Dementia Diary - Stuck in a Moment

In amidst the bubbling and boiling emotional sea that can beset the voyage of any dementia carer, there can be intuitive and insightful moments. Needless to say, the depth to which we are almost submerged in that sea can mask any level of learning and discovery we may get from the insights. It is in the very nature of those things that we are coming to terms with all the time.

The Long Day

Yesterday my Dad was awake and came downstairs early and, as happens sometimes, he ‘dressed’ by putting another pair of pyjamas over the top of the ones he was wearing when he woke up! Life is easier for us both when I choose to not take an interventionist line, so I paid no attention to this double layer of nightwear. However, I did fetch his dressing gown and helped him on with that, as I knew it would afford him an extra layer of warm and protective raiment – however long he would be choosing to stay up.

As it turned out, he stayed down for probably the Longest Day Up he’d spent for months. Pottering around, reading, eating, drinking and playing a considerable amount of music on the pedal harmonium in his ‘lounge’. I’d written him out a list of Christmas songs and carols and he worked his way through it several times, and at some point he found me and proceeded to tell me all about them – and “what a good list this was that someone had done” for him! And this was another thing there was little point in labouring, i.e that the someone was me!

Loops and Exits

We are all conditioned to certain habits and behavioural loops. It is part of how we pattern up our world, make sense of it and make it work for us. Routines are just that – strategies to help things function at both a macro and a micro level. From how we brush our teeth and get dressed, to the route we take to work, to how we deal with our social interactions, eat our food etc. Patterns and routines; how B follows A and how we make our way to X, Y and bed.

Prisoner

My Dad was a POW for most of World War 2, and through the winter of 1944-45 he was part of many camps in Poland and the east of Germany where the inmates were moved westwards ahead of the Russian advance. This movement was not by transport, but on foot – day after day, week after week. It was known as the Long March to Freedom.

My aunt told me what happened to him one day after he’d arrived back home in England. He’d gone out one morning for a walk up into town, yet well into the afternoon time was moving on and he still hadn’t returned home. Eventually he arrived back after dark, worn out and hungry and when asked where he’d been and what he’d been doing he just said, “Walking and finding my way home.” However, after some further enquiries and discoveries it transpired that, when left to his own devices, he’d always walk on the right hand roadside pavement, and he’d always turn right at road junctions. Needless to say this accounted for his somewhat convoluted route along the suburban streets, back from his visit to the town.
He’d got into marching rhythm as he was coming home from the centre of town – and got into a loop that had been imprinted on him during the trauma of the Long March.

A Matter of Life and Death

They’d been told by the accompanying guards on the march that when they were ordered to get off the roads – because of swoops by Allied aircraft – they were to ALWAYS get off to the right. If they stayed where they were they would probably be shot by the strafing cannon fire from the aircraft, and if they went off to the LEFT they would be shot as escapees by the German guards. Apparently, some prisoners failed to obey orders and ended up being shot dead. So the imprint – and the habitual loop – went as deep as it gets. It was, quite simply, go right to stay alive.

Bedtime

So the time came round and he eventually made his way back upstairs to bed. But it was taking him ages to get into bed, and every time I looked in to see, or take him the promised cup of tea, he was still walking around the bedroom clearly looking for something.

He’ll often be hunting for stuff and will tell me when I ask him, but last night I got no meaningful answer to my questions. He kept looking in the bed, feeling how warm the electric blanket was and so on, and then he’d carry on the search elsewhere. Even when I invited him to take off his dressing gown and I’d hang it up, so then he could get into bed, he was still just Stuck In The Moment – as the U2 song goes!
He couldn’t get himself together as he was stuck in the moment and he couldn’t get out of it!

And then I realised he was looking for his pyjamas. He was looking for what he was wearing, but he couldn’t see the pyjamas on himself because he was wearing the dressing gown and they were hidden from view.

Thankfully, once the dressing gown was hung up, he stepped out of the loop and got into bed!

Later Was better;
His way had faltered along his stony path;
But it was just a moment and the time had passed.