Carers under 30...

@outlander

The best advice I can give you is just to be you. If you are close to this person then they will want you to be you. They may close down sometimes but it’s not you that has done that. You are caring and kind and that will shine through. We don’t expect you to have all the life experiences we old ducks have. Sometimes life experiences help and sometimes not so much.

So my experience tells me that my experiences get it wrong lots but I’m learning that that is ok. Just be you. There is nothing you can do to change what they are going through but be there and ride it out with them. 💜🤗. You’ve got this!

@outlander

@outlander

@outlander, will he actually remember by now what he said? My Dad is usually pretty sweet tempered, but occasionally something will get him cross. Something completely innocent that our 20-ish son said to him triggered off some bad memory one time, and he got angry. We couldn't talk him out of it, so just gave him some space to forget the memory, then dealt with getting him back into a better mood. That's one of the tricky things with his dementia. The feelings stay around for a while after the incident that set them off has passed, and after his memory of the incident has already faded. But I'm not sure your Pop's dementia is quite to that stage?

Mum, on the other hand, is sometimes just plain insensitive. When she's said something upsetting to my sister or I, we'll usually make an excuse to go elsewhere for a bit, and come back when the first flush of anger or hurt has passed. Sometimes we'll just let it slide, other times one or the other of us will point out to her that what she said was unpleasant/hurtful or whatever.

Admittedly, I don't have to live with either of them, but I probably used a fairly similar approach when I was living at home. Mum would get into some pretty bad moods, and anyone nearby would be in firing line, so on those days I spent a lot of time out of the house. A lot of her attacks were pretty much ungrounded. Sometimes with those ones you mostly need the confidence to know that. You're not a b**** or selfish @outlander, it's mud that doesn't stick, isn't really what he thinks you are, and really says more about your Pop's current frustration than about you.