Can I start a memories thread?

[CrimeJunkie01]

My aunt has dementia and refuses to accept that there is anything wrong and the past few months has accused me of robbing her, or sending people to Rob her, of kicking her out her home and generally being a horrible person to her in general and I'm kind of at breaking point. Tonight I realised that I'm at the end of my tether and was starting to resent her, but then I started to think of all the lovely memories I have had with her over the years and it made me cry.

Just last weekend, when trying to calm her down I got her to show me how to knit. I've never been able to and she was teasing me and it made me smile as that's our relationship over the past 20 years, she winds me up and I wind her up, then she gives me a hug and a smile and it is as if she truly loves me again with all her heart. The shopping trips to get my "Christmas box" or the money in the arcades. The ways she always gives my son far too little money to go to the shop (5p) and get himself a treat. All these things about her make me love her and the dementia seemed to kill it, until tonight. Tonight I'm remembering the person she was not the one she has become.

Tonight I'm remembering the person she was not the one she has become.

Your story brought a tear to my eye. My dad has dementia and it's heartbreaking - hard to describe but it's as if he is becoming a sort of shell. He will phone late at night with some panic - and then phone my sister 10 minutes later about the same thing.

I will be honest and say he didn't give us the greatest childhood - he always had a kind of split personality and could be dad of the year one minute and a monster the next - very violent punishments, although in an era (70s/80s) when this was fairly normalised in society - but the washing away of him is still very hard to take.

I'm so glad you were able to smile with your mum last weekend.

My grandad had Alzheimer's and didn't remember who I was for the last few years of his life. When I was a little girl he used to take me for walks to get out from under my grans feet and he taught me the name of every flower, every bird in the hedgerow, every type of duck and goose on the lake. He took me to see the horses and piglets on his friends farm. He carried me on his shoulders and showed me where the bluebells grew in spring and took me to see icicles on the aquaduct in winter. He gave me a love of nature that I will carry with me forever.

My mum has dementia and she has forgotten my name. On Tuesday she introduced my best friend to the nurse and said she was her daughter.

In recent years her needs have overwhelmed me but she has been a great mum to me and a wonderful grandmother to my kids. She and I would laugh ourselves senseless over nonsense while my poor dad would sit beside with no idea what was going on.

The word "no" could never be said to my children, especially not to my middle daughter who spent hours and hours with mum (and dad before he died). In fact her last adventure out of the house was to my daughter's wedding and after that a part of mum disappeared.

I love her so much and resent the disease that has taken the mum I love and left this sad old lady in her place.