When disagreement is unavoidable

dancsfo · February 24

I understand these rules.

1) Don't Tell Them They're Wrong About Something: To let the person save face, it's best not to contradict or correct them if they say something wrong. There's no good reason to do that. If they're alert enough, they'll realize they made a mistake and feel bad about it. Even if they don't understand their error, correcting them may embarrass or be otherwise unpleasant for them.

2) Don't Argue With the Person: It's never a good idea to argue with a person who has dementia. First of all, you can't win. And second, it will probably upset them or even make them angry. (...) The best thing to do is simply change the subject -- preferably to something pleasant that will immediately catch their attention. That way, they'll likely forget all about the disagreement.

I try to agree or use a fiblet. E.g. how's "So-and-so" doing? (let's say it was a relative who has actually passed away), I can say "She's fine".

But what do you do when it is somewhat unavoidable?

For example, here's a minor example: You see an attempt to put more sugar in coffee, even though a moment ago, a few teaspoons were stirred in.

a) If I agree and allow more to be put in, it can be a "yuck. It's too sweet", and one has to make the coffee all over again.

b) I can say "I just put some sugar in", but that can lead to a retort "I don't think so". Do you just change the subject to something like the weather, and hope need for stirring in sugar goes away?

Emily 123 · February 24

Switch to packets? You might have to cue them to use the packet, but you could point to the empty packet in front of them if they want more.

Sometimes avoidance and removing the source is easier than having to repeat a task.

dancsfo · February 24

https://alzconnected.org/discussion/comment/199484#Comment_199484

Thanks. I see, I can just try to avoid these issues in the first place. While the sugar problem is one small example, it does happen often, and I can probably apply avoidance to other situations.

M1 · February 24

Dancsfo i think you're right that this is a never-ending battle. It's like dealing with little kids, you don't necessarily tell them not to jump off the roof because who in their right mind would ever do that in the first place? You can't possibly anticipate all the situations where correction is necessary. This is why we end up twisting ourselves in knots....

Quilting brings calm · February 24

Sometimes you have no choice but to have the discussion. For example, mom had a doctor appointment this week. The doctor was late ( big surprise). So mom tells me she’s done and going home. Well, no you aren’t. You can’t get your medication refills if you don’t see the doctor. Plus I drove you. Not really a way for me to avoid the conversation.

dancsfo · February 24

@M1 @Quilting brings calm Thanks for your insights. I suppose it's impossible to avoid, and we do what we can. I think the doctor example is good -- there are some cases where it is unavoidable to correct or argue.

I try to apply whatever experience to avoid these problematic situations. For example, I put things away by applying "out of sight / out of mind", and hope that one avoids doing unnecessary things if you don't see it (i.e. if you don't see the postal mail with some billing statement that came in, then you don't repeatedly ask or obsess over paying some bills that's already taken care of (since it's already on direct pay). Why does one get the paper bill? Since I got endless questions on why the bill did not come in the mail yet. Thankfully, I rarely get those questions these days.

I admit that it gets tiring when the smallest things becomes an ordeal, and perhaps I don't have as much tolerance as I should, or maybe I should just let things go and brush it off.

M1 · February 24

Don't beat yourself up....it's truly exhausting. No one thinks they're going to have to ration the sugar.

harshedbuzz · February 25

@dancsfo said:

But what do you do when it is somewhat unavoidable?

For example, here's a minor example: You see an attempt to put more sugar in coffee, even though a moment ago, a few teaspoons were stirred in.

a) If I agree and allow more to be put in, it can be a "yuck. It's too sweet", and one has to make the coffee all over again.

b) I can say "I just put some sugar in", but that can lead to a retort "I don't think so". Do you just change the subject to something like the weather, and hope need for stirring in sugar goes away?

c) Make like Dunkin' and deliver the coffee to him with the sugar already added next time. Present fixing it for him as an act of love rather than a task you have had to take over.

HB

sandwichone123 · February 25

Agree that the wait is too long and we'll leave "in just a minute--Oh look at THIS!" Hopefully there are some distractors available there ("wow, I can't believe the wind--let's wait a while before we go out there") or you brought something they find interesting.

HollyBerry · February 26

I think this is all so much harder when they're truly "not quite that bad yet." We are in car selling purgatory. Meaning = the title is in her name and she sort of, sometimes agrees we need to sell that vehicle and sometimes doesn't. I've discussed it as little as possible, quietly cleaned it out, ordered the title, etc. She can't handle talking about anything that's not certain so all the steps involved are too much. Then she gets mad and says I'm making decisions behind her back.

I need a good response - good from her point of view- when her answer to absolutely everything is along the lines of "you're not my boss," "I feel like you're taking over everything in my life," "that's mine, it's my decision," or "that's not your business." Her response is all about how awful I am and not about the actual thing we're talking about and is often irrelevant.

Back to the original question -- a while ago, she said "don't tell me what I've done wrong. Just fix it." So I do that whenever I can. And i'm not a good enough person not to call her out on things when she messes up sometimes. She dropped her phone in water last week which required two trips to UBreakIFix. I didn't drop it. The cat didn't drop it. She had no memory of dropping it and didn't think being wet was the reason it quit working. Sigh.

When disagreement is unavoidable

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