Weird (maybe?) idiosynchracy

Well if she isn't meeting guys on the internet [sorry ] , I think you're right, hopefully she's not flushing them away.

I removed all the regular pairs and left the prettiest pull ups I could find in my PWD s drawer and just said - these are the new style! And if you try that , watch she doesn't try to flush those.

Does she live alone?

Underwear does “go missing” in dementia. This is not uncommon. How hard have you looked for said missing panties? A number of PWD I know had a variation of this issue.

My one friend’s mom didn’t actual disappear her underwear, she hid and hoarded them. She’s been a child in Europe during the deprivations of WWII and went through her youth and adulthood making do and sometimes doing without. Before dementia set in, she talked of not having panties at times and sharing them with her sisters “who needed then more as young working women”. She bought fresh undies” every time she traveled (2-3 x yearly) for years, but with dementia she was constantly angling to buy more. My friend found unopened packages hidden in her home when she moved mom.

Another friend’s mom developed urinary incontinence fairly early on and maybe not related to dementia. Rather than use a product to address this, she went through multiple pairs daily using washcloths or dish towels as “pads”. If her mom was out, she tossed the wet pair rather than bring them home with her so she went through a lot of panties.

My aunt wasn’t incontinent, but had stopped doing laundry. They’d had a balky septic system and she liked to save up to make full loads but I think this transitioned into either not remember how to do laundry or conflating the cautions around the water use to a broken machine. In cleaning out her house, we found baskets of dirty laundry neatly sorted by type. In her closet I found separate baskets of dirty socks and panties. The sock basket has $1000 in Benjamins hidden in it.

Dad had a scenario I’ve heard more often here. That is when a PWD developed bowel incontinence and either leaves the underwear in the trash (dad) or in the sink, or worse, hides it somewhere. At my local support group meeting, one member reported that her mom felt shame around this and used to hide soiled panties making for the worst Easter egg hunt ever.

HB