Therapeutic anger

My mother had a hard recovery from her first knee surgery. It was a really bad knee, so the surgery took a long time, leaving her under the anesthesia for a long time. She didn't just bounce back from that. Then it was winter, and she was always cold, and the second knee hadn't been done yet, so there was still a lot of pain there.

All of that was harder on her. The primary impact on me, besides general worry, was that she was not motivated to do her exercises. They were important for her recovery, but she did not sufficiently care.

I knew this was bad for her, and I tried lots of positive reinforcement, but eventually what worked was belittling and shaming her.

I let myself lose my temper at her and tell her that she was being - I don't remember my exact words, but stubborn and stupid probably came up. I didn't go so far as yelling, but I raised my voice at her and stormed off, and she immediately started doing her exercises. She was going to show me.

I felt like that would happen, which is why I let myself lose my temper with her. It was genuinely strategic, but the frustration was genuine too. I was glad it worked, but I wasn't exactly proud of myself either. I was mean to my mother. It accomplished the intended goal, but that the feelings were real was not something I could like.

I am entering that territory again.

This is not turning into a dementia blog, but it is coming up a lot lately, because I am feeling the impact more lately. That's probably not going away. I am currently the primary caregiver, so I deal with everything, and honestly, Mom is worse with me. I suspect this is because regardless of what she remembers or doesn't remember, she still has a greater trust for me, making it safer to act out. That has been hard, and last night I yelled at her.

It was like the other time in that it felt necessary, and because the feelings were real. It was different in that I wasn't sure what I was trying to achieve. When I wanted her to do her exercises, success was pretty obvious. For this, I didn't know.

I mean, I know that the problem was that she was mad that we weren't letting her go home, and we were killing her and driving her crazy and being dishonest with her, and I didn't want that. After yelling, what I got was hedging at first, then she went for a ride with one of my sisters for a while, and then she got really confused and devastated and cried and apologized to me.

I know at one point there was a moment of clarity where she saw that she had been wrong: this was home and we were not lying to her and her mind was confusing her. I also know that these moments of clarity devastate her, and they don't last. Maybe it's good that they don't last because they are so devastating, but if the clarity would last, it wouldn't have to be.

The harsh words last night don't seem to have harmed her, maybe they even helped in the moment. I still don't feel good about it. I guess I was pretty devastated too; I cried a lot while she was out for the ride. Also, I know that the rest of the family is going to take cues from me, and I don't trust some of them to use getting mad as a strategy.

I don't really have a strategy. I have thoughts sometimes about things to try and do, but the ground keeps shifting beneath us. A lot of things that seem like they could help don't, once tried. And sometimes, maybe the thing that seems like a horrible idea if you can even call it an idea, because there wasn't a lot of thought that went into it, maybe that can be okay.

I am adjusting.