Dad with Dementia

Louis126

Hi All,
I'm new here.
I don't know where to begin.
I'm honestly not really that close to my dad (my parents have been divorced since the early 1980's).
My younger sister lives in another state, and is not very close either. Neither of us are now (we both tried to be during our teens, but it was challenging).

Both of our parents are re-married.
My dad's wife has been in physical rehab since around November of last year. She most likely has memory issues also. My dad has dementia (has had it for about a year and a half now I believe ----- getting progressively worse).

His wife is in a rehab facility.
Because I felt helpless, I decided to have his Case Worker (yes, he has a Case Worker, who was doing weekly checks on him. I do NOT live with my dad (unfortunately I am staying with my mom and her husband at the moment instead, but that's a different story for another time).

His Case Worker made the obvious discovery that he was showing worsening sings of dementia (and confusion) on a wellness check back in January I believe).

Long story short, my dad is now in the same facility with his wife. They were sharing the same room together. Then, last week they got into an argument, and my dad found a way to leave the facility, and took a taxi back to his house (which he had not been to since January).

I have become very good friends with their next door neighbor. She and her live in BF have been taking care of his house (he gave them a key some time ago, so the Case Worker told me that they are NOT breaking any laws going in and out of his house.

They go in, turn on and off lights, park a car in the driveway at night. And she recently threw out all of the rotting food from the kitchen. She also keeps in regular communication with him by way of phone, and does periodic visits and takes things to them from their house.

His neighbor(s) is/are a God-Send to me and my sister obviously. I just sent her a thank you gift in the mail (a gift card from Total Wine). She also took me to go see dad and his wife on Memorial Day of this year.

On the day he left the facility I got in touch with his CW, and two ladies from the facility went to his house. He was resistant at first, but eventually, grudgingly went back to the facility.

He and his wife are now in different rooms at the facility. And for how long, I do not know.

My sister and I are currently in the process of attempting to get a Guardianship/Conservator-ship for our dad. This will allow him to be able to go live someplace a lot nicer than the place he's in now. The place he's in now is absolutely terrible. But, anyway ....... At least he's safe (NOW) and being taken care of (supposedly).

But since he is no longer in the room with his wife (and doesn't even know where she is), he has taken to becoming a bit of a nuisance and being belligerent with me via texts and phone calls.

I don't think he realizes that he has dementia. He is in denial, and has been this whole entire time.

Last night I became really flustered with him. He was still trying to text/call (and who really knows why). I ended up telling him I'd call him back in 30 minutes. He texted back and said, "No, don't worry about it, this can wait until Monday or Tuesday (these are my days off from work). I told him "OK".

Then about an hour later, I get another text from him saying "30 minutes ....... HA HA HA"

I reminded him of our text conversation which happened an hour earlier, and he apologized. Later that evening, out of an overwhelming sense of stress, I decided to block his number. So I did.

Early this morning I felt the guilt hit me like a ton of bricks, so (at least I THOUGHT) I unblocked his number.

I found out later while at work that his number was still blocked, which explained why I hadn't heard from him all day long.

And, it is still blocked right now.

I spoke to his next door neighbor earlier today. She called after going and doing a visit at the facility. She is a really wonderful person who I can confide in and talk to about this type of stuff, because this is all uncharted territory for me. But she has been down this road before with her own family members. AND ----- she has no past baggage with my dad ------ unlike me and my sister.

Long story short again. I got to the point before my dad was taken to this facility he is in right now, that I would literally have a panic attack every time his name would pop up on my iPhone screen (via an incoming call). And, unfortunately I am still in that boat. I still have the same reaction. I am going to look into Counseling for myself.

In the meantime, I just want to tell you all: I do NOT know how to deal with my dad at this point. I don't know what to say to him. He is a completely different person from that man I used to know. And he doesn't think anything is wrong with him.

His next door neighbor and I spoke on the phone after I got off work today. I asked her if she thought I am a bad person for avoiding my dad's phone calls. She was able to convince me that I am not a bad person, and that, among other things he is the one who brought all of this on himself. She assured me that its OK for me to have boundaries of my own. And its OK for me to only answer my phone when I feel its OK for me to do so. I am a human being. My dad is a narcissist. Much more so NOW than every before. He thinks the universe revolves around him. I am unable to have an intelligent conversation with him.

And so his number is still blocked right now. I was wanting to get a hold of him tomorrow and either call and/or visit him in person. But if and when I do, I don't know what I'm going to say if and when he asks me why I didn't answer his phone calls or respond to his text messages (yesterday, which right now is still today).

Please forgive me for my novel. I guess I just needed to vent. I am going to try to be open to any advice here. But I am not planning on contacting him this evening. This is MY time right now. He is going to have to accept that I have boundaries, and I only deal with people who respect them. If he hates me for it, oh well. He and I never really had a very close relationship anyway.

Thanks again for listening or reading.
Have a good day/evening.

M1

Welcome to the forum Louis, you have come to a good place for advice and support. Your dad is not in denial: he has anosognosia, which is part of the dementia and prevents him from being able to perceive his deficits. You should read about it. If you look to the right under Quick Links and Groups, there is one for new members that contains a lot of great information. read "understanding the dementia experience" and look on YouTube for Dr Natalie/dementia careblazers, Tam Cummings, and Natalie Feil. These will help.

Louis126

That’s interesting, thank you.

towhee

You absolutely have a right to some peace and quiet. Excessive phone calls are unfortunately a fairly common problem, if you browse the forum you will see other posts mentioning this. Usual advice is to block the calls until such time, as the dementia progresses, that you can disappear the phone completely. Along with confusion and short term memory loss, persons with dementia lose empathy and judgement. So getting them to understand your point of view is hard, and even if they can, they will forget the conversation you had and whatever they agreed to, leading to frustration for you. So for your own mental well being, block the phone, but forget about his accepting boundaries. As to what you say if he brings it up, that depends on what memory and technical ability he retains. Your dad can no longer really learn from his mistakes, so it is not about teaching him, it is about keeping him calm and you out of an argument, so welcome to the art of the fiblet. He- "Why didn't you answer my phone calls" You- I dropped my phone and did not realize it was damaged, or My boss told me to turn off the phone and I forgot to turn it back on, or cell phone service was out, or etc. And if necessary say you are sorry. It is absolutely not your fault and in a non dementia situation there would be no reason to say you were sorry, but you can not win an argument with dementia and one will just leave you feeling like you walked thru a buzzsaw.

Louis126

Great words of wisdom to ponder. Thank you so much. It’s really great to have found a community of people who can really relate with what I’m going through based on their own experiences.