Guns and Dementia

I went through something similar to this with my father. However, it wasn't dementia it was codeine for pain my father was prescribed the last year of his life. You see, Codeine at that dose causes hallucinations and my father shot someone he saw in a hallucination in the wall of his bedroom several times. I talked to my mother because she was scared. So, I drove all the way from Mt. Shasta to Yucca Valley by myself (over 600 miles) just so I could take away my father's guns before he shot my mother.

Being born in 1919 my mother was just too traditional a wife to take away my father's guns the last year of his life. But, I had no such problem. My problem was with talking to my father (my rock growing up) about the man he shot in the wall who was bad. So, when my father went to sleep I just reached under his bed and removed a pistol and a rifle from under my father's bed and walked out and I believe so my mother wouldn't be convinced of giving them back to my father just took them home 600 miles away with me because I had to protect my mother even though I knew I would soon lose my father within 6 months to a year depending on how things went.

So, if you don't remove guns from a demented or overmedicated relative when they are either hallucinating or demented there is no one to blame but yourselves. But, you likely want to wait until they are asleep so they don't know you are doing that to protect other relatives or themselves from harm.

Then when they look for their weapons it is on them to find out where they put them. Whether you tell them or not is your business not theirs at this point. Because mostly you are just keeping alive who you can keep alive at that point.

Remember always, "Life is for the living" and someone with dementia is dying. Same with Alzheimers. Dementia and Alzheimers are fatal diseases that usually end with a coma and death.

And high doses of Morphine or Codeine are also something usually given patients on their way out too to lessen their physical suffering.

They likely wanted to give my father Morphine but he had already gotten addicted to it when they wanted to cut off his leg at age 14 when he crashed his Harley 74 motorcycle in 1930 or so. But, his father wouldn't let them cut off his leg so he became addicted to doctor prescribed Morphine while healing up. by 17 he was valedictorian of his Senior Class in High school and graduated high school in 1934.

So, since people didn't understand medical morphine addiction withdrawals a lot then my father told me he had a nervous breakdown at 14 or 15 which makes sense for the times instead. However, as an adult I put 2 and 2 together and got right away what really happened. Besides even if he knew the truth it wouldn't have been polite to talk about it to your son in his teens then from my father's perspective. My teens were 1960 when I was 12 to 1969 when I turned 21. 1960 to 1967 if you stop at 19.