At first, it seemed like it might be just L. She's very liberal, lives in Santa Fe, and is quite outspoken about her political views. She told my partner that she was being followed and that someone had been taking her journals, rifling through papers, and planting a mic in her computer. He was prepared to believe that the Feds are following her.
Uh. I have lots of friends from the 60s who worry about the feds, but I feel pretty confident that the Feds don't look like Men In Black, which is how she described the people following her. My job also requires that I now a little bit about technical surveillance and counter measures, so this didn't have any of the earmarks of gov or private surveillance. Family members have clung to that possibility, for obvious reasons.
I immediately told my partner that L is having paranoid delusions and she needs help. An ex-beau's father was schizophrenic and I've taken care of a grandfather with Alzheimer's and a MIL with multi-infarct dementia.
L is only 56. I'm having a hard time believing that this is alzheimer's related dementia. Admittedly, I don't want to believe it. Can anything get more bizarre? L's _78 year old mother_ is going to Santa Fe to help her daughter who may have alzheimer's but her mother and father are still sassy as whips!
I guess the reason why I'm having a hard time coming to terms with the possibility of an Alzheimer's diagnosis is that with my grandfather and MIL, it didn't manifest as _paranoid_ delusions. However, I also know that it may just manifest differently since what's happening is that the brain is being perforated slowly but surely. So, it depends on where the perforations are destroying the brain. I may just have dealt with people where the pattern was different. Or, maybe some folks are more prone to paranoia than others and it manifests in them as opposed to those who aren't.
Anyway, I guess it could be Alzheimer's but I'm wondering if anyone else knows of other possibilities. I guess I'm casting about, hoping to learn of possibilities that are treatable. It is heartbreaking. I just loved L so much. I know, I know, I can't do anything about it. But, gathering knowledge is how I deal with crises.
Thanks.
Kelley
"We're in a fucking stagmire."
--Little Carmine, 'The Sopranos'