Sex Drive ~ Part One

After exactly 4 years  - I am finally ready to share this story. It represents the kick off to mother's Alzheimer's. Looking back it was an indication of the craziness to come, but at the this time I didn't know it. I will post Sex Drive in four parts. The following is part one.  

June 25, 2008, 830am - My Mom’s Office

Mom: “I put an ad on the Internet for a man...”

Me: “You did??? 

I stop what I am doing and look up at her in shock. 

Me: Well, what did you say in the ad?” 

Mom: “I want to get screwed!” 

WHAT? 

I hear the words coming from my mother's mouth - but I cannot believe what they have said. 

Me: “You do? 

“Whose name did you use in the ad?”

Mom: “My own.” 

I cannot believe it - any of it. My mom has put an ad on the Internet for a man and she has just told me in a whisper, at her office that she wants to get screwed? Worse still, she put her own name in the ad? That’s not even safe to do! My mother has lost her mind, but she seems perfectly capable to tell me about it...

This is not my mother. Not only is she is the most conservative woman on the planet, never drinking, never smoking, she has only had a few sexual partners in her whole life. Where was this coming from? 

Although we had had a very strong relationship, we had never discussed sex. She grew up in the 60‘s and the age of The Cleaver’s; I in the 80‘s in the age of Madonna. She was much too shy to ever talk to me about sex, it wasn't part of her generation, and I never wanted to embarrass her. The day after I got my period I came home from school to a book lying on my bed. “Did you get the book?” That was the extent of our sex talk. 

The doctor had warned me - but I hadn’t believed her. I didn’t believe my mother would ever exhibit these symptoms.  “There is one more thing you need to know, people with this illness often lose their sexual inhibition and because of this they often exhibit sexual behaviors - in public” the doctor went on...”people with this disease have been known to take their clothes off, touch themselves, or someone else, in public.” Oh, thank god - I thought to myself, that’s one thing I don’t have to worry about - this is my mother you’re talking about. I would do something like that (with the right amount of alcohol) -  my mother? ha. She would never-ever do anything like that. Or so I thought. 

To be continued...

Comments

[Richard]

Boy can I relate to this. I'm in year 3 (or 4 or 5....) of my mom's dementia. One phase that we've thankfully moved on from was the year in which my mom started going through her "phone book". For years - before she lost her mind - my mother was quite the party person. She actually owned a nightclub for about ten years. She was very classy. She did not date much. She just enjoyed the nightlife. But over the years she had collected quite a few phone numbers and names in her small phone book.

Once she was confined to her home (she lives with my aunt) she started using her phone book to reconnect with old friends she had not spoken to in years. Well my aunt worked during the day at the time and we had no idea what my mother was up to. But all of a sudden men started showing up to take my mother out. My aunt gave in a few times but it quickly got out of hand. My mother... the one who confuses her 41 year old son (my brother) for her own brother... was dating.

These men had no concept of the idea that my mom has dementia! That or they just didn't care. One of the men actually threatened to turn me in for holding my mother as a prisoner because we would not let him take her on a beach trip. As I explained to him that she had dementia and literally did not know what day or year it is he acted as if he'd had no idea.

Unfortunately her dementia has progressed to the point where its very obvious.