just ordered some magnolia bark supplements to see if they'll help DH sleep through the night. We started with Trazadone about 2 weeks ago but it seems to make things worse. However, my DH swears that it's helping him and so far has insisted that he keep taking it. I'm hoping to replace the Trazadone with the Magnolia Bark. DH will probably resist but I'm going to try to get him to agree to the change.

Lcpscurry, it sounds like our situations are very similar! my DH told me the other night that there was a drone hovering outside our bedroom window!

Pam BH

So many delusions! Sees animals and people outside. Bears in trees. Mice, groundhogs, birds inside. Men in camoflauge outside. "Hears" snakes under bed and in garage. Thinks neighbors are trying to kill our dog.

Sees people going in crawlspace at night, go up through a "hole" to the attic, and leave in the morning. Has explanations for why he doesn't confront them. Hears other people inside house at night. He constantly hides wallet - but doesn't worry about mine.

Thought air conditioner needed replacing. Third company that came out convinced him it was okay. 6 months later had same delusion and didn't remember first event.

Convinced he has radiation poisoning after heart catherization and "remembers" doctor talking to him about it.  But has anosognosia about his ALZ and VaD

He thinks I'm having an affair, have told him about it and that I'm leaving, and he has talked to my "lover". He keeps changing who it is every time. Says I bring in other women dressed like me to be in bed with him. Was cognitive enough 8 months ago to monitor all my phone calls, texts, email. Goes with me EVERYWHERE, which is no longer a problem since I now don't feel comfortable leaving him alone. Greatly agitated when I don't acknowledge the affair or my "conversations" with him about it.

Thinks a little boy knocks on our bedroom door at night who is the son of one of the women I bring in for him.

Wyoaviator

"Does any of this sound familiar?"

That could be my story.

One time she called the neighbor in the middle of the night to tell him to shut off his blasted radio. (The man was a thousand miles away at the time-she called his cellphone and got him up at 3am.)

She accused me of sex with more people than I care to describe. On a related note-if a woman with dementia calls the police at 3am, you get one guess about who has to leave the house. 

One time when she was in AL, she called me at the house and said "For god's sake go home. You are doing no good here." She thought I was arguing with the staff in the next room. In fact I was across town at home. 

The best advice I can get from this forum is to not contradict them, live in their world and gently try to turn them. Once the outside world gets involved, you lose control of the situation.

Doby

I sure do hate that so many of you are in a similar boat with the delusions and paranoia, but I'll admit it does help to know that I'm not alone in this experience. I try to distract my DH when he starts up, but he isn't easily distracted. He'll even say something like "there you go again deflecting!" I've realized that there isn't a solution to the problem. I just have to listen to his rants and try to remain patient. 

I know that this stage won't last forever and that the future stages will be horrible. I actually think we may be slowly moving into the incontinence stage now. The other night DH went into the bathroom and when I heard him going something didn't sound right. It sounded more like splattering than urine going into the toilet. Then I heard wiping sounds - he was trying to wipe up the mess with paper towels. I asked him if he was ok and he said he didn't want to talk about it. He was visibly upset. Then later, he came up with some some explanation for what had happened which I didn't completely understand, but I think the gist of it is that he started urinating before lifting the toilet lid. I told him it was ok, I don't mind cleaning up. That's why we have Lysol wipes and paper towels in the bathroom.

Thanks to all of you for letting me vent!

Iris L.

Doby wrote:

Iris, yes, I agree and I am trying to get my DH on a medicine to help with the delusions. The problem is that his current primary care provider is a nurse practitioner who won't prescribe those types of meds. His neurologist won't prescribe them either. I found a local gerontology practice that offers the whole range of support services including primary care, psychiatry, social workers, etc. Problem is that my DH is only 54 years old and the practice is only for 65 and older. I have a special request in to them to see if they'll make an exception.

This is unacceptable but unfortunately it is all too common.  Medical resources for younger PWDs is LIMITED!  This would not be accepted if the disease was cancer.  Feel free to be a squeaky wheel.  

I just ordered some magnolia bark supplements to see if they'll help DH sleep through the night. We started with Trazadone about 2 weeks ago but it seems to make things worse. However, my DH swears that it's helping him and so far has insisted that he keep taking it. I'm hoping to replace the Trazadone with the Magnolia Bark. DH will probably resist but I'm going to try to get him to agree to the change.

I never heard of magnolia bark, but I am willing to look into it for myself, since I too have trouble sleeping.  Melatonin helps a bit.  I had been on Trazodone many years ago.  It did work but I felt dizzy.  I don't think it helps with delusions.  

I suggest you provide some non-stimulating activities for him.  Keep him busy. Repetitive activities  are good such as raking leaves.  Avoid TV.  Avoid asking questions, be more matter-of-fact in your approach.  I agree, it is very hard.  But you're on the right path.  Keep going. 

Iris