listening, registering

A small story today from one friend, and another story of another friend that it reminded me of.

A friend (I’ll call her Friend A) has a mother with dementia. As part of her retirement planning, she and her husband were considering moving to a city where there were relatives, so the support systems could be mutual, but she hesitated because dementia can get rather overwhelming, and she did not want these relatives to feel imposed upon or out of their depth.

So she spent days explaining to the relatives the exact nature of her mother’s problems, the delusions, the insecurity and resultant grabbing of attention by fair means and foul, the never-satisfied attitude, and the sheer overwhelm. The relatives were cool about it. Come over, we understand, we’ve seen people like that, we’ll help each other out. You look after our parents so we can go on vacations, and we’ll do likewise.

Friend A moved to this other city, a move that was rather tricky and tiresome, and meant redesigning a lot of life decisions, including career. Her relatives kept in close touch for the first few weeks, but then, they became increasingly busy. While they did manage to go for plenty of vacations (because A was there to help out), they stopped visiting the dementia mother within two months.  They were often too busy to say hello, or ask Friend A how her mother was, even when the mother was being taken to the hospital for a fracture. Finally, there was a conversation on this, which went something like:

Relatives to Friend A: “We stopped coming because you set too many rules about interacting with your mother–talk about this, don’t give her this food, even when she said she wanted it.”

Friend A: “My mother has dementia. She doesn’t remember what suits her and what doesn’t. I have been caregiving for her for ten years, so I know, and therefore I tell you what suits her and what causes her indigestion. Some types of discussion agitate her, so they have to be avoided. All this is stuff I explained to you so many times before.”

Relatives: “Yes, but she asked to eat that dish, and you said we shouldn’t give it. There were too many rules, too much controlling,”

Friend A: “She does not remember that it gives her severe indigestion. She is too weak to handle the indigestion it gives her.”

Relatives: “But she asked for it.”

Friend A: I had told you so many times that this could happen… (Falls silent, not sure how to explain more)

Relatives: (Exaggerated shrugs) “Anyway, so we find this all very stressful and we don’t want to be involved.”

And then, the relatives, continued ignoring Friend A as a person. Friend A is shocked. She feels both isolated and hurt.  She has been very careful not to let any caregiving burden fall on people (unless they volunteer, which they don’t) and now she does not have even the social company she needs to get away from the caregiving environment. 

Friend A told me repeatedly, “I told them so many times, weren’t they listening? I was a fool to make such a major move. I never even asked for help, couldn’t they have at least kept talking to me like I was a human being? For them it’s a single shrug…but for me… Shouldn’t they have thought about this before, when I explained everything in such detail? How can I let them give my mother food that makes her ill, just so that they feel nice about giving it? What else could I have done?”

I have no answer to A’s question.  But  although it is not a consolation, I related a story to her, and this is an insight I got from a very dear friend–I’ll call her Friend B.

Friend B is involved in a lot of volunteer work, and is compassionate and insightful. I have lost touch with her, as is wont in life when we move on, and people move on, but I have fond memories of some extremely insightful and enriching things she shared with me before I lost touch with her.

B does volunteer work in villages, and this involves small and long trips to villages. She also gathers other volunteers for volunteer works, and one cousin of B, a young college student, decided to go on such a trip.

Before this cousin went, B explained to her what the work was. But more than that, she explained something that usually shocks city-bred people on their first trip to a village: There are no toilets in the village. People use fields for ‘nature calls.’ Cousin said, cool, I get it.

When the cousin returned from a two day trip, she was furious with B.

“You never told me there are no toilets in the village,” she said.

“I did,” said B. “I did so several times.”

“No, you did not. How could I have forgotten it if you told me!! You know, there are no toilets in the village!!”

Later, B told me, the problem with people is, they don’t listen. You tell them something important, and you tell them repeatedly, but if it is outside their zone of imagination and experience, they don’t extend themselves to really listening.

I dare say this story is not a consolation to Friend A, but possibly, it does de-personalize what happened to her.  Not listening is, perhaps, a human characteristic. Not registering other people’s problems, minimizing them, or assuming you can handle them better, seems common across humans. It is only when you actually face a situation that the overwhelm or impact of it hits.

I hope Friend B, wherever she is, is a good listener, and I hope Friend A shall be one, too, when her turn comes to listen and register. I do know listening, really listening, is not easy, and I slip on this often enough, because when people are talking, and if the problem seems remote enough, I am not sure I remain attentive enough to fully grasp the import of what was said.

If you like this post, please Share/ like this post using the buttons below.

You can also follow this blog by getting email notifications; click the “Follow me” option at the bottom of the right sidebar. Thank you!