Tag Archives: therapy

Water off a Duck’s Back: Pt. lll

Posted in July by

I was tired of debating the merits of therapy with Miss Cathy week in and week out.

After so much Sturm und Drang I realized it was her life and she could not examine it if she didn’t want to.

Some days she’d tell me that the sessions were no more than gossip, other times that the therapist was very smart and she’d learned a lot but inevitably she’d ask me, “How long do I have to keep going before I can stop?”

How she could even contemplate stopping when she’d only just started baffled and frustrated me, but, her questioning the process was insightful and it told me she wasn’t actively participating (meaning she probably wasn’t dealing with any of her core life issues) in her sessions (not in any meaningful way it seemed).

It was amazing to me how she could even try to quantify seventy-five years of neurosis and think that she should be ‘cured’ in less time than it takes to get a reservation at a four star Michelin rated restaurant in Manhattan….but, hey, I’m just saying (to you anyway).

To Miss Cathy I said, “You can cancel if you want but you’ll still have to pay for the session”.

“It’s up to you, what do you want to do?” I asked, reminding her that her appointment was in less than two hours,

“I’ll got then”, she said grudgingly, “but I’m not going back.”

Instead of listing all the reasons why she should continue with therapy I simply said, “Fine by me, do what you want, you always do.”

So, I took mom to her session and wrote in my journal as I waited for her.

Afterward her therapist brought me into the room to announce that she and Miss Cathy had come to an agreement.

Miss Cathy would commit to going to the Senior Center and become more engaged in her life and if she did this with some regularity then she wouldn’t have to come to therapy as often.

I was skeptical but gave my right to an opinion when I announced earlier that I didn’t care anymore. I was alittle surprised and put off (read: pissed off) that I was asked to agree to “sitting down for at least one meal a week with Miss Cathy”.

How the hell did I get roped into this? Whatever….. I shrugged but agreed.

Time will tell if she holds up her end of the bargain or if she simply reverts back to her old habits and all her promises evaporate like water off a duck’s back.

Water off a duck’s Back: Pt. ll

Posted in July by

In addition to battling over exercise (or her lack thereof) I’ve fought with Miss Cathy through the years about a number of issues.

There was her wandering away from the kitchen while she had a skillet on the stove (usually turned up to the highest heat possible), murdering toasters (to date I’ve bought six toasters in three years after she’s managed to break them), her denial about her Alzheimer’s, her penchant for ‘doctoring’ herself (meaning she might decide to increase, decrease the dosage of her meds (or stop all together) based on what she thought was appropriate) and there is her propensity to forget if she’s taken her meds so she would either skip a cycle and not take them or double down and take the same meds twice in one day.

As soon as I realized what she was doing (three years ago she could be trusted to be responsible to take her medication as prescribed) but as time went on and her condition progressed (ever so slightly) and it was obvious that I had to intercede.

I took complete control over her meds after that, standing over her twice a day now like Nurse Ratched in “One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest” making sure she swallows all of the pills and isn’t losing them or squirrelling them away somewhere.

Other things haven’t been as important (or as potentially life threatening) but you learn to choose your battles; whether it’s food, hygiene or seeing physicians.

Lately it seems that after every session she’s had with her therapist (and there have been less than a dozen in the past three months) she’s balked at going back.

Just last week we had come back from a morning doctor’s appointment and I could see that she was already eyeing her bed with a look that said she was ready to dive in for the rest of the day (and it wasn’t even 11:00 am yet).

So I quickly reminded her that she had a one o’clock meeting with her therapist, knowing that if she got under the covers nothing short of the promise of taking her to the casino and spotting her a couple hundred bucks would be able to blast her out of bed.

“I’m not going back there, I’m tired!” she hissed as she walked into her bathroom.

“Tired?”

Tired from what is a discussion for another day but this was not that day.

And you know what, I was tired, tired of trying to convince her week in and week out that what she was doing for her emotional heath was just as important as her physical well-being.

I was tired of her schizophrenic reaction about going to therapy; most days she was elated to have gone, waxing poetic about how she’d “learned so much” and “how knowledgeable and nice” the therapist is/was.

Then flash forward to the day before (or day of) a new session and she’s railing about “what a waste of time it all is/was” and asking “how much longer did she have to go”

Jeez….who was she, Sally Field in “Sybil”?

Come back Miss Cathy: Pt. l

Posted in May by

The 1950’s stage play (and later film version) of “Come Back Little Sheba” was a story of a housewife in crisis heartbreakingly portrayed by the late great actress, Shirley Booth.

Her character stands just outside her kitchen door (and her life) late at night where she can be heard calling for her lost dog.

During the course of the drama it becomes evident that she’s longing for the return of more than just (wo)man’s best friend.

This morning it struck me that the same could be said of Miss Cathy.

While she rarely stands anywhere for long these days she does seem to be lost in thought a lot and more often than not looking out the window as much as she’s looking a the television.

Her introspection led me to wonder…do her anxieties and nervousness go deeper than the dementia? Does the fact that the ‘present’ confuses her open her up to see the ‘past’ more clearly? And if it does, what does she see there?
Is she looking for something other than what that she’s lost since her diagnosis…her independence, freedom, sense of self?

She’s just started therapy recently and I am hoping it will help.

After her first consultation I went in to talk with the therapist for a moment, she warned me that sometimes (depending on the trauma or issues uncovered) an elderly mind can be determined to be too fragile to confront whatever has happened (this is especially true of some dementia patients) and if that’s the case then it might be best to let the past stay unexamined.

I know some of Miss Cathy’s past troubles and hardships but it’s not for me to say, nor for me to judge how she’s walked thought her life, her choices and what she chooses to talk about.

Everyone’s life contains pain and it’s up to the individual to bare witness (or not) to his or her own emotional holocaust.

With that in mind I’ve encouraged mom to continue therapy (she was questioning whether or not to go back after only one visit) and to give time time.

My hope is that in time she may feel safe enough (and comfortable enough) to finally talk about what’s been unspoken for so long.

Therapy Pt.lll: The Three “P’s” plus One

Posted in May by

Even though I was perturbed, I’d not yet written off Dr G’s referral (but I was turned off by what I’d learned so far).

Before I dove into the mountain of paperwork required to see the doctor I decided to call back to ask what type of therapy the doctor practiced. When the person answering the phone couldn’t answer what I thought was a perfectly reasonable and simple question I tried to help her by asking, “Does he follow Freud, Yeung? Is he a Behaviorialist?”

You can’t really hear silence but it’s not like she was saying anything so that’s all there was on the other end of the line. When she did speak it was to mispronounce the names of the two long dead fathers of what we now call ‘talk’ therapy.

I went from being frustrated to disturbed that she couldn’t answer me.

But, realizing that she probably wasn’t get paid enough to know more than how to say “Doctor’s office” and “Please hold” I cut her some slack and asked if there was anyone else in the office who could help me.

So, using one of the skills she had at her command she put me on hold for a moment, after which another female voice came on the line and introduced herself as the office manager, understood that I had a question and asked if I could “please repeat the names I’d said earlier.”

“Sure”, I said and parroted my query.

“Fried?” “You who?” was her response and that pretty much told me all I needed to know (if not about the doctor, then about who he surrounds himself with and who he chooses as his representative to the unsuspecting and often unbalanced public).

“Umm,” she stammered, “I’m not familiar with those names she said, “but I think it’s the last person you said.’

“You’re the first person who’s ever asked that question. I’d ask the doctor but he’s in with a patient at the moment.”

“Think!…you think?!” I thought to myself. (Horrified) that she identified a type of thereapy that a doctor practices (behaviorism) for an actual person, I wanted to ask if she was pulling my leg but what I said was, “I think that’s all the information that I need, thank you.”

Setting aside the fact that she was the ‘office manager’ and the one person in the practice who should know the doctor’s credentials and methods I wondered, “Hadn’t she ever seen a Woody Allen movie or any Rom-coms based in New York City?”
They’re filled with therapist humor. Someone is always; either going to a shrink, making fun of shrinks…or is a Shrink.

I clicked off the line knowing that I wouldn’t be clicking on their website, wasting anymore of my time or printer paper anytime soon.

Update: I was later corrected by a clinical psychologist (who just happens to be a dear friend) who told me that the doctor I was referred to (and was asking about) was a “Psychologist and not a “Psychoanalyst” (a disciple of Feud) so I was asking the wrong question.

Okay…my bad, so the “Freud, Yeung, Behaviorist” query didn’t apply….but still?”

Not to absolve myself of my personal responsibility but shouldn’t they have known that I was barking up the wrong type of analyst’s tree?

Fortunately the following link can explain the Three ‘P’s” (The Psychiatrist, Psychologist, and Psychoanalyst) so that you don’t sound like me…the fourth “P”(a ‘Putz’) when you’re shopping for a therapist.

The Psychiatrist, Psychologist, and Psychoanalyst: The Differences Between the Three P’s

Therapy Pt. ll: #CyberPaperTiger

Posted in April by

Our family meeting was on a Saturday so first thing the following Monday morning I was up early researching therapists to make Miss Cathy some appointments. The first call I made was to Dr G, her family doctor, he’s the doctor that’s known her longest and she respects the most.

Just like in business, it’s always smart to network with those that you respect and healthcare is no exception.

These days the instinct is to type ‘Therapist’ into Google but I think it’s best to have a referral (if possible) from a doctor who knows your loved one so that there is (hopefully) a personal connection when they are giving you a therapist’s contact information.

Unfortunately I did not feel ‘connected’ to the therapist Dr G recommended.

The therapists’ office was located nearby which is convenient but unlike in real estate it’s not just about “location, location, location”.

I’d called to set up a consultation with the therapist’s office and almost immediately I was turned off by the receptionist’s Priorities. She seemed to be much more focused with how the practice was going to be paid than with information about a potential new client.

Believe me, I know that the medical field is a business and everybody is out to “get paid” but can’t we at least have a modicum of pretense that it’s about the patient and not “the paper”?

The person that I spoke with also referred me to the practices’ website where “I” was to download, print out and fill out several forms to bring to the first meeting (information regarding payment-first and foremost).

While asking for a dossier (even before one sees a doctor) is quite common these days I just didn’t get a great feeling from the elitism of it all.

What if I didn’t own a computer, printer or have an Internet connection? Isn’t it awfully presumptive of a person’s status on the part of the doctor’s office?

And it’s not like we’re talking about making a ‘Ped’s’ appointment for a child here, this is an appointment for someone that’s almost an octogenarian.

Suppose Miss Cathy was the one calling to set up the consultation, can you imagine her trying to navigate the homepage, ‘clicking’ on links, going from ‘new patients’ to ‘forms’ to…well, you get the picture, besides, I don’t think mom has turned on a computer since she retired from the Veterans’ Administration back in Nineteen hundred and ninety three…enough said.

It just seems to me to be alittle insensitive for someone who supposedly specializes in geriatric counseling to put a 21st century burden on people born in the early part of the 20th century, is he a “Therapist’ or a ‘Cyber Paper Tiger’?

#Therapy Pt. l: Old Dog, New Day, New Way

Posted in April by

One of the revelations that came out of the ‘alz-ervention’ a few weeks ago when the family sat down to talk to Miss Cathy was that she expressed an interest in therapy (I immediately went to the window to see if pigs were flying but it was just the blooms off the Cherry Blossoms).

To say I was surprised, shocked and elated (is true) but mostly I was happy that she was
ready to face some of her demons, many of which have nothing to do with Alzheimer’s but the Alz has definitely ‘heightened’ some of the parts of her personality that are….how shall I put this? …..strong (read: annoying as sh*t) but seem to me to be (deeply) rooted in some pain or past that hopefully she is ready to face.

I’m a big advocate of therapy, it’s helped me immeasurably at different times in my life but I also know that sitting across from a stranger, though a professional they may be, is not for everyone and especially someone Miss Cathy’s age (and generation).

And I know that the ‘Greatest Generation’ is not ‘great’ about ‘sharing their feelings’…especially when it involves the kind of navel gazing that my self absorbed generation (the last of the baby boomers-thus aptly named the ‘Me Generation”) is/was all to eager to explore.

We (me) grew up reading “Jonathan Livingston’s Seagull”, ”How to be Your own Best Friend” and “I’m OK, You’re OK”, while our parents still remember reading the WWll mantra “Loose lips, Sink ships” (and internalized that to inhibit introspection apparently).

But, it was because of their stoicism growing up during the depression and thriving after the war(s) that we were able to run around with feathers and flowers in our hair (be it an afro or parted in the middle and worn as long and straight as you could iron it), drink Coke (and later snort it) and ‘try to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony’.

So, giving the differences of how we learned to cope I applaud an older person, specifically my Miss Cathy for embracing self-reflection.

Who says you can’t teach an old dog new ways to contemplate.