Finger tapping and dementia.

[Couper]

I realize this is another asking for a diagnosis from afar kind of thing, but I'm wondering if anyone else has made this observation.  For some time my uBPDw has been zoning out.  When she is under stress it is worse, but it never goes away either.  At it's worse, she can be standing and staring like her processor is locked up.  Under normal circumstances this happens at dinner almost every night and has for the last few years.  Between bites her head is up and it's like she's staring at something outside the window and chewing slowly, then she'll come to, look at her plate again like nothing happened, take another bite, and do it again.  This will repeat for 20 minutes.  Now added to this she is tapping her fingers on her plate.  This has been going on several months but is something new.  Not tapping like she's intentionally playing music.  It's mindless tap-tap-tap-tap.  It's the same when getting something out of the refrigerator, standing there staring in with the door open and tap-tap-tap-tap on the aluminum handle. 

There's a lot of tapping going on, it's a new thing, and when I Google it there are results coupled with dementia and "brain dysfunction" and other BPD'ish cognitive things.  She'll be 49 soon.  Not what people think of as being a dementia risk, though it does happen in odd cases.  More than dementia, does anyone else see this tapping when zoning out with their disordered spouse?  The tapping seems to primarily happen when zoned out.

   

[BigOof]

Is she ruminating before blowing up?

[Couper]

You mean the zoning out and tapping occurring immediately prior to an explosion?  No.  Not to say that it couldn't happen before an explosion, but explosions are way less frequent these days given that I simply only talk to her on an as-needed basis, yet this behavior is occurring nightly, without fail.

She was also doing it at breakfast.  Typically we don't eat together in the morning, but seeing it then while she was having a bowl of oatmeal is what made me think to post.  I guess it's happing at every sit-down.

[Cat Familiar]

I’d make a guess that rather than dementia, it’s a way to regulate her emotions.

[Couper]

I’d make a guess that rather than dementia, it’s a way to regulate her emotions.

Perhaps.  I didn't specifically mean an indicator for dementia but I needed a title and that's what mostly comes up in search results.  I guess I meant more as an indicator for some kind of cognitive malfunction.  It's new, consistent, and seems unconscious.

[kells76]

If she senses you getting further away from the marriage, or senses any other kind of "sea change", she may respond and/or express whatever she's feeling (stress, numbness, etc) in new nonverbal ways. So it may be a "natural", though not typical or necessarily normal, response to change.

[Couper]

That may be.  When I went out this morning to do some shopping I was thinking how all of this is like the weight on a sliding scale -- no change ever takes place that doesn't have to be compensated for.  There is no settling / fixing / ammending / moving on.  Whenever there is any kind of shift, there is some other compensation because nothing is ever allowed to be fixed.

I'm still interested to see anyone else has observed this particular fidgeting-behavior-whatever to call it.

[Woolspinner2000]

Have you considered that she may be dysregulating or disassociating? I agree that it is a way of dealing with the unhappiness she's feeling, a way to regulate herself and she may not be totally aware of it.

Do you all eat together at your meals? That seems to be when you mentioned seeing it the most.

Wools

[Couper]

Have you considered that she may be dysregulating or disassociating? I agree that it is a way of dealing with the unhappiness she's feeling, a way to regulate herself and she may not be totally aware of it.

Do you all eat together at your meals? That seems to be when you mentioned seeing it the most.

Wools

Always good to hear from you, Wools. 

As to the zoning out at the dinner table, that has been going on for many years: Yes, I absolutely think it is disassociating.  It seems kind of odd that it happens repeatedly between bites of food during dinner, but yes.  I have seen her disassociate full-on as is often described here while standing up, like when she's getting angry and her system is overloaded and that is more like what I think people describe as disassociation.  At the dinner table, it's more like a "quiet disassociation" repeated more frequently, but in shorter bursts. 

The addition of the finger tapping had me wondering if it is some kind of progression (degradation) to another form of it, though.

Years ago when I had no clue as to what was going on and just thought she was daydreaming, I would bang my hand on the table just trying to be funny and from anyone else that would get a laugh, but not from her!  I haven't attempted that in ages and sure wouldn't now.  The kids notice it.  They have said things to her and it's clear that it irritates her when they do.

We all sit down at dinner almost every night.  I'd rather be elsewhere than at a table with her, but I do it to retain some normalcy for the kids.  At breakfast, the kids and I are normally up and either into our food or finished before she comes in the kitchen.  Sometimes I see her eat there and she's doing it then, too.  For lunch there is not pattern for anyone and I'm usually on my own, but when I have seen her at the table eating lunch, it can also happen then.

You know, the one variable is that when I'm in the kitchen, I have all the noise shut off.  Every other waking hour of the day, she has on the radio, the t.v., her laptop playing something (sometimes all three going at once) -- she has this incessant need for noise.  If she's working in the yard, the phone is blaring something.  When I'm in the kitchen though, I turn it off.  She will sit for hours doing whatever without distraction while the noise is going, but this is only happening during quiet (even though I'm sitting there joking with the kids and there is the "noise" of us and she's completely tuned out to it.

Sorry for the long post.  Discussing this is causing new things to come to mind.   

[Cat Familiar]

My husband seems to need external noise/stimulus too—music, TV, computer—often all on at once.

I think it distracts them from what internal noise is going on in their minds.

My mother always had talk radio on, 24/7–even slept with it on.

[Couper]

My husband seems to need external noise/stimulus too—music, TV, computer—often all on at once.

I think it distracts them from what internal noise is going on in their minds.

My mother always had talk radio on, 24/7–even slept with it on.

It wouldn't surprise me if it's a common theme.  My thinking on it has been that she can't stand to be alone with her own thoughts.

I don't like it personally and I also don't like it for reasons related to my hearing.  If I'm in the room and the kids want to talk to me, or even she would want to ask me a question, I can't understand what is being said.  In the past there have been many fights over what for a normal person would be a simple courtesy, especially when you know the person you're talking to has a hearing problem.  When I got to the point of not really caring anymore and realizing that it was pointless, I would just shut of the offending device without asking.  There were fights over that too, but after awhile she quit once she realized I wasn't going to play and occasionally will even turn it off without having to say anything.  That's one thing I really notice when she has been away and now is back.  It is audio chaos.  The kids themselves don't need it or generate it 24/7 like that.

It's kind of like the attitude of certain people that smoke coming in the room and blowing it in the face of the other 95% that don't and expecting they should tolerate it.

[Cat Familiar]

I cannot stand constant noise, even if it’s music. I like the silence and fortunately where I live, it’s quiet, other than the crickets and frogs and the occasional dog in the distance…and my donkey. 

When the TV is on, I cannot even have a conversation. I can’t think when other dialog is occurring. It seems I’ve got a one-track brain.

My BPD mother, on the other hand, could not only participate (to the extent she could) in conversations, she could also eavesdrop on multiple other conversations when we’d go to a restaurant.

[Woolspinner2000]

I agree with you both re the noise. My uBPDm was the same. She'd listen to TV religious shows or the radio almost 24/7, and it was never quiet. I also think it's because they need the distraction from their thoughts.

We all self soothe in different ways, and for the BPD, the self soothing is definitely not soothing for the rest of us. That's why getting alone and being okay with quiet is so important for us to grab some healthy recharging moments for ourselves. For your kids, Couper, they need it too. That's why being dad to them and showing them a better way will help to balance them.

My son's college roommate had an uBPDm too. One day my son said, "Mom, will you take time to talk with my roommate sometime? The way he describes his mom reminds me of what you've shared about Grandma." One of the things his roommate told me was that his dad was so supportive of him and his brother, and that's how he survived. He said that his dad took them aside at some point and told them the problems they were experiencing weren't because of them, but rather mom had her own issues. He said that was such a big help because as a child of a pwBPD, you constantly wonder if it's something you did that was wrong to make mom act the way she does. That being said, your kids may be a bit too young to hear that (they'll go and repeat to mom what you said). If the right time comes down the road to share that, you can decide if it's appropriate. 

Good for you to dig deeper and pick up on the noise issue. Meal times that are too quiet for her most likely ramp up the inner noise inside of her, thus her need to disassociate. She may not be able to interact much with the rest of you during those times due to her struggle of interacting with herself.

 
Wools