I might be Wrong.
Returning to what matters, again and again
Theme: The Broken
Listen deeper.
Listen again.
Listen to what my heart already knows.
Learning to Listen
One of the most useful things I've learned over the past year is to listen like I might be wrong.
Not because I don't know Milly. I know her very well.
But I don't know the Milly who has dementia.
I know the woman she's always been. I know her habits, her personality, her ways of doing things, the things that irritate me and the things I love about her.
But dementia has changed the way she experiences the world, and sometimes I forget that.
So when something she says or does doesn't make sense to me, I try to pause before deciding I know what's going on.
Because quite often, I don't.
She wants to go home?
Milly often says she will be able to go home soon. I used to find it incredibly frustrating.
"How on earth do you think you're going to manage?" I'd think, and sometimes say, with irritation. "You can't even manage your personal care."
I told myself it was the lack of insight that comes with dementia but, if I'm honest, I also felt slightly hurt.
What's wrong with living here?
She would sometimes say she wanted to go home after asking why she hadn't got her newspaper yet, or after noticing dust on the bottom of her bedside table and asking for a duster so she could clean it.
I heard that I wasn't clean enough. That she'd rather be back in her own home.
And yet she was always smiling, grateful and happy.
Eventually, I stopped assuming I knew what was going on in her head and asked her.
"Are you OK living with us? Do you feel unsettled here? Do you wish I cleaned a bit more?"
"I LOVE it here," she said, with such passion that I knew I'd completely misunderstood.
"I wanted to check because you say you want to go home and I don't want you to feel unhappy here."
"Oh my goodness, no! I am so lucky here. I just don't want to be a burden. I want to help if I can."
And there it was.
What I'd heard as rejection was actually consideration.
She wasn't trying to escape us. She was trying not to impose on us.
I had been listening, but I hadn't really been listening.
And being kind feels so nice.
For both of us!
The tablets
I'd made the same mistake with her tablets.
Milly has always liked to do things properly. If the doctor said 5pm, then 5pm it was.
I'd leave her tablets beside her meal and return to find them untouched.
"Why haven't you taken your tablets?" I would say with irritation, every single day.
"Well, I wasn't sure."
"Who else are they for?" I'd sometimes snap.
She'd quickly take them.
It took me far too long to ask what she was actually unsure about.
When I finally did, she explained that she wasn't sure whether she should take them because she'd just eaten. She remembered having to take a tablet before food and sometimes taking them after, and she couldn't work out the timing anymore.
She wasn't being difficult.
She was worried about getting it wrong.
Looking again
These moments remind me how quickly I fill in the gaps. It's easier and quicker. I see the behaviour and create my own explanation.
She's being stubborn.
She's being unreasonable.
She wants to go home.
She's making things difficult.
So now, when my irritation lasts too long, I try to pause.
What am I assuming?
What might I have missed?
What if there's another explanation?
I don't always remember. I'm still impatient. I still get frustrated. Caring for someone 24/7 doesn't magically turn you into a saint.
But listen like I might be wrong has become a little meditative phrase for me.
When I'm fed up or irritated and can't seem to let it go, I take a breath and say it to myself.
And somehow, it gives me another way of looking at things.
Sometimes, when I look again, what I thought was rejection is Milly being a mother and worrying about me.
And if I'm honest, that can really annoy me.
The mother in her is still very much there, and it feels as though she's treating me like a child. I don't always respond gracefully to that.
But I can see what's underneath it. She's worrying about me.
And I might miss that one day ...
Sometimes that small shift is enough to change how I respond.
Listen like you might be wrong
I don't always get it right.
I still jump to conclusions. I still get irritated. I still have moments when I think, for goodness sake, Milly!
But now I have that little phrase that helps me stop.
Listen like you might be wrong.
And quite often, I am.
But I'm only human!