Thanks everyone for the different perspective. He probably is sliding into Alzheimers or something similar. Right now he can drive and live on his own. His life will probably have some big changes rather soon. It is very sad indeed.
It might be soon, or it could be years. One of my mothers (not the biological one) lost her mother to Alzheimers, and has herself been suffering from what looks like early onset Alzheimers for at least 10 years now. Some days, she’s fine, others she’ll be driving and not recognize her own neighborhood. Of course Dad tries to cover for her and reassure us kids it’s nothing, but she’s lost two jobs now over it - she just couldn’t remember what she was doing or how to do it and broke down at her desk in confusion. Rather than fire her outright, she was gently “laid off”. It’s incredibly sad, especially as she’s not yet 60, and is still in perfect health otherwise. She watched her mother go through it, and is now facing it for maybe 30 years herself. I can’t image how scary that’s got to be for her on the days when she realizes what’s happening.
My dad developed Parkinson’s related dementia, and his loss of impulse control was one of the first signs it was happening. He had been active in a “foster grandparents” program at a local school, and apparently was dismissed from the program because of inappropriate behavior. I’m not sure what it was, but I’ve heard about some other inappropriate behavior, and it certainly was nothing like the man I knew for all those years. Having a series of small strokes didn’t help, either.
So don’t be too hard on the poor guy. There are many things that could be causing it, but odds are that it’s based on something physical, not just because he’s suddenly turned into an ugly racist. And I’d also strongly urge his family try to get him checked out by a doctor.
Huh? I really don’t think that’s true. I’d like to know what racist beliefs I’m harbouring?
Everyone needs to answer that question for him or herself. We’ve done “everybody’s a little bit racist” threads before and most admit that they’re not immune. Perhaps you are free from racial prejudice, and hold other subconsious prejudices instead. Or maybe not. If so, people like you are incredibly rare. If you want to discuss it, the topic would fit best in a new thread so it could attract a larger audience. This one’s near the end of it’s life cycle.
So you’re saying this thread is going senile? 
snerk
I wasn’t expecting to laugh in this thread. Thanks, OtakuLoki
When my one granny started suffering from dementia she’d be normal most of the time, but then would make preopsterously out of character statements. The most hurtful was when she one day said something along the lines of “Gay people should be shipped off to their own island.”
My sister is a lesbian and grandma loved her to pieces. It was wholely out of chracter for her, and at no point in her life did she ever indicate she harboured hostile feelings to queer people or anyone of colour. As far as anyone is aware, she’s always been the type of person who firmly believed in “live and let live”.
But as her dementia progressed more and more really out of character stuff would come out of her mouth. :eek: Bascially, if it was somehow wrong, inflammatory, or horribly offensive, it would pop out.
As far as the family could tell, the stuff that was popping out of her mouth was all the stuff she was taught was “wrong” or “socially unacceptable” as she grew up. We don’t necessarily think she meant what she was saying (eg/ for one entire visit she kept referring to me as “Hey, Fuckface!” and my dad as “That Bastard”), but that she was lobbing out the most offensive things that occured to her.
At the onset of this dementia, she sounded lucid most of the time, so it was hard not to take it seriously. And she could drop bombs when least expected. But by the time she would sit in her wheelchair pointing at me and chanting “Fuckface… Fuckface… Hey, Fuckface…” she lost her credibility to be offensive.
something like that.
What an informative thread. I have been lucky all my life, and haven’t had to deal with this problem.
Makes me cry for the people and their loved ones who have to live through this.
[sub]Although, I may have to remember to call certain people “fuckface” and then blame it on my dementia.[/sub] 
PS–I know Og will get me for that.
My Grandfather never had Alzheimer’s, but he did suffer a few strokes and wasn’t all there. And I suspect some minor strokes before any we knew about.
Which is how I discovered that the only reason my grandparents married was because my grandfather took my grandmother on a date to a motel and couldn’t get it up and took that as a sign that this was the girl he was supposed to marry. Not the thing you expect to learn about your grandparents.
But he also came out with some racists things. He was a person of his era however - and that era gave its children a lot of racist baggage.
Yes, we kept a sense of humour about it, although it’s sad that for the last few years of her life, Grandma didn’t call me by name.
I was told that she would call me by name in my absence, but that she was always referring to me as if I was still a little boy. For example, early on when she was still pretty lucid, she was told I was moving back up to Canada to start a new job in Toronto, and her response was something along the lines of “Oh, my! Little Duncan must be so excited!” as if t was my first day of school. We surmised that since she didn’t see me as often once I grew up and went off to school, she no longer recognized me as an adult. In her mind, her grandson was that little boy who liked to go to the zoo. “Fuckface” was a name I shared with male doctors and male nurses too, so I guess it was a generic descriptor from intrusive men who were sometimes caregivers.
It was far more distressing to the family when my gran was lucid and behaved normally most of the time. Because then, it was much more difficult to tell if she meant the things she said or not. She started calling my dad “That Bastard” in a very casual and subtle way. Like she’d say: “Your mother met your father in college when that bastard was finishing his Master’s degree.” Or “When we decided to get rid of the red car, we decided to give it to Andrew, that bastard, because he was better at driving standard.” At the time she had no other signs of Alzheimers or dementia or anything else, and she seemed complately oblivious to what she’d said.
So everyone wondered if my dad had done something to cause this hostility. Then when it became clear that she did have some kind of condition that was manifesting itself, my poor dad started wondering if she’d always harbored this hostility and it was only coming to light now because of her compromised impulse control.
Eventaully the things she said were either so extreme, so out of context, or so silly in their delivery, that no one could possibly take it personally. One day at a back yard barbecue, Grandma suddenly decided to out my sister to my cousin (my cousin already knew my sister is gay), so my gran suddenly turned to my cousin and said: “She’s a gearbox, you know!” But she said the slur really proudly and enthusiastically as if she was saying “She’s going to med school, you know!”
My gran didn’t have Alzheimer’s. It was some kind of neurological condition that resulted in a lot of “cerebral calcification” and eventually included twitching, a bit like Parkinson’s.
Now, I can’t be the only person to whom this is a totally new term.
It’s a bit antiquated, from what I understand. I used to think it was somehow related to “diesel dyke”, but my sister has heard that it’s a bit more graphic and crass referring to dildo use (hand moving the shaft around the box), and since then I’ve heard it used for gay men in more of a “knob-gobbler” kind of context.
It’s not of our generation and we’ve never seriously thought to look up its origins.
NOTE: It might be regional too, although I’ve heard it in Canada too. (Gran was in the midwest U.S.A.)
Racism involves a complex mindset. Being born and raised in the Deep South, I have encountered many people that say racist things even though some of their actions speak otherwise. I have even heard them called on it. An older person might tell a nigger joke and someone else takes offense. The questioning becomes “Don’t you like X who has kept your house for a number of years?” The reply is “Of course, she is like family and better than much of my own family”. Other examples reveal the same thing.
It turns out that niggers are an abstraction in their minds and don’t mean much when it comes to any person of that race. Both of my parents say things that are mildly racist and yet you would be hard-pressed to find a liberal Northeasterner who has dedicated so much to being around and helping black kids. They both taught in an all-black elementary schools for years and my father even taught in a mostly black reform school where some of the kids had committed heinous crimes and needed strong help. My grandmother did as well and she sometimes utters an abstract racist thing.
I am pretty sure that I have done the same thing. I was partially raised by a black nanny called Lola from the time I was 17 months old until I graduated high school. After being gone for 13 years, she was the first one I visited (in a nursing home) on my way back and I did several more times throughout the trip. She died a few months ago and I sent flowers even though I didn’t do that for my own grandmother who died a few years ago and I couldn’t stand.
This isn’t really a new concept and one that lots of people don’t understand especially here in the just as racist Boston area. You can have prejudice against a certain amalgam of a group and yet be very open to individual members of that group. It isn’t great but it isn’t the bogeyman that some make it out to be and much of the country is given the luxury of imagining race equality simply because there aren’t that many people of the group in question to create everyday mental images and conflicts.
I’d never heard that one either.
This I definitely understand. It’s what I meant about everyone having their own prejudices, even if they’re not willing to act on them, or if they feel bad about them.
Having a person, who was previously holding a normal conversation announce that he hopes someone will re-start the Holocaust so the world could finally be free of the Jews once and for all* is well… disturbing doesn’t even begin to describe it. It is very interesting to hear that once people reach a certain mental state they seem to try their best to be offensive. I have a lot more compassion towards this person than I started out with a few days ago.
*And that’s been cleaned up a lot.
My step father went down in flames with senile demintia. My mom, bless her heart kept him at home until the end.
He was a man who grew up very poor in the “dirty thirties”… He couldn’t stand the idea of a person being hungry, as he had been hungry.
He was a man who had his hearing, and out look on humanity, damaged by his experiences in WW2. He worked to help create a scolarship for refugees after the war, but refused to ever accept any honours for his work.
He both believed in and embraced technology… (His generation saw so many good things come from it - pennicillian, agricultural technology, and the ease of burdon on the working man/worker’s rights).
He worked in a humble job (Janitor) for years, but did it with dignity and brought the money in that paid for our house/home.
He was a good man, a little old fashioned, but willing to let each person enjoy the freedoms that he had fought for, and had witnessed his friends dying for.
then the demntia hit.
Suddenly, anything “new” was evil. (His demntia was first diagnosed when he threw out the microwave we bought him and mom).
He forgot who I was. One day I was at their place, doing some basic house maintenence, when he explained to me that “hired hands” shouldn’t have “house priveledges” (I had taken a can of pop from the fridge). When I left, he had to check the trunk to make sure I wasn’t stealing tools.
Sometimes it was funny… (in a sad way)… We were up late watching some science fiction video that featured a battle between starships. He came into the room, looked at the TV for a few minutes and in a very scared, tiny voice asked “Is this the ‘News’, or just some of your nit wit shows?”.
He was afraid it was actually happening.
He had many other medical problems, most of them related to a life of hard work.
He died at home, and was piped to his grave by the Princess Pats (Honoured Cdn Millitary unit).
We still miss him. And will always remember him.
Regards
FML
After my grandfather had a stroke he was still physically able, but couldn’t talk. Except he seemed to be able to say cuss words. He’d never uttered a four letter word in his family’s presence, that I’d ever heard of, being a good, gentle man. He also changed in his personality, becoming angry and aggressive. It was like a different person living in his body. We think he may have had some comprehension, but couldn’t express himself.
After hurting his hip he had to be placed in a nursing home. He changed again, going quiet, and died two weeks later. The family thinks he knew the state he was in, and “let go”.
The first thing I thought when I heard the OP was “stroke”.
Were any members of that certain group in attendance? I assume you’d have said, if so.
That would have plunged the gathering into even deeper depths of awkward!
No, thank goodness.