Learning to Cope with an Aging Father with Senile Dementia

November 1st,2024, Friday

Good morning, World!

I feel like the final test has arrived, and I rather get ready for it, preparing myself to tackle this period with the right mindset to avoid backfiring.

Growing up comes with a whole set of “things to do” that you didn’t see coming years ago, especially if you preferred not to notice.

Having to cope with an aging father who is starting to manifest deteriorating dementia, along with very unpleasant, nasty behavior, is something one must learn to defend against without becoming too involved in the situation.

The understanding that I might need to come to terms with the fact that this can only get worse prepares me to create a mindset where, first of all, I can’t take things too personally and recognize that this is one of the many facets aging can have.

It is the final test, and I intend to face it with the right attitude from day one.

A note for the casual reader:

What you have stumbled upon is my Journal.

While each day brings new opportunities and lessons, reading past entries may help you understand my journey better.

My goal is to journal for a full year, recording insights and as many dreams as possible. In the end, I hope to turn this into a self-help book.

I also want to inspire you to trust your intuition, your inner guide, by looking within and listening to your deeper wisdom.

Until now, it hadn’t occurred to me that some drastic changes might take place in my father’s behavior, especially after we had a good summer and he was in a good mood most of the time. I even believed that “our relationship” (which had somehow come close to something similar to this definition), had taken a leap, and maybe it has, at least in what was possible to achieve.

I now understand that things might start changing and could quickly deteriorate. After all, his mother had the same mental conditions, and in her last years (she died at 100), she was still pretty active but a bomb of nastiness, swearing at, and blaming about everyone who came her way.

My father is going down the same hill, but my sister and I, thank God, have enough education and self-respect, to let him marinate in his ocean of resentments, without having to take part in it.

My grandmother was especially insulting, mainly toward her daughter and her family, who were taking care of her. She wanted to stay alone in her 90s and would wish for people to die, saying this right to their faces.

My father is starting to do the same. He tells you, without looking at you as if you weren’t there, what a failure of a person you are and how wrong you are in general. He watches TV and starts swearing at everyone his age who comes on screen, aching with envy.

I hate to write this, but I need to spell it out to see this situation for what it really is: senile dementia. I can’t take this personally, and for the time I’m still here, I have to learn to coexist with his delirium and not been influenced by him, rather releaved.

I had a friend in Rome who was around 15 years older than me. Her mother had severe dementia and even employed lawyers against her daughter. She used to shame her granddaughter for her curvy figure and tell het to leave. I witnessed the devastating effects this had on both of them, undermining their belief systems; beliefs they had to work hard to build in order to cope with a mother of that nature.

There was a lot of money involved, and she wanted to give everything to the church, leaving nothing as inheritance for her daughters. This is not what’s happening here, but I understand that this phase is crucial for me if I want to heal my inner child on a deeper level.

Learning to spend time with my father, to take care of him, and to be present here, for the first time in my adult life, has been a significant achievement, and I must acknowledge this. In the past, I would simply run away because I had my life abroad and wanted to cope with my family as little as possible.

Running away helped, but at the cost of having to deal with many unresolved traumas and uncomfortable traits in my personality that drastically affected my personal life, especially in love. I see men and women everywhere facing the incapacity to have healthy relationships because of their parents, falling from one abusive environment to another, endlessly replicating what they were given, all while seeking change outside themselves.

At the core of this is a false belief system that convinces you that you don’t deserve better, coupled with the stigma of not wanting to talk about it; putting it under the rug or drowning the feelings in alcohol. I have been there.

Going from one self-help group to another, trying to avoid and cope from a distance, had its temporary effects as long as I kept myself safe in an environment far from home. Yet the inner child cries for a deeper level of healing, which comes from confronting fear head-on.

If I change my perspective and see the situation for what it really is: my father as a person who hasn’t learned anything different from what he experienced in his childhood, who had to cope with a cold and toxic mother, whose father died when he was still young, and who didn’t achieve any of his dreams, let alone create a loving family, it changes my outlook.

If I can apply compassion and tolerance, I might manage to see beyond the limits of my ego and gain a higher level of understanding of the whole situation. Ultimately, I will benefit from this, and on a broader spectrum, my lineage will as well.

I could replicate the karma of this family by accepting the dynamics my father is perpetuating, simply because it’s the only one he knows. I could adopt the same behavior as my aunt and try to resonate with an old man suffering from dementia to no avail. I could keep repeating the cycle or break it.

Any toxic environment sustains itself if actively supported. In a “normal” relationship, when not of this same nature, you have the option to walk away from a toxic partner or friend. Family is a different matter, and the way you tackle the problem has a direct impact on your subconscious and conscious mind.

The truth is that I am here.

The truth is that life has brought me back home.

The truth is that I never had a partner in my life.

I can run away from this situation even if I am in the situation, or I simply walk this path with the right mindset and break this family karmic cycle.

I could do what my brotehrs do, ignore it and rpetend that is not their problem and see how their life have imploded.

I have gained at this point enough awareness to transmute even this.

To accept this challenge in within myself first of all, without wanting to accelerate my departure and by letting the course of events to take place, is the right thing to do. To trust the process and go with the flow is the correct option to adopt.

This could become not only an experience, but on a bigger scale the most important experience of my life.

If I want to experience love and companionship in a relationship in this life time, I must resolve and heal my inner child.

After all that has happen to me at this point, I can go through this as well and close this cycles for me and my ancestors.

I won’t run away, but I will adopt a healthy behaviour that while taking care of my father, will consider and take care of myself first.

I can call this experience with the correct name: senile dementia.

…

I COMMIT MYSELF EVERY DAY WITH PASSION AND THIS MAKES ALL MY DREAMS COME TRUE.

I LET GO OF ANY ATTACHMENT TO THE OUTCOME OF MY GOALS.

What matters is to enjoy life in the present and not miss the miracle of life that is happening right now.

I don’t need to know all the details.

- I am grateful for the opportunities life is giving me.

- I am grateful for the chance my father is providing me to heal my inner child.

- I am grateful for the support I receive from various sources.

- I can see the beauty that lies behind suffering.

- I can understand the reality of what pain can be.

- I can see the illusion dissolving before me.

- I am aware that I can tackle this phase of my life to completion.

- I am aware that I have infinite resources.

- I am aware that there is a reason for everything.

Ifyou made it to the end and if you feel like, please don’t forget to clap, follow, and leave a comment. It certainly helps to spread my message.

THANK YOU FOR READING MY BLOG.