DEMENTIA BOUNDARIES

“Pin the Tail on the Donkey” was a game determined to make the blindfolded pinner look asinine. The experience of being blindfolded changed our requirements for functioning. Our emotions rushed from stomach to head causing our fingers holding the pin to tingle. We became aware of sounds and emotions we could no longer see.
 

A transient ischemic attack, commonly called a mini-stroke or TIA, changes the game. We experience loss that may be insignificant or earth shaking. The insignificant TIAs are more common than we care to know. A more serious stroke effects balance and we fall breaking a bone or hip. Or we lose the ability to speak with words that accurately describe what we think. This “spell” may last for a few minutes before we recover or we may permanently struggle like our residents say, “close but no cigar.” 

At Adagio we encourage each other by laughing when the wanted word hovers just to the left of right. As Nora Ephron wrote, “I know the word I want; it’s floating over there, but my brain doesn’t have peripheral vision.”

TIA’s force us to live along dotted lines. Our firm boundaries have broken down and we need our families to wander with us while we determine where we are and where we aren’t any longer. We also need them to gently provide the backbone as we hope with little hope to return to normal.

 

DEMENTIA BOUNDARIES to be cont. later

For some time I have been wondering about the social boundaries—or lack thereof—we use as we experience social changes. It seems to me that the white picket fence has been replaced by barbed wire. Discussion of issues has become replaced by wholesale relegation. And it is wearing me out.

We take great joy in assigning hideous, gross terms to those whose views we disagree with. Hitler has become a popular comparison, although no specifics are given. Just Hitler. If you don’t know what “tea bagger” or “gang banger” mean, you won’t learn it here. “Brown noser” takes on new meaning when the subject shows a hint of African American progenitors. Speaking of racism, who decides that “cracker” or “N….” is the worse slur?

Parodie and clever emails are only funny to the viewer who has decided that the derided person is worthless. That automatic consignment suggests the parodist is taking a break from our common humanity. Snopes may be of service but even that research is done by people of bias.

So I wonder…if you are not my friend on a particular issue, does that make you my enemy? And if we disagree, does that mean that you are a liar, a pervert…you can finish this list with the term you last yelled at your television newscaster. Perhaps the level you stoop to in your name calling illustrates your frustration at being powerless to effect change. It does me.

I don’t know another human being who agrees with my opinions on every subject. Proves there are many smart people. Some of my opinions and boundaries are formed on the fly, but others are built by necessity to satisfy my basic needs. My voice becomes more shrill as your positions cause me pain. And that’s a fact I need to consider as I am tempted to call you “stupid” or worse.

If you get near Springfield, Illinois, the Abraham Lincoln Springfield Museum is a must. They built a tunnel and the sound system plays many Lincoln detractors and supporters shouting at you as you pass pictures of people and events of the Lincoln presidency. Yowzer! Makes Nancy Pelosi and Ted Whatshisname sound intelligent and impartial. (Was that a slur?)

Following Nixon’s election a New York maven exclaimed to her friend, “How did this happen? I don’t know a single Republican.”

So just to let you know, I am not interested in receiving your emails describing any politician in sexual terms, denigrating a politician on anything but their issue—let me re-write that—the topic of disagreement, and I am taking a break from politics altogether until I vote in the next election. I don’t think your poems and essays are funny and I will delete them, saying a prayer for our mutual sanity until better days. Establishing this boundary makes me feel better already.

 

WHY DO WE BUILD A WALL?

Boundaries etch lines into our psyche like a potter etches design through the waxy ground on a goblet. Or like ocean sand grinds and polishes glass lost to the waves.

 

Some of our boundaries are intentional but many dig in unnoticed through our experiences, observations, mistakes. Only when we walk into a similar situation do we realize we hold an opinion. Only when that opinion is challenged do we realize how important it has become, how deeply rooted.

 

Boundaries maintained by fear paralyze us, disassociate us from ability to analyze and evaluate possible benefits of changing our position. Fear causes reactions to erupt from our *brain stem, emotional and irrational as we carve community into pieces irretrievable when we decide we desperately need to recreate a productive whole.

 

We may consider ourselves safe within such boundaries. In fact, we are isolated.

 

Dementia builds walls with fear as it slowly strangles rational past behavior. The challenge of caregiving is to learn the new boundaries as they appear, and adjust our behavior to accommodate. The challenge of leadership is to listen to community members explore the formation and defense of their boundaries.

*The human brain is divided into three parts: the Neocortex analyzes, observes, creates; the Mammalian loves, hates, bonds and plays; the brain stem or Reptilian controls automatic functions, survival, and unconscious acts like breathing.

 

WHY DO WE BUILD A WALL?

We have all read Robert Frost’s poem, “Mending Wall” that begins, “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall….”

Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.

If Frost and his neighbor scattered the stones of their wall, the legal boundary line would still exist. Frost would pay taxes on his property and the neighbor would pick up the community requirements within his designated perimeter. The alteration would be visual but without legal ramifications.

We each have needs that must be met for content, productive living. We develop boundaries that give us safe space, that allow us to function with family, friends, strangers, work partners.

Frost ponders the psychological barrier between his neighbor and himself as they walk their border, each contributing to the stone wall. Like Frost, we may profit from evaluating the boundaries we build within our relationships.

 

BOUNDARIES

How can we maintain authenticity and integrity if we do not clearly identify “what is me and what is not me. A boundary shows me where I end and someone else begins, leading me to a sense of ownership.” (Boundaries. Chapter 2) A boundary is a dotted line demarcating who I am and lets in good information and closes ranks to shut out damaging stuff. Or so the theory goes.

Our self definition and conscious recognition that this is who I am may be as follows:  Physically, I will never be a tall, lanky bean pole. I was genetically built with my father’s nose and his mother’s thin hair. My sister inherited the accounting genes, but I was gifted with science skills that place me in the medical health care industry. Emotionally, two of us inherited our father’s quiet patience and one our mother’s busy finger-in-every pie energy.

 

As we experience life, we further define who we are and who we will never become no matter how hard we try. And that that’s okay. Recognition and acceptance of this person who lives within our boundaries assists us fend off demands that we be something other than what we are.

 

The better we become at self identification and verbalization, the better our boundaries will hold our self together, allowing us to explore and experience new opportunities, to encourage and give to those around us.

BOUNDARIES

 

Interaction with one other person requires being aware of our boundaries. The lines that define our personhood and its physical containment may be invisible but never amorphous, moveable with limitations but ignored to our detriment and with disagreeable consequences.

 

The most useful documentation I have on my bookshelf is Boundaries, When to Say Yes, When to Say No To Take Control of Your Life. The authors are Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend.

 

Operating an adult family home demands that we delineate our boundaries. Because the subject is so important, Washington State DSHS has outlined rules for us in a hefty, continually revised missive affectionately called the WAC. For example, we wash our hands in the kitchen sink only when we are handling food. Any bathroom-type activity requires washing in the bathroom or the utility room.

 

Until you verbalize this boundary and think about the ramifications (contagious bugs) it may seem silly. It is a legitimate boundary. Like telling someone that they are hurting you when their handshake is too hearty. Like telling someone that you do not want telephone calls after a certain hour. Like telling a coworker that when they don’t come to work on time they are affecting your work.

 

Identifying a boundary to the people with whom we share this planet may require that we also identify consequences. (Rather than you call me after 10PM I will be happy to call you at 5AM when I get up.) And here comes the sticky wicket. Somewhere in our lifetime we were told that we need to be nice. If you are not nice then you must be horrible.

 

My dear father-in-law could draw out the “i” vowel and create a truly frightful sound. He forever ruined for me that pleasant word “nice.” Try it adding a whine while you smile into the “i.”

 

Legitimate boundaries will offend someone sometime, but you will remain intact, authentic, faithful, trustworthy, and perhaps even a bit nice.