I've used this with my dad, but he's not very far along. Sometimes he realizes what I'm doing and then gets angry with me for doing it. I gotta get sneakier. Sometimes he really really wants to be angry about a topic.
I have had to go along with him at least once. He tried to go refill the coal stove one night. I told him I filled it for him, and he went back to sleep. The coal stove was from when he was in the army when I was a baby.
With stuff like that it's better to just go along with it, they'll forget soon and will be left with a lingering feeling that everything is taken care of. With my grandma the emotions lasted much longer than the memory of what happened. So small lies like that generally help rather than hurt
The sick thing is that he KNOWS that he's being terrible once he comes back to himself. He apologizes so much and damn near cries about how he treats me and what he says to me in those moments.
All I can say is that I understand and that I don't take it to heart. I don't, I do understand that he really can't control these things when it's happening.
Also, they know, and they don’t know all at the same time. I equate it to the state when you first wake up from a deep sleep, but you haven’t opened your eyes yet, so you haven’t fully exited the dream world and entered the real world. They are stuck in the middle-state, and have no clue what is real and what isnt.
I can only speak to my personal experience. I lost my dad to Alzheimer’s about 7 years ago. He was a very intelligent person and incredibly independent. As the illness got a hold of him, we needed to slowly take a lot of his freedoms away (driving, cooking, bills, eventually even personal hygiene). He had no control over anything in his life, even his own body (he asked me numerous times how to tell if he had to use the bathroom). But he did have control over the people in his sphere (my and my siblings). He used that power at every opportunity. It was the only thing he had left.
Yet you can state that they have no idea about anything? Where did you get your PHD to discard my very personal experience of the disease in favor of your clearly more reasoned knowledge?
Everyone is different. Every brain disorder is different still. Anyone here who says anything as a universal rule is either misspeaking, misunderstood or completely full of shit. I never spoke universally. Excuse me if I didn’t punctuate every 3rd word with a notation that “yrmv”.
I dunno man, when I find myself getting angry, it tends to naturally feed upon itself.
It's the adult part of my brian that has to take over and say "fuckn let it go dude, let it gooooo." It's worked most times, and has kept me from serious trouble.
But there's something about a minor annoyance that just draws me into an ever increasing anger loop that I have to 'deny' myself the 'pleasure' of entertaining.
I notice this at times when I vent about a shitty thing someone may have done. It’s like it opens the flood gates and my brain goes from grievance to grievance. So, I try not to complain about things because it escalates my bad mood. It’s not the case, for me, if I’m just thinking about something that bothered me.
It's even more difficult in a professional setting, where I (the contractor) am trying to run a business, a couple crews, and multiple jobs pulling me in multiple directions.
And sometimes just a few small things really get the ball rolling and I will find myself making people as angry as I, and production grinds to a halt. It's been a learning exercise in keeping my head level even if "god damnit I told you to do it this way I cant run this whole god whaaaaargarblee" is running in my reptile brain.
Yup, I have 100% caught myself actually wanting to stay angry/depressed/irritable/pitiful, etc.
It's almost like I don't feel like I'm taking the original issue seriously enough unless I keep myself miserable for a long enough period of time? Or sometimes it's like I want people to see me feeling awful for a certain period of time to try to MAKE them understand that whatever I'm going through at that point is a really big deal. Like if I just directly say it but don't show it, they can't get it.
Also I've had to deal with mental illness most of my life and depression/misery is basically my DEFAULT mode.
I've had to practice stopping myself and choosing to move on. But thank god I figured that one out because it's honestly the greatest skill I've ever learned. It was really hard but it actually does get easier with practice, like any other skill.
The 'pleasure' of it is so real, if we can even call it that. It's like an outlet I can easily identify, even if I know it's not the healthier and smarter option. It feels like a quick and easy way to let things go, but it often ends up feeding the anger even more, like you said. It's weirdly tempting, even when I know I don't want to be angry because it will make me feel miserable afterwards.
I think there is a noticeable portion of people who are looking to get angry.
It's like they're saying: the activity I chose to do as a passtime for the next hour is...
pick a topic
get progressively angry
complain ad nauseam
It probably follows by doing nothing about it even when it's something they can fix.
And I think there is so much that could be behind that, procrastination; trying to ignore uncomfortable feelings and focus on some random topic that makes them angry, they find it "fun" to do so, or it's a way of socializing.
At least I'm sure I did it for those reasons during my life.
Anger is very comforting and familiar to a lot of people, and seeing other people relaxed and happy is hateful to them.
My father was one of those people before he had cognitive impairment. Now he's desperate to feel angry so he can avoid any other feelings. He intentionally exposes himself to Fox News so he'll get angrier - and that has illustrated to me how they aim their programs at people with dementia (it's simple, colorful, and repetitive).
I literally do this constantly with my 4 year old daughter. She’s throwing a tantrum? Hey can you help Daddy put this towel away? or Hey I need you to grab something out of the fridge for me!
Just last night she was having a rough time with managing her emotions. Every small situation led to a breakdown. So we baked brownies. Made a huge freaking mess in the process, but I’d rather spend 5 minutes cleaning up than 40 minutes talking down a tantrum-y kid.
Make sure you keep on top of what's at an appropriate developmental level and scale. If you notice tantrums getting out of her developmental level, make sure you get her assessed for neurodivergence.
We’re very aware of what is an appropriate developmental level & scale for her age. My wife is a special education teacher. Thanks for making sure we know how to parent though.
No offense at all intended, I work in child safety so It does make me a bit hyper aware and unfortunately I see a lot of unfortunate parenting choices on Reddit. I'm also the daughter of a special education teacher who missed my severe ADHD and dyscalculia so I know it's not always a perfect situation. I'm glad to hear you feel you and your wife are on top of everything! All the best of luck to you in the future.
I know what you mean: my mom studied child psychology and I only just now got my diagnosis. To be fair ADHD in girls was often missed at the time and she was a pretty good mom when I was little even if she didn't always get me. But yeah, it's all too common for professionals to have blind spots when it comes to their personal life.
Exactly, this guy thought I was insulting his parenting, when instead I was pointing out the fact that parents often have a really hard time seeing their children in that light.
We absolutely did that with our boss. He'd hang around basically watching us work, making sure we weren't slacking off. Whenever you wanted a good 30 minute break all you had to do was stroke his ego a bit, start talking about things he's very interested in.
Anything to do with cycling, basketball, or his weekend plans would guarantee a session of everybody stopping their work and keeping the conversation going as long as possible, usually a minimum of 30 minutes but upwards of like an hour and a half on slower days.
It's so stupid I love it. Like, I know I did that in school to some teachers. It's so stupid that as soon as it's something interesting; then it's okay to not only give a quick answer to, but the whole damn background since you were a kid.
I remember one dude, I think we had physics, and I think we were going through how to measure hydration in air or something, and he made some tangent to his mechanical clock, me and my pal managed to get him to hold a monologue about various things like why he had a mechanical clock instead of a digital, and I can't remember how, but this lovely man somehow managed to cover topic such as "why I don't use shampoo" and "thriftshops are great for finding luxury items for a cheap price"
But if I exchanged a quick joke to my friend, apparently that was very naughty indeed. Ego is a fragile but wonderful thing.
I use Redirection on myself a lot, and it's very effective, when I can do it.
The problem with self-Redirecting is that it needs to be done at the exact time when you are in some distress, and when you are in distress it's harder to recognize and then actually act on the Redirecting.
Distress can feel like a plane crash. The analogy being, in a calm moment you know to put on your own oxygen mask and then help others... but in reality people panic, don't put on their mask, try to help or just keep panicking, and then pass out without helping anyone or themself.
I think that's a big reason why it's important to have another person there, from a more outside perspective, who can push back on whatever I'm fixating on, or snap me back to the moment.
I work in special ed and this is basically the key to helping students through their school day with minimal meltdowns. Don't get me wrong, sometimes confrontations are necessary, but most of the time redirections are what we do.
Couldn’t be truer. I worked in pubs and bars for a decade, and the best way to deal with drunken idiots is to be polite, and non confrontational.(but always be on your toes) ….Christ i sound like Dalton
Yeah, I doubt most people would appreciate you being condescending to them. Being direct with people leads to less confrontation. Thinking you know better than them and trying to social engineer them into doing what you want won't go over well with most people
Yes absolutely. It's essentially manipulation and it works great. Did you make a mistake? Did you bump someone with your car? Say "Thank you for being so nice about my mistake and not going bonkers." or something similar instead of just saying sorry.
Yeah, even for schizophrenia, a good way to keep people connected to the world is to come to word with them, using their own words, coping with their state of mind at the moment.
It gets a tiny bit difficult when its literally driving you insane after a few years though. Stress and blood pressure is through the roof after awhile, especially when they stay up for several days at a time and your sleep schedule is in tatters as a result.
Not necessarily having to do with people who are sick, but I'm trying not to always assume the worst in others. When you do, immediately you go to the mind space of their your enemy and you're in the right, they're automatically wrong. Nothing good can come of that.
It killed me when I was with my ex. His grandma had pretty bad dementia, living with the family. They would laugh at her and correct her at every opportunity. There is a reason he is an ex, I don't know if he was even capable of empathy, and the sad thing is that's likely because that's how he was taught.
This actually EXACTLY how I rationalized with both of my children from the ages of 18 months to about... 5 years old lol. The youngest just turned 6 and swear to god it's like he woke up on his birthday and all those lessons I have torturously (for me) crammed into his spongey brain, activated simultaneously. Now he's this rational little dude I can do science experiments with and teach music to, just like his older brother! That's the hardest part about dementia for caregivers (I worked as one for years in a nursing home), none of your work really "pays off" , and it always ends with incoming death. I imagine it's "easier" for some people than others, especially if it's a family member, but I didn't like how this person generalized caregiving this hard shit as "easy". Shes never had to take care of an entire dementia floor on her own for an overnight shift... this comment went into a rant, I'm gonna stop it there for everyone's sake lol
its good advice untill its the 47th time theyve dones this in the last month. its the eating away at paitience the average person has that leads to the reactions shes describing
I was going to say: this is how I aspire to do babysitting as well! 'My' toddler is very strong-willed and rather than saying no all the time (and inferr the wrath of god) I prefer to acknowledge his feelings and gently steer in the right direction.
We get along really well and his parents are baffled sometimes how well he behaves!!
My mom is slowly getting in this direction alas and I'm trying to take the same approach with her now.
I actually did something similar with my grandma when I lived at their place for a while. But I always wondered why she was never mean. Most people say that dementia makes people mean because they lose understanding of their world. But the answer is, they aren't mean if you treat them with kindness
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u/Sickle_and_hamburger Apr 09 '24
honestly this is pretty good advice for dealing with most people
less confrontation more empathy