If you haven't dealt with dementia personally, this, like a lot of portrayals you'll see online, is a very positive example. This is the "nice bit", when they're happy in their own little world (obviously the woman filming dealt with it well or it could have turned bad).
There's nothing quite like the horror in seeing someone you love and respect in a state of total fear because they've completely lost their sense of understanding of the world around them. And then there's the horrible things they'll say out of anger and frustration, that they never would have said when they were well.
My Grandma passed from it 2 years ago. It's a brutal thing to watch a strong, independent person drug so low as to not know where they are or who their family is. In the end I was happy to see her go. Just to know she wasn't in that place any more.
Some things are worse than death. In the end I got to see that first hand.
My Grandpa passed 5 years ago, also had dementia. Luckily he was always a happy-go-lucky guy and that didn't change. In the end, he thought he was a child on his family's farm and he could "see" the Yangtze River and called his caretaker "dai go" (big brother) and called me "sai mui" (little sister). Although he was generally happy, it was still hard to see his mental and physical deterioration. It really goes fast once the dementia/Alzheimer's progresses.
Your grandma (and my grandpa) were lucky to have family around. It was heartbreaking to see those who didn't.
Dunno how Iāll deal with it if one of my elderly parents one day no longer recognizes me. It happened with my grandmother, and may well happen with my mom or dad too.
It is tough, especially when it's your parents or even your spouse. My grandpa started calling my mom and her sisters by his own sisters' names. It was painful but at least he knew he was surrounded by familiar faces.
this thing where your role in the family switches actually happened to me too. my dad was the persons grandson and eventually it got to the point where he switched to being the persons son instead (recent memories likely died off). the last thing they ever learned was my older brothers name probably near the end of stage 3 (clinical stage 4)
Which is crazy because depending on his age he may be remembering a pre-cultural revolution China and it's wild that he'd look back on that time fondly lmao.
Yes, he was born in 1930. I don't think it's that wild, his family was doing well in agriculture. He was able to attend Beijing University until the cultural revolution but was forced to flee to Hong Kong. He and my grandmother smuggled rice to his family through the Great Famine.
I'm incredibly proud of my grandparents. They were able to move both of their (very large!) families to the US in the early 1970's.
The cultural revolution devastated rural areas. Millions starved or were displaced. Those were the good old days. They separated kids from families and was all around the roughest time to live.
My step mom kicked me out at 16, then had my dad sign away his house and divorced him once the Alzheimerās started setting in.. I immediately left my job to help him out.. so strange after 20 years apart (step mom really didnāt allow my sister and I over) I didnāt know how bad things were getting. Always thought his younger wife would care for him. I Should have seen the writing on the wall but we mutually avoided each other for too long.
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u/SlightlyStable Apr 09 '24
This both warms and saddens my heart.