What To Do With Dementia Patients Who Insist Upon Running Free?

Jennifer asks: Is it better to let people who have lost function in this world with Alzheimers, but who still have mobility and determination to be free of home constraints, just go off on their own? Or is it better to keep them safe and out of the hands of law enforcement by keeping them restrained against their will? 

Oh my Holy Spirit, what is Your advice in this case?

“Oh, Linda Layli, Layli Linda, this is a natural question and it is the most awful dilemma in the world faced by loving family members of those folks who have lost their mental facilities but not their physical abilities to defy all efforts to help them. By the time that they reach this stage, there is no moral solution but to hamper their freedom so that they cannot do further damage to themselves.

But, this requires so much time, effort and expense to simply  keep them from hurting themselves, that it naturally kicks back to the way that this person lived their life before abandoning any responsibility for it. A large percentage of these people were not happy in the first place, and lived under a cloud of depression and dissatisfaction. Science is learning of the direct correlation between stress and unhappiness and this monstrous form of dementia, which grips people in their old age.

These very patients had chipped away at their life force, as represented by their mentality, long before they vacated total responsibility for their completely-irresponsible actions. This is a self-fulfilling prophecy of the Modern Age. If one believes that “Life is Unfair!” or that “Nobody Loves Me!” or that “I Wish I’d Never Been Born!” then, this will eventually come true! In such a way, people make their own Heaven or their own Hell, right here on Earth; and they inflict that upon their loved ones, as well.

So, no! Family members are quite free to ignore the “Will” of the Rebellious One, since they had been given plenty of time during their long life to use their own free will to create a wonderful, happy life for themselves and their family members. But, they usually moaned and groaned and refused to take charge of things and to improve them when they could have.

This energetic mobility, once the mind has gone, is a bit like the reflex action of a frog’s legs and has no personality to it.  Don’t be trapped into a sympathetic reflex of your own, but see it as a final contrarian act by someone who was not willing to get involved in working out ways to answer their own fussy complaints about life. It’s way too late for that now! Since they usually chose the armchair over action; it’s now foolish for them to rebel against confinement to it when that’s all there is left.

Family members should recognize this new rebellious activity as a continued fight against life, through the only method now available to a suddenly-strong, formerly-dependent one. Musculature that can still walk itself out the door! Suddenly, words and arguments are no longer as easy to command as arms and legs! In the patient’s mind, life is just as unfair as it always was and “They’re not going to take it lying down!” But, as always, they take no responsibility to improve it, and continue to make everyone in their presence as unhappy as they are.

When you realize that when the chronic complainer has no more voice, and that they  simply shift to a more physical means of protest; then it becomes clear that society, or the unlucky family members must also shift to another method of “putting up with the static.” This entire tragedy is a two-generational waste of manpower.”

As an “Oldster,” myself, I just can’t defend those passively aggressive weak ones, who have spent their lives grousing to God and everyone else. And then, when their barely-used mind shuts down, they still want what they want when they want it! And then, Voila! New-found power becomes theirs through the sheer drama of escape! Wheee! Suddenly, everyone must stay on their toes to protect them! That attitude is a lot like a toddler. Have these humans never really left infancy?

“That is not going to be a popular attitude, but it’s true! Often people attribute adulthood, merely because the body looks adult, but if the behavior is constantly self-centered, then they have never left childhood and their mind has no resources. This is a product of the human condition in today’s world. Of course, other things can destroy the mind, as well. Pollutants in the air, water and food, for instance. But, in a depressed individual, this mindless rebellion may simply be the result of lifelong dissatisfaction.”

About Linda J. Brown

Linda is a solo around the world traveler, having slowly explored the world's two hemispheres. A third trip around the equator has just begun, planned to last at least four years. After living for a year in the spiritual and beautiful town of Santa Fe, New Mexico, she has transferred to the beautiful and spiritual town of San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Feeling honored that the mysterious Hurricane Patricia paid her a call during her first week; she is none-the-less, eternally-grateful that this "worst hurricane in human history" decided to leave the planet alone, after all.
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