When my mom is at the senior center she is vibrant and full of life! When she is at home no matter who is there or what we want to do with her to keep busy, all she ever is doing is staring out her window for HOURS and I find myself getting aggravated and yelling at her to get away from the window. Help! She lives with me, I am her legal guardian and POA. Thank you
And I love Dorianne's explanation of "recharging" needs of the introverted.
To keep from going crazy, perhaps it help you to figure out why this is so upsetting to you.
I'm neither elderly nor senile, but I've done a lot of window-staring in my life. I like to watch the birds, the wildlife, the clouds, the river, the trees, the garden, the sky, the sun, the rain, the snow. I like to daydream. I like to listen to the music in my head. I like to remember good times and people who are gone, or imagine how I would have done the bad times differently if I knew then what I know now. Sometimes I like to think about nothing at all. I don't want to be busy in those times; I want everyone to leave me alone. I wouldn't say I do it for HOURS, generally, but I HAVE done it for hours. Especially when there's water involved, like the river, or if I'm at the lake or the ocean. Being only 48, I don't find my energy resources so easily taxed yet that I might NEED hours to recuperate.
It's as much the action of a dreamer as it might be the action of someone with dementia.
I don't know why you would yell at your mom to get away from the window, even if it IS dementia making her do it? Who is she hurting, exactly?
You know what I yell at my mom for? Setting paper towel on fire on the stove in order to light her cigarette. :-O
I think you are coming from the place of not yet having fully accepted that your mum is seriously ill. Truly, I sympathise. She probably looks much like her old self and sometimes acts like it. It has taken me awhile to teach my kids that, between aging and CFS/FM, even if I look like it, I am not my old self. Your mum has a disease that means she can't do that. So then you have to educate yourself, Coming on here is a good start. Read up about the stages of Alz and also the grieving that family have to go through when they find their loved one has a serious, incurable, and terminal disease.
Caregiving a loved one with Alz is a very difficult journey. Be sure to look after yourself, do some things for you. Your frustration is hurting both you and your mum. She can't help her limitations.
I just leave her alone. She's struggling with the onset of dementia, nobody but my brother and I notice it, and it's just plain sad. Spent 3 hrs with her today, and came home with a terrible headache. It's easier for her to live in a kind of fantasy world than deal with the stuff that's right in front of her.