Memory and Emotion

Orchid is a new reader to this blog and she posted a comment on the last posting, it was so interesting I thought I'd move part of her comment up here into the main section so it doesn't get missed!
:-)


Here is what she wrote:


First, Okaasan can't remember so many things, yet she remembers if the piles of laundry and garbage in her room are moved/altered. How is it that something so unremarkable can be remembered and she becomes angry? Surely the composition and height of the piles is something even people who don't suffer from dementia would not remember well. Also, she has been angry with you for long spans of time for cleaning her room, but how is it that she remembers what she is angry about for such a long period of time? Why does she remember her paranoid beliefs that you stole a magazine when she can't keep many other memories at hand for a minute?

Is dementia highly selective in this way? Is she storing new memories with an emotional component (those that make her angry or anxious) differently than those which have a neutral component? If so, can that be used to make sure she remembers things of importance which are positive?

I've studied neurobiology a tiny bit, and I know that memories are stored such that both the details and the emotions are locked in together. It is impossible for one to be elicited without the other, and ironically, when a memory is jogged by external stimuli, sometimes the details of the memory are not brought forth but the feeling is. This is why people have anxiety and don't know why in certain situations. The emotion stored with the memory of a similar experience comes out, but the memory itself doesn't make it. I don't know if this relates to dementia, but if your reading has revealed any answers about this selective memory situation, I'd be very curious to know.


My thoughts....


1. I think she remembers what is important to her - and the "you stole my magazine" 2 years ago was a good example of that. Magazines are important to her. She makes special trips to the shops to buy the latest, she sits and looks at them in detail and copies down recipes from them. That time I probably removed a recently bought magazine...now I am much more careful and I take out magazines from the BOTTOM of the piles....!


I don't think she notices the changes in piles of clothes/newspapers/trash around her room - but if she can't find a particular item of clothing WHEN she is looking for it - then maybe the knowledge that we go into her room when she isn't there comes crashing to the fore.


She appears to remember the real angry times for about 5 days - or at least the emotion continues for about 5 days...and then it is gone again.


I reckon she DOES know we go in and remove clothes for washing and take out trash - but she accepts it basically.


2. Positive or Negative emotions, are they stored differently? I don't know! But I think the positive are easier to retrieve if SHE is basically happy in her days.
So every single time we eat okonomiyaki (savory pancake) it brings to life her happy memories of eating it after school as a child. I guess we ALL bury negative memories...


3. I think dementia sufferers do have selective memory - and for carers it can be disconcerting - you are never quite sure if she has remembered or not.
I've even seen her lose the memory of one of her own favorite stories...she is telling it as usual, and then the next piece of information isn't there. The following day - same story and the missing bit reappears! Once or twice I've supplied the forgotten details - but that confuses her because of course there is no reason why I should know HER story (except I've heard it a million times already).


It's all very strange....and interesting...funny...and frustrating....

Fear of the guilty.

Sorry. Been busy. TRYING to get Xmas presents and cards done and sent this year, before the post office has to charge me special prices for a personal jet to deliver each and every single one.

Almost done. Spent some sweaty hours in the shops at the weekend remembering why I hate shopping so much, came home and wrapped it all with the help of cats, and then surprised a rural post office yesterday by telling them there are places - oh wow! - outside Japan to send stuff too....got the counter lady, the manager and their trusty manual to process that transaction...


All quiet at home.
Almost too quiet.
I managed to sneak out laundry from Okaasan's room: the usual 30-40 pairs of urine soaked and smelly pants, some wooly tights, some pajamas, a blouse and a little summer sweater.
Recently at dinner she turned up the cuffs of the sweater and I almost gagged - inside was a murky area of grey/black dirt. Gross. She hasn't washed this for ages...a year maybe? 
She used to wash some clothes, occasionally, or take them to the dry cleaners - HAD to be the cleaning shop way across town near the old apartment.


But recently? I think she hasn't done much laundry this summer. Occasionally a few pants.


It doesn't matter so much. She spends all day in her pajamas and a sweater. She only gets dressed to go out. Doesn't meet anyone anymore. It doesn't matter really if she is a smelly old lady for shop staff and subway passangers.


But...I feel I should try to do some clothes washing. Of course...this is hard ...if I suggest it to her she'll say: "no, no leave it - I'll do it myself later"...and then forget for another 6 months.
Hence: Sneaking Laundry.


But, Sunday night as Yujiro was making dinner, Okaasan shuffled across the kitchen to get a cup of water wearing The Mask. That strange, blank look that she gets. 
Don't want any dinner.


?????????????????


Had she found the missing clothes? Or rather, not found them?
I was in a tizz....had I over-sneaked clothes from her room and now she was angry with me...had I tipped her over into a dark mood?
After our dinner we talked about it safely upstairs. He thought maybe she'd had a toilet accident and was blue, but couldn't tell us. Or had eaten too many snacks by the TV all day and just wasn't hungry.
I wasn't so sure. Nervous that we were heading into scary Okaasan time, with accusations and finger pointing and paranoia. 
Except, it isn't paranoia is it when people ARE coming into your room and sneaking out your clothes!


I wondered how I could shift the laundry-doing  into another mode. Ideally we'd go and offer to do some laundry for her about once a week and take the stuff with her blessing...but I really don't think she will let us do that...yet.
Okaasan is still too aware of herself, thinks she is in control to allow us to "help"...it is a hard topic - how do you "help"/"encourage" the life of someone who thinks they don't need you?
I'm sure she thinks she does laundry - but the boxes of smelly underpants in her room and the soiled, greasy sweaters tell a different story.


But. By Monday morning.　The black mood had passed. The Mask was replaced by a polite, smiling Okaasan again. I continued drying laundry upstairs in our apartment and while Okaasan was out yesterday Yujiro managed to put it all back in her room - spreading the clean stuff around on the bed and sofa and floor so she thinks it was always there.


I feel deceitful doing laundry this way...but I can't see an alternative yet.

All clear...down there...

Got the letter from the hospital: my big intestine is cancer free! Maybe (I read that this shit test doesn't have such great accuracy, but I'll take it as a good thing for now...).


So, that's ok then.


I won't be spending my Christmas season in a cancer scare....


Meanwhile...we are waiting for Okaasan to come home and tracking her movements on the cell phone GPS. She is downtown and wandering to....and fro...and to...and fro....she doesn't go downtown alone so much these days, so this is a rarity.
We are wondering how much longer to leave her there...before calling her to come home for dinner.

Middle-aged. Really?

How did THAT happen?


That ski bum boy I fell for....just turned 53 years old.
And the sliver of cake in the Italian restaurant was too small to get any more than 4 candles on it!


He and I left sushi for Okaasan (she must come to hate sushi dinners cos she knows she is eating alone), and we slipped away downtown with our Groupon vouchers for a Y5,000 course dinner for 50% price. We are a very cheap couple.


In the morning I jokingly reminded Okaasan that it WAS her son's birthday, and thanked her profusely for creating such a wonderful guy....joke joke. She enjoyed that conversation...but  when he mentioned it again to her at lunchtime...she'd already forgotten it.


Was it only 3 years ago that I whisked him away to India on a surprise holiday? And we came back....and moved his mother in to live with us? Seems a million years ago. SO much has happened. Life has changed. Both of us became middle-aged and (almost) responsible...elderly care, sickness, death, lawyers, tax advisers, funerals....a lot of life.


Last night I started in on the Christmas cards. I'm using a bag of cards that I took from Dad and Jane's house a year ago, and they arrived here in Japan in my boxes of stuff earlier this year.
So, it was a little strange to be sitting down and sorting through Jane's Christmas card selection. Cards that she'd bought and kept...cards she'd bought with ME in mind. Talk about poignant. Apart from me, there is one other cat-lover in her family - niece Anna - so I know all the cards with cat pictures were bought to send to either Anna or I.


Pretty poignant. I was very, very loved. I felt Jane was there with me looking through the cards and deciding which to send to who. I'm sending many of her cards back to England to her friends and family members. Mourning never goes away completely, it just hides under the table a bit and waits for a leg to grab.


Sorry. Sad post. Not sad really. End of year blues maybe?


Better have a cute cat photo to cheer it all up.


Popo thinks he may be Super Cat. All he needs is the cape and the underpants.