Discovering Dementia

Discovering Dementia

My mom lived with dementia for ten years before she died in 2021 at the age of 83. My brothers and I suspected she had frontal lobe dementia. Common characteristics are loss of inhibitions, lack of  interest in others, loss of empathy, compulsive behaviors, and change in diet.  During the beginning of her dementia journey, my mom was focused on exercise, controlling food, and playwriting. All three absorbed her, and she slowly stopped asking me and other family members about our lives. There were no boundaries with strangers, and she would act silly in public. As the years progressed, her ability to read social cues, regulate her hygiene, safely drive to and from places deteriorated, and she needed care through assisted living, then memory care, and finally my brother’s home. My mom pre-dementia was a kind, joyful, loving person. Fortunately for the family,  those characteristics remained with her,  and although near the end of her life she didn’t know that I was her daughter or my name, she accepted my affection.

My Mom and Me 

As the youngest of three, and only daughter, I valued time with her, having long talks and listening to her guidance. She always made me laugh and I respected her zest for life. A true optimist, she was a dedicated walker, dancer, bicyclist, avid reader,  and wonderful to her children and grandchildren. I am 56 now, and as a young woman,  mom and I became very close, considering each other best friends.  After my Dad passed away in 2005,  she and I would spend hours together, learning on eachother, crying, and reminiscing. That is a memory that I’ve held on to, because it was one of the last times I saw my former mom, the one filled with empathy and emotion. Once so close, I found it odd that mom stopped reaching out,  but when we did speak, I could tell she was keeping lists of dates and facts, trying to prove she was ok.  But she wasn’t.  

Dementia isn’t just about a person forgetting things, names or events. It's about the relationship you once had become radically different with roles reversed.  Our simple ways to connect, such as watching a movie, sharing a meal, having a glass of wine, were no longer the same. I stopped receiving  birthday cards. She no longer understood what Christmas was. I had to mourn all of that, which I did for many years. 

Grief Cycle 

I was losing the most important relationship of my life. Prior to having mom evaluated, anger, denial, and bargaining were wrapped into one. I was angry that she could no longer read my emotions. I bargained by fantasizing that medications would make her better. After finally having mom formally evaluated, the sadness kicked in. I learned not only of the dementia diagnosis, but that my mom, once a teacher, could no longer tell time. 

Traveling the three hours home from her care facility was mentally exhausting, and those times in the car were where I grieved most. Although she was always excited to see me, she was vulnerable, and it was hard to leave her and say goodbye. 

The last year of mom’s life, she moved into my brother’s home, and that is where I began to move into the acceptance stage. I finally could breathe, and felt she was safe and being well cared for. I would sit beside her and hold her hand, feeling like I was her caregiver as she was so childlike.  I just wanted her to feel loved. 

What surprised me was after she died, I rarely cried.  Now I know that I was mourning all along. The inability to easily retrieve memories of how she was prior to dementia also impacted my ability to more readily move on. I hope one day to retrieve more, but for now, I will cherish the ones sitting by her side

Suggestions for How to Cope

• Join a support group 

https://www.alz.org/help-support/community/support-group

• Connect with a life coach to develop coping strategies

Katelovescoaching.co

• Read articles and visit websites regarding dementia and grief 

https://www.psycom.net/ambiguous-loss

https://www.dementiasociety.org/

Facing Loneliness

A New Level of Loneliness 

A girlfriend of mine, ten years younger with three adorable young children, posted a picture of herself on facebook, laughing while the kids jumped off the diving board. A colleague mentioned that she and her twenty-something daughters were planning to have an “invent your own '' margherita night to find a creative way to have some fun during the pandemic shutdown. Envy started to creep through my veins. The thought of a full house sounded so appealing. Having a pool must be like heaven, especially now with not much to do. While trying to remain positive about my own life, and recognizing how much loss others were suffering, I still began to obsess about what I didn’t have. The more I viewed posts of families hiking or boating together, the more I felt utterly alone. 

I am 52, married, without children. I was always a late bloomer and a bit immature. I floated around after college for several years, in dead end jobs and relationships. I finally got myself together, earned my Masters, and settled into my career as a school counselor in an affluent suburb of Boston. I married at 39, and didn’t start thinking about having a family until 41. Fertility specialists told me that IVF wouldn’t work. When I presented adoption to my husband, I knew deep down that I didn’t have my heart in it, nor did he. With our respective ages and the wait that can entail, it didn’t seem realistic. Years passed, we moved to a home in the suburbs, and adopted two black labs. I felt fulfilled. Sure I had my moments of wishing that my life had turned out differently, yet with my work, close friendships, and an active life with my husband on weekends, I always had something to look forward to. Once in a while we would hang out with other single couples and I felt “normal” because they could relate to our lifestyle. Those get-togethers didn’t happen as often as I wished, yet the lack of frequency didn’t overtake my thinking. No feelings of loneliness were magnified. And then the pandemic shutdown began, and so did my intense reaction. 

Like many people, I thought the shutdown would last only a few weeks, and I felt gratitude for having good health. However, when school closed for the remainder of the year, and all outside entertainment ceased, any positiveness I had left turned into situational depression. I remember thinking that the shutdown was like drug withdrawal, but rather than drugs, the withdrawal was from people and our way of life. One evening, the withdrawal hit me hard as I walked my dog at dusk on the first warm night of spring. I noticed four of my neighbors, one of whom I am friendly with, sitting outside having cocktails. This image struck a nerve so deep that the pit of loneliness and despair was overwhelming. I teared up throughout the evening. The yearning I felt to be included and to socialize was unbearable. I tossed and turned that night wondering why my husband and I weren’t invited. My mind started to fill with other questions such as, “Why don’t we have more couple friends?” “Why did that one couple drop us?” 

At that moment, I had transformed back to my teenage self, that girl who at 13 had just moved to a new town with too much time on her hands and one fair weather friend. My younger self would ask similar questions like, “Why am I not included?” Back then, I would relish in the past, wishing for my old home and school, missing my best friend. With my two brothers at basketball 

practice, and my parents working outside the home, my routine was to return from school, sit in my backyard, smoke cigarettes and be sad. Afterwards, I would settle inside with a big bowl of ice cream and escape my life by watching soap operas. I envied the actors with their looks and exciting lives. Now in the present day, I ended up in a similar place, using food and drink to break up my boredom and loneliness (fortunately the cigarette habit was kicked long ago), watching the scale creep up once again, envying others, and questioning my level of connectedness to people. Yes, I was brought back to feeling like my younger self, insecure, lonely, and miserable. 

I called my life coach. She described that I was embroiled in what is called “scarcity mindset.” (Covey, Stephen R. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, 2013). In the simplest terms, “scarcity mindset is the belief that there will never be enough, and actions and thoughts stem from a place of lack (Bell, 2015).” This lack can be related to social connection. In my mind’s eye, it means obsessing over what one doesn’t have, as well as visualizing that the “grass is greener” for others at an exaggerated level. I had so many questions. “Wasn’t I deserving of a robust household? Why did I lose out? Why is everyone else having so much fun? I lived in a constant state of regret for my past choices, all revolving around aloneness. Regret that I didn’t try harder to have kids. Regret that I chose to settle living in Massachusetts while my whole family lives in upstate New York. I worried for my future, wondering if anyone will care for me and my husband when we are older. My husband couldn’t identify with my plight as he is more of a loner who can entertain himself and rarely sits with regret or worry, and so I turned inward. I was mad at myself for not feeling grateful as many would look at my life and think it's pretty good. But my mind wouldn’t stay there. I saw the facebook posts to “use this time as a gift” and I couldn’t embrace it. 

Fortunately, after some time, my conversation with my life coach started to sink in and I knew I had to work on myself. I began asking, how do I let go of scarcity thinking? How do I start living in the present again? How do I do this when the present isn’t the present I am used to? 

Some days are better than others. I wouldn’t say I am miserable every day, just some. I find when I incorporate healthier habits, I am mentally stronger. Having zoom calls with a dear friend lifts my spirits. Life seems like it may start to open up again, although slowly, and I have glimmers of hope that it will get better. I have come to some conclusions, one of which is that I am actually proud of myself. Proud that I allowed myself to be a person filled with negativity and jealousy during this surreal time. I didn’t fight it. I couldn’t identify with those people who were bettering themselves, and it’s okay. This is who I needed to be to get to where I am now. My self awareness has reached new heights. I hadn’t thought of my younger self and the depression I had experienced then, until now. It was eye opening to grasp that even though I am much older, I still react similarly to challenging transitions, as I did at that young age. I have realized that a feeling of loneliness has been with me for a long time, but it was masked when life was normal. The pandemic brought it to the surface. Maybe change will come from this recognition. While I will never have my own twenty-somethings to have margaritas with, I can 

search for ways to bring more noise into our house and have more people enter through our doors. 

A few weeks ago, sitting on my patio on a beautiful evening, I looked around at my neighbors in the distance and wondered why I hadn’t done more to pursue relationships, especially with all the women near me. An idea came to me of hosting a neighborhood party once people get more comfortable socializing. Getting the couples we occasionally see on the calendar more often, may make for closer bonds. My husband and I have talked about moving within the year, and with that move we can look for a home that has a pool or a big yard, where friends and family can gather. I can continue to work on myself to not compare my life to others’ lives. I can sit in my loneliness and realize I will work through it.

My relationship with ice cream

My Relationship with Ice Cream

I think it started around age eight. Looking at food as good vs. bad, experiencing restriction, experiencing body shame. 

One day, I’m not really sure if it was someone’s birthday or what was going on, but my mother told me I could have either cake or ice cream.  I was so mad and stormed down the stairs proclaiming,  “I’m having both!”  The “I’m having both” statement actually became a running joke in my family because of the drama of it. I would laugh along with my older brothers, but years later, I felt a combination of embarrassment and anger when hearing the joke. Why couldn’t I have had both?  Was I already feeling body shame at eight years old and my mom was trying to help? Who knows the answers to these questions, but it saddens me to think that from such a young age I recognized  foods as good and bad, or in this case, the combination of the two. While I still love cake, ice cream stole my heart, even though it was “bad.”   Oh how disappointed I was to learn that it was bad. I remember thinking it was good for me because it contained milk. But then I learned it was “fattening” and had a lot of “sugar.”  Ice cream cravings come up for me every day, to this day. I enjoy it in all forms, high end hard ice cream, soft ice cream ( especially the twist), ice cream sandwiches, those flurries at McDonalds, and how about those frosty’s at Wendy’s? The list could go on and on. Fortunately,  I have found the key to help satiate my craving without going overboard.  A hoodsie cup with a bit of whip cream on top does the trick. 

Around age 13 I started to struggle with my weight and body image and so began my journey of  yo-yo dieting. Sadly, I am still in it’s snares, but my mental energy around it is getting better. 

When I first started dieting, the culture was all about restriction. There was the cottage cheese diet, the grapefruit diet, to name a few others.

My mom grew up in an era that being thin and being a woman were directly correlated. My mom was always thin. No females on my mom’s side of the family were overweight.  My paternal grandmother, aunts, and cousins had more athletic builds, and some struggled with keeping weight off at different times in their lives. Although I loved each side of my family very much, I perceived early on that I was “different” from my mom’s side, but “the same” as my Dad’s.. Not surprisingly, I was often anxious when at my maternal grandmother’s home, and totally relaxed at my paternal grandmother’s home. At one home I felt like the “heavy one” and at the other I was “Katie. “
My view of myself, my lifestyle, and my home environment contributed to my challenges with weight. As a young teen, I had too much time on my hands and would get home early before everyone else. There were no kid-friendly snacks ready,  or so I perceived,  and I would go long periods of time without eating satiating foods. My parents would exercise after work so by the time we sat down to dinner, six to seven hours had passed without me eating healthy food. The only thing I would have consumed was, drum roll please, ice cream

There were rarely treats in the house, but there was always a gallon of ice cream. My brother’s played basketball, burning mega calories, so my mom made them milkshakes. I remember watching the ice cream in the blender and wanting a milkshake but wasn’t offered one.  However, I did sneak spoonfuls of the heavenly stuff whenever I could. I remember feeling like a criminal eating it. I would actually try to  “fluff it” to make it look like there was more ice cream in the container than there was. 

Sweets or chips were foods I snuck when I could because those were the “bad foods” and we didn’t have them in the house. Babysitting was the perfect environment for more of my criminal mischief.  I would be amazed opening up the cupboards stocked full of chips and cookies.  And the kids I babysat were thin. I don’t remember them even being interested in those foods. I understand why now. They knew they could have those foods, therefore the temptation to overindulge was low. I, however, would go home and feel so ashamed of myself, not understanding why I was caught in this cycle. 

Reading this, one might think I grew up in a neglectful home or with a tyrannical mother around food. That was so not the case. While my mom and I did have tension around food, she was the most loving mom and I had a  wonderful upbringing. She  thought she was making healthy choices for my family  by not having “junk” in the house, and reflecting back now, I wonder if she was trying not to be tempted herself. When she witnessed my tears following back to school or bathing suit shopping, her heart broke for me. She did the best she could. She supported my dieting because she thought I would be happier if I lost weight. It all came from a good place, 

One summer when I was probably 25, mom and I were taking a walk on Cape Cod and I saw an ice cream shop. Not surprisingly, I wanted an ice cream. She probably did too because I know she loved it as well but she said, “No thank you.”I got the vibe that she disapproved of me getting one. I didn’t let it stop me and I got a dish. When we sat down on the bench, I said, “Mom, this needs to end. I am an adult and can make my own food choices.” She understood and heard me. After that, I easily lost ten pounds without much effort. I had been so mentality trapped by the food tension in our relationship, that having that talk released me. From then on, I ate what I wanted and when I wanted, in front of my mom. 

I am in my 50’s now, and my weight has continued to go up and down. A few years ago, I lost a substantial amount and kept it off for over a year. I thought I nailed it. Yet since Covid began in 2020, I gained back more weight than I am comfortable with.  I am on my way again, and have a few  more pounds that I’d like to lose. While part of me thinks having this goal is giving into diet culture, or not feeling good enough, I just feel better at the lower weight. Like Sarah Miller, this diet mentality is ingrained in me but I have to believe I can gain freedom from it. Thankfully, in this era, there are ways to lose weight without deprivation. However, for many women my age, it’s our mindset that gets in the way of our success and that is what we need to work on.  In my current journey of becoming a health and life coach, I’ve learned that “our beliefs create our experiences.”  If I continue to label foods as good and bad, then I will continue to experience the cycle of restriction and overeating. If I believe that “I will always struggle with a weight issue” then I will.  But if I believe I can eat any food I want and that is ok, that I have personal power to stop eating when satiated, then I know I can experience more freedom. Freedom from the mental exhaustion all of this can bring.  I already see this new outlook working. I haven’t thought about ice cream for a few hours. 

About Me:  I am a school counselor and administrator and certified Health and Life Coach. To hear more about my program, Total Transformation Coaching, email me at  katelovescoaching@gmail.com. 

Blog Post Title Four

It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sound like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest. If you read the words back and don’t hear your own voice in your head, that’s a good sign you still have more work to do.

Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does.