Apologizing and other things

Mama Cass

I find myself wondering if I should apologize to my husband.  Taking a minute to apologize for something that happened earlier in the day becomes reminding him of something that upset him.  What do you folks think?

Along those same lines.  This last Friday was the anniversary of the death of my husband's daughter at age 17.  I found myself wishing and hoping no one would post their usual oh we miss you Tabitha posts this year.  It has been 14 years and I get that we never want to forget her.  I miss her too, but those posts become a reminder for him a sadness that he may not fully be cognizant of now.  As he progresses I want very much for him to not relive the most devastating day of his life.  Is this too big of an ask of Family and Friends?  Especially the ex-wife?

Ed1937

If you think he forgot what happened earlier, I'd say don't apologize. If he is still fretting about it, I would apologize.

When you said that people make rememberance posts, are you talking about facebook or another site like that? If so, I'd tell them that when he sees those posts, he relives her death all over again. Then you could ask them politely not to make those type of posts. Just my opinion.

Pat6177

Mama Cass, a good friend of mine took care of her mother with dementia for many years until her mother’s death. When I told her that my DH had been diagnosed with mixed dementia, one of her pieces of advice was to apologize. And I have done this especially on the days that I lose it. I do this for me more than for DH. And for us, it is a good thing. I think that it helps me to be more patient going forward.  Pat

harshedbuzz

Mama Cass wrote:

I find myself wondering if I should apologize to my husband.  Taking a minute to apologize for something that happened earlier in the day becomes reminding him of something that upset him.  What do you folks think?

There's a lot of power in apology. It's a tool that can make a PWD feel understood and validated. If your DH is stuck on something you did or said- or even some imaginary offence you have committed- a apology can do wonders to relieve that anxiety and help him feel cared for and respected. 

In the middle stages of the disease, dad was convinced I'd sold his house in MD for $350K less than it was worth because of my ignorance and jealousy. I did not. My mother sold the house using POA, and the $350K was money he lost day-trading before he forgot how to use a computer. Several people here and in my mom's IRL support group suggested apologizing which seemed insane to me. I tried it one afternoon when dad was excoriating me and it worked. I don't know if he just didn't know what to make of an apology or if it absolved him of his poor decision making but it calmed him down and he moved on to other grievances. 

If the apology is for something that no longer registers with him- perhaps you feel you were short tempered answering a question for the third time in the space of 10 minutes- let it go. There's no point in resurrecting hurt feelings. 

Along those same lines.  This last Friday was the anniversary of the death of my husband's daughter at age 17.  I found myself wishing and hoping no one would post their usual oh we miss you Tabitha posts this year.  It has been 14 years and I get that we never want to forget her.  I miss her too, but those posts become a reminder for him a sadness that he may not fully be cognizant of now.  As he progresses I want very much for him to not relive the most devastating day of his life.  Is this too big of an ask of Family and Friends?  Especially the ex-wife?

OMG, yes. You, especially as a stepmother, do not get to dictate how her mother, family and close friends grieve their losses. I rarely disagree with Mayor Ed, but on this yeah, this is way too big an ask.

There are other ways to protect your DH from this being a trigger. As you might guess from my tale of dad pissing away money that could have been used for his eventual care on the internet, I don't think most people with dementia need unfettered access to to electronics. It's kind of like a car, it would keep them happy to still have use of it but the risks it presents are not worth keeping the person occupied for a few minutes.

In you shoes, if it isn't time to disappear the laptop or smartphone entirely- find a way to keep him off the sites that might upset him. If he's hazy on his own daughter's death, he should be fairly easy to lock out of Facebook or even email. 

If he's using a tablet or laptop and wifi, you could change the wifi password and claim there's an issue with the ISP and will make a call to get it fixed. Some people have success just slipping the device into Airplane Mode. You could change his login for Facebook or other sites or go in an unfriend people who are most likely to post content that will be upsetting. A phone could be "misplaced" for a few days so the battery dies. 

All of that said, my younger sister died in 1994. She was my dad's favorite- his mini-me. She looked like him and had many of his same mental health challenges on which he put a positive spin. Her illness and death just about destroyed him; it drove him straight into the bottle which resulted in one of his dementias. In the earlier stages of the disease he was conflating and re-writing history to not only tidy up her legacy but to tarnish mine in a kind of leveling of the playing field.

Later, his memories of her started to fade. He had begun to kind of time-travel to eras before she died and even before she was sick but even still had a sense that she was in harm's way. He routinely asked after her because he sensed he was losing the memory of something very important. He routinely asked after her often couching it "she's dead isn't she?". It was hard. But even in the instances when we were forced to concede her death, his reaction was not what I would have expected. It was much more muted. People here talk about informing a LO of the passing of long-dead relatives and seeing raw fresh pain as if it was the first they've been told. With my dad, it was nothing like that at all. 

 One thing that seemed to help, and YMMV, was to share stories about her to help him hold onto her. He really enjoyed stories about her when she was little and feisty. I think it brought him comfort that I could act as his memory in those moments.

HB