My dad has frontal-temporal (frontotemporal) dementia. It was diagnosed this summer (summer 2012), but our family thinks this may have been going on for at least the past 10 years.
According to the doctors, frontal-temportal dementia is one of the rarer forms of the disease, affecting a person's behaviour, personality and language skills first before the memory fails later on in the disease. It is very different from Alzheimer's as it is usually the memory that fails first.
To be honest, I'm not really sure where to start with this story, there's so much to tell and I can't seem to get it all out in a structured, logical manner. I guess I'll start with my dad. He is 67 years old and worked as a structural engineer for much of his life until going into teaching and lectured at a polytechnic about engineering. He was already in his 40s when he met my mum and there is an 18 year age gap between them, my mum was only in her early 20s when they met! It was a summer romance that blossomed into marriage and babies, two of us came along, I am the eldest child and I have a younger brother. I have many happy memories from my childhood, going on walks with my dad and family holidays together.
My parents' marriage broke down more than 10 years ago, I think I was about 12 when it happened (I am 23 now). There were constant arguments and upsets in the house, with each parent threatening to file for divorce and both parents storming off at some point because the argument had got so heated. It wasn't a very happy time in our lives, I became a moody, angsty teen; I'll openly admit now I was more than a handful for my mum. I don't think dad knew how to handle me and although I had once been daddy's girl we grew apart. My brother would have been about 6 or 7, he was extremely upset and distressed due to the instability in our lives. My brother and I grew very close as a result, we had to look out for one another.
During this time, dad said and did numerous hurtful and horrible things to both of us and my mum. There were numerous loud, angry arguments that escalated very quickly; dad threatened to not collect my brother and I from school numerous times, he blamed mum for all the financial problems in the house and demeaned her job and contribution to the household. He also lost his job around this time, which made the arguing worse. He never managed to find another job so he became the "house-husband" whilst my mum provided for the family. My parents had some investments and dad did the odd sessional job which brought in a bit of extra income.
Throughout all this, they never actually filed for divorce, I'm not sure either one of them even went as far as seeing a solicitor. Mum bought a new bed and moved into the spare room and that is how they have stayed since. My brother's hatred for dad was so strong that he begged and pleaded for mum to go ahead and do it and "get rid of him". Mum always told us she never did because they were both financially better off together and she needed him to do the few chores in the house that he did (picked us up from school, prepared the evening meal etc) as she worked long hours.
Things eventually settled down and we got used to our dysfunctional family situation. For my part, I was happy with the way things were, I thought if that's how they want to live their lives then so be it. I also had both parents under the same roof and things were relatively settled, even if there was a constant tense under current in the house. Inviting friends or new boyfriends round was always stressful, you could never guess what tiny thing would set off a full blown argument.
I moved away to study at university and quickly separated myself from the "family battles" and was able to ignore them to a certain extent. Around once a fortnight or so I'd get a stressed out message from my brother telling me of the newest argument, but I could ignore my phone.
Life carried on in this way until the past year or so when mum really felt there "was something wrong" with dad and insisted he went to see the GP and then pushed for a referral to the psychiatrist. In June this year, dad had his diagnosis and we are all trying our best to cope with it.
Thank you for reading, I hope by writing about my experiences and feelings, I can raise awareness the impact all kinds of dementia has on the family and come to terms with my own emotions.
