Dementia and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad words.
A report from trenches.
In so many ways, dementia is a regression.
My parents-in-law are very much like having a couple of Benjamin Buttons who have been married to each other for 54-years, aging in reverse on my basement apartment.
They’re losing their filters, their language skills, and their ability to manage social situations.
They are losing their higher-level cognitive abilities.
So sometimes something happens like Carole asking George in the backseat of my car on our way to a Father’s Day dinner what he’s looking at, and him responding: Those fags walking down the street.
The thing is, I’ve been married to their son for a long time. I know they have always been those people. They think the word ‘fag’ when they see a gay person. And just as bad about just about everyone who isn’t just like them.
They think that, because it’s how they were raised. It’s when they were raised and where and by whom. They grew up and they learned tolerance, so while the words might still be there in their thoughts, they didn’t come out of their mouths— but their minds are reverting to the pre-MLK years and it shows.
Left over terrible, horrible, no good, very bad words for terrible, horrible, no good, very bad thoughts that were overcome by tolerance in their middle years, but are slipping back in with dementia.
“Oh,” she says. “That’s just George. It’s just an expression.”
“It’s not okay,” I say. “It’s not okay to speak that way.”
And then it becomes her next mind loop. Shaunta scolded George. I don’t like that. He’s 76-years-old. He didn’t mean anything by it. Over and over. A dozen times a day. Two dozen. A hundred times in a week.
Added to the mix, right along with talking about my teenage daughter’s beautiful figure to every stranger she meets and constantly interrupting my work to remind me of how much she’ll miss my dog when she dies.
Oh, this is fun.
Like a couple of toddlers who had an iffy upbringing, only they’re in their 70s and there isn’t really any way to stop it.
Their filters will only thin even more. They will regress further into the past that they remember more strongly than the present. Things will happen more often. Things like the ’N’ word filtering up through my floor vents from the basement apartment or my daughter upset because they called her autistic brother dumb-dumb or . . . yeah, randomly pontificating out loud and in public about how the world has a lot of gay people these days.
Dementia means no filters. No filters means that ugly ideas that were once at least mostly overcome with tolerance, are closer to the surface.
The thing is that expecting them to behave like they do not have dementia is a waste of time. I’ve been here before — I’ve said the same thing to countless teachers and school administrators about expecting my son to behave like he doesn’t have autism.
They managed to raise the sweetest, gentlest man I know. I try to remind myself of that, when it gets rough and I need helping finding grace and patience.
Here’s my secret weapon for sticking with whatever your thing is.
Shaunta Grimes is a writer and teacher. She lives in Reno with her husband, three superstar kids, and a yellow rescue dog named Maybelline Scout. She’s on Twitter @shauntagrimes and is the author of Viral Nation and Rebel Nation and the upcoming novel The Astonishing Maybe. She is the original Ninja Writer.
