On Monday of this week I first learned about my mom's imaginary boyfriend and by Thursday he had become central to our existence. On move-in day she had talked about her friends she left behind and how much she regretted leaving them and was angry about it. If she had advance notice and people had said their goodbyes to her, mom would have chained herself to the building, so to speak. Because of her Alzheimer's we couldn't do anything other than spring the move on her.
So she started talking about her imaginary boyfriend a lot on move-in day. "...the man that I love very much and who loves me. I met his family recently..." In constructing her boyfriend she's adopted some of the biography of a guy at her old place who liked to eat her leftovers. She added that history to the image of a handsome young gardener who is nice to her. Add water -- Boyfriend. It's a bit much. And the timing! Oy!
I managed to get her to breakfast in the cafe on her floor yesterday, and she was madder than a wet hen on a windy day. "Where are my people? The people I came in with?" "Something terrible has happened to these women." (that's the other residents, who are all less together than she is). I actually recorded the conversation with her because she was getting verbally abusive and I wanted to have some validation that it had actually happened.
I turned to one of the breakfast helpers and said out of the corner of my mouth "I hope you are all enjoying our two-person play". She laughed.
Our caregiver arrived at 9:30 and I booked it out of there and had a nap with boy kitten at home. Back at the fun factory, our caregiver had what she described as "The worst day since I work with your mom". Worst day in 7.5 years, that would be. So sad. After my nap with the cat, I spent a half hour talking to my sister who had been talking with mom on the phone while I slept. Mom hung up on her 4 times. By the time I got back to memory care a few hours later, she was ALL SMILES. Go figure.
She has decided that she is moving, and that is making her very happy. She spent hours asking me the same questions over and over about what objects in the apartment I want. I told her I only want photographs. Any time my gaze strayed from her she accused me of not being helpful, and she'd start to get teary-eyed. Even when I was sewing the tongue back into one of her shoes, which was a task I was doing with her, it was as if it was a betrayal. As mrguy says, my mom is a black hole of endless need.
Finally she let us watch tennis on tv, which had been on the whole time. She subscribes to the Tennis Channel and likes to complain about everybody's stroke, what with her being an expert and all. I dislike tennis. I never had the stamina for it and my mom made me take tennis lessons. Not only that, she found my white legs embarrassing. I was given the choice to either a) wear panty hose to my lessons or b) let her put tanning cream on me. I let her chase me around the house until she wore me out and rubbed QT on me. I squirmed a lot during tanner application and as a result went to my tennis lessons with legs that looked like they were painted by Van Gogh.
Back to present day humiliation!
Back at the ranch, we watched the end of Grand Hotel. And Flamingo Road. Thank goodness for AMC! Never has snoring been so welcome. It means my day with mom is over.
Of course there are people popping into her apartment all day and night to see how we're doing. Eventually I will stop sleeping over on the regular and leave it to these nice people. This is my goal, anyway. I've gone from dealing with my mom every day but in a more task-oriented way (like planning and executing the move) to dealing with her emotions in the most granular level in the moment and with her in my face. I'd say it's a lot, but I haven't even processed it.
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