Dealing with emotional reactions based on incorrect facts

You’ll never convince her or cause her to see her illogical thinking. Management involves mostly redirection. Validation of feelings, then changing of subject and focus. I would suggest you have a meeting with your daughters and discuss these issues. Just as you have given them to us. You are a team, so to speak. And they need to be completely aware of what is happening. You can all support each other, remind each other, and brainstorm together.

I'm reaching out to get some help dealing with what's becoming a more frequent occurrence with my LO. She has not been formally diagnosed with dementia but has been showing signs of short term memory loss for a few years now. Her doctor has been helping her by modifying medications, etc but it feels like we are getting close to a point of needing more testing and evaluation.

Hi and welcome. I am sorry for your reason to be here but pleased you found this place.

I would prioritize a comprehensive evaluation at this point. A PCP prescribing psychoactive meds without a diagnosis is kind of like playing wack-a-mole. If this doc hasn't ordered bloodwork and imagining to rule our treatable conditions that mimic dementia, I'd start over with a new PCP.

What meds is she taking? Dad had a lot of the behavior you are describing and needed a low dose antipsychotic to tamp down his anxiety so that distraction and validation could help him be less stressed and agitated.

The dynamic that is happening now is that she gets confused about the facts from conversations that happen with me or the kids. If the "alternate fact" hits an emotional area, she will begin to ruminate on it and become upset. She often goes to a place of thinking that she's been wronged or disrespected or lied to. When one of us try to tell her that she misunderstood the conversation or that something she thinks she heard wasn't actually said, she becomes even more distrustful and lashes out saying that we are manipulating her or taking the person's side. It's a difficult situation to manage for me because I'm trying to help her understand what's actually going on but instead I become the "bad guy" who's "always taking the side of the kids" in an argument or conflict that she's created out of thin air.

This is pretty typical. She likely has anosognosia and can't appreciate that she's suffered a loss in cognition and memory. It's never generally a good idea to "correct" a PWD. It's best to apologize and move on with a distraction or change of topic.

(Note: she is still very independent and functions very well with a moderate amount of help from me. She's not home-bound but needs help keeping track of the calendar, etc. She doesn't pay bills, cook dinner or manage the house anymore. She's still active socially but rarely does anything alone with others. She always wants me along.)

If it's dementia, these changes may still be years away.

My adult children understand that her memory is starting to falter, but these situations feel like something else because she's so in tune with her emotions and she articulates them so clearly at these time that she doesn't appear to be impaired. Making things even more complicated, she reaches out to others who weren't involved in the first place, tells the story of how she's feeling and why (with incorrect facts), and then gains support from the unknowing party that she's right to feel this way.

Emotional intelligence remains intact well into the latest stages of the disease. She won't remember what she was told but she will remember how what she was told made her feel and she no longer has the bandwidth to properly process it.

The strain on me is great when this happens because my tendancy is to call the kids behind her back and explain what's going on so they can be prepared when she calls, but that is making me crazy. It feels like I'm creating the "Truman Show" where everyone knows what's happening isn't real and we're trying to manage a different reality for her. The alternative often is for me to support her emotionally but that puts me in a situation where the kids feel that I'm not supporting them when dealing with their drama-queen mother who's making up things that didn't actually happen.

The TL;DR to this is that your children need to put on their big-boy/big-girl pants accept this as a part of this hellish disease and not about them. It's the disease talking. Unfortunately, this can be easier said than done. Was you wife always dramatic and something of a pot-stirrer by nature? If there's a male version of a drama queen, it would be dad. When I would come here to rant about his accusations seasoned members would remind me it was the disease talking. This did little for me as the verbal assaults falling on my ears were consistent with the scripts I grew up on.

It was only when I embraced this notion and realized there would be no closure that I could let go of the anger and frustration and grow into a better assistant caregiver. This also helped me avoid the temptation to be unkind now that I had the upper hand. Dad routinely accused me of costing him $360K by selling his home cheaply. Mom didn't listen to my advice to fib— she wanted to treat him as the equal partner in the marriage he no longer was. We paid dearly with month of angry outbursts as a result. I apologized once when this came up and he calmed right down and dropped it. I only did it to prove it wouldn't work on dad. It was like magic.

Any suggestions on how to stay sane through this phase?

I would do the evaluation and keep the kids looped in. Maybe even bring them to the appointment where her testing is reviewed and diagnosis is given. They may be more accepting of this coming from a doctor.

I would share these as well. Good luck-

HB

https://tala.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Tam-Cummings-LLC-Handouts.pdf

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/210580

Lil round top…..Usually diagnosis is a team effort. PCP. Neurologist, Neuropsychiatrist/Neuropsycologist. (SP) After diagnosis care is from a neurologist.