Ok I know this is a like invasion of privacy but I thought you guys would wanna see this:
I know this is going to sound crazy but I need your help, anyone’s help really.
I moved in with my grandma about five years ago. My parents died when I was young and my dad was her only child. She practically raised me so when she stopped being able to take care of herself I of course took her in. She’s got dementia and has had it for a while now. When I first moved her into my place she was lucid most days but now it’s very rare to see the woman who raised me.
This is not what I’m asking for help with. I’m a nurse practitioner and I know how to deal with dementia. It’s how her dementia is affecting her, specifically, I guess. In the early stages she would do things like mistake me for her sister or her mother and forget my grandpa was long dead. All normal. Every once in a while though I would find her sitting in the dark on the floor, scratching at the carpet or the hardwood. It was like she was in a trance. Nothing I said or did could bring her back. I would just have to sit and watch as she slowly drug her nails across the ground over and over.
Then a few minutes would pass and she’d be back, like nothing ever happened. Every time it seemed to go on a little longer.
Two months ago things escalated. The past year her health has really gone downhill. She is barely ever lucid enough to remember me. The scratching episodes became more frequent and increasingly longer. She has to wear gloves constantly to keep her from scratching herself bloody, again.
Then, one day, she came back to me. She remembered who she was and who I was. We talked about the past few years and everything she missed. We cried and laughed. I finally had my grandma back. She spotted one of the blood stains on the floor, I wasn’t always able to get the blood out of the hardwood, and asked about it. I resisted but she insisted I tell her. So I did. I told her all about the scratching. She listened in horror, staring down at her hands. When I finished she grabbed me by the shoulders.
“You are not safe here.” She said
I was so confused. My grandma had never hurt me during one of these episodes, just herself. I told her as much but she just shook her head.
“You don’t understand. I didn’t either. No one ever understands. You can’t be here. You can’t be with me” She started rambling on like this, repeating herself over and over. Her eyes went glassy and after a few minutes she stopped. She looked at me without any recognition and asked if her mom was coming to pick her up soon. That night I woke up to my grandma sitting on the floor of my bedroom, scratching. She had taken off her gloves and was dragging already bloody nails across my carpet. I had no idea how long she had been sitting there. I jumped out of bed and ran to find her gloves. When I came back into the room, she was gone. I peaked in her room to see her sound asleep on her bed. I gently placed the gloves on her hands and went back to my room. Before turning out the lights I looked at the spot on the floor where she’d been scratching. Her blood had left the remnants of a word. Spike. The name of the neighbors’ dog.
The next week was normal. She wasn’t lucid again but there were no episodes, no strange occurrences. Until three weeks ago. I woke up to my grandma standing in my doorway. She was silent and completely still. I called for her but she didn’t move. She just stood there, in the dark, watching me.
I started to get up to get her back to her bed, but before I could even get the covers off me she was screaming. I rushed out of bed and turned on the lights. My grandma’s face was completely unmoving, her mouth wide open, her eyes unblinking. She was pointing one finger at me and screaming without taking a breath. For a moment I couldn’t move. I just stared at her finger, her eyes, her face. Everything seemed so WRONG. Finally, I snapped out of it and ran to her.
She stayed in the same position, but her eyes followed me. I told her to calm down, that it was just me. The screaming died out. She didn’t move, didn’t even lower her finger. I put my arms around her shoulders and tried to walk her back to her room.
Slowly, step by step, we went down the hall and back to her room. I got her into bed but I couldn’t get her to lower her finger or shut her eyes. I sat by her bed, waiting for her to fall asleep. She never did. Just stared at me. I must have dozed off because I woke up to light streaming in through the window and my grandma’s bed empty.
I ran through the house calling for her. I found the backdoor wide open and ran through to find my grandma in the backyard, covering a hole with dirt. I asked her what she was burying but she only giggled. I led her back into the house and cleaned the dirt off her hands. I thought I saw blood under her nails but that could’ve been from one of her episodes. Nothing new. That’s what I told myself.
She wasn’t the same after that. She is never lucid, not even a little. She doesn’t speak, only giggles or screams. She cuts my hair while I’m not looking. She stands in my doorway every night, sometimes screaming sometimes silent. She laughed harder than I’ve ever seen her laugh when the neighbors came by asking if we’d seen their dog. She always seems to have dried blood under her nails or in her hair. She’s dug more holes in the backyard. I’m too scared to dig them up. I think I know what I’ll find.
Today I found her scratching again. She wasn’t staring off at nothing like she usually does. She seemed aware of what she was doing. She looked up at me as I came in and smiled. She kept scratching without ever looking away from me. She was smiling too wide. I looked down at the floor. My name. She was scratching my name into the hardwood. I looked back up at her. She smiled even wider.
It’s now 2 am and I’m afraid to go to sleep. I can hear her in her room. Laughing. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know who to talk to.
She left her room now. I can hear her. Making her way down the hall.
OP never updated or responded to any of the comments. I don’t know what happened to her.