How much anti-Catholic complaining can I tolerate?

[DarkLight]

One thing I’ve found helpful is to have a small crucifix or medal in a pocket or purse. When someone starts going on, reach in and touch it and offer up a little prayer for patience.

 

[Xantippe]

That would be very cruel and unkind.

Especially since she would probably forget and you’d have to keep telling her the same thing over and over and over again.

 

[underacloud]

I don’t have any concrete suggestions, but just a general sentiment. When dealing with difficult elderly people, we all need to remember that we may one day be difficult elderly people too. Let’s show them the kindness and patience that we hope to receive when our time comes.

And of course, as Catholics, we should rightly view such kindnesses as a form of penance.

 

[tp3192000]

Especially since she would probably forget and you’d have to keep telling her the same thing over and over and over again.

 

[sailor28]

This is sort of a rant on my part. We have an elderly friend of the family, and my husband is her POA and healthcare proxy, so we see her quite a bit now. She has short-term memory loss. She was in a convent orphanage as a child and had a terrible experience, finally being adopted at the age of around 11 into a nice home in the U.S. Over and over again when we’re with her she talks about how she hates the pope and wants to confront and sue him about her ill treatment as a child, how bad religion is, especially Catholicism, how terrible nuns and priests are, etc etc. Because she forgets what she says from one sentence to the next, we hear it every time, multiple times, we’re together. I am truly losing patience with the situation and it makes me not want to be around her. I still want DH to take care of her as a family-less older person, I know she is talking out of ignorance and is otherwise a good person - but it is becoming very tough.

Maybe not looking for solutions so much as ways for me to deal personally, since this is not something that can be changed.

I would see her situation with compassion. We know so much now about how important that early attachment is with a mother. Take a look at Bolby’s studies. This woman did not have that. The first 11 years of her life were very difficult. Those are the years we form connections in our brains and learn how to give and receive love. It sounds like she was never able to receive therapy and healing for this. What was her terrible experience like? Does she ever share how bad it was? That is her first experience of Catholicism. Show her a different experience by showing her compassion when she speaks of this. Maybe no one has ever acknowledged this painful period of her life.

Kudos to both you and your husband for helping her. You should seek to understand in this situation rather than be understood.

 

[ThyKingdomCome]

Perhaps it may help to see how wounded she is, and with such deep wounds, compounded with the memory loss, she might be incapable of looking at this with any maturity.

Imagine if you had a 3 year old niece who was got in trouble and was throwing a tantrum. This little one throwing a tantrum is so consumed with her emotions that she is saying every nasty thing she can think of to say - for a 3 year old, maybe she is saying that Mommy is mean or she hates Mommy, or kids shouldn’t have to have Mommies or something like that. You won’t take it personally, or feel hurt for your sister (the Mommy in question), because you understand that the tantrum is a result of the child being immature. You know that she is incapable of looking at the situation logically, and you know that her statement holds no weight. It sounds like that is what is going on here. This woman has been so badly wounded by her childhood that she can’t look at the situation objectively. And now that her mental abilities are diminishing, she isn’t able to look at herself objectively either. So you are getting a sort of toddler tantrum - it doesn’t have to mean anything to you, if you know that it is coming from a place of hurt and immaturity. She is not likely hurting the church or influencing other people by having this opinion. She is just acting out on a terrible wound that has never healed - at this point, while I might initially bristle, or be annoyed at the same old same old, I might feel the most sadness as how badly she must have been hurt.

I also think Dark Light’s suggestion of something in your pocket to remind you to be patient, is a good one.

 

[ack]

Redirect and divert.

Everyone has noticed that the very elderly will sometimes repeat the same stories in a loop, over and over again, forgetting what they told you yesterday or even 5 minutes ago. She probably has several such stories that she enjoys repeating.

It may be a simple matter to ask a leading question that redirects her to a story that you find more palatable whenever this comes up.

 

[retire_early]

My sympathies.

It is taxing to try to communicate with someone with dementia who repeats themselves time and time again…and, in this case, with such a diatribe against the Church.

When my mom suffered from dementia and lived in the nursing home, I found it helpful to direct her attention to the “here and now”, i.e.: bringing to her attention something in the room, asking her questions about it, etc. If you converse about the very physical, concrete things around the elder person (the food on the table, her clothes, small items that you brought for her to look at, feel, touch, remark on) you will have luck getting her brain turned from the “stuck” mode. Also, helping her get up to “walk a little bit” (if she is able), then focusing on getting her a glass of water to drink, etc.----all little “here and now” things that don’t allow the her brain to slip back to the distant past — then the time might pass more pleasantly.