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My husband cannot quit sorting through and moving his personal things.

Posted by labrown @labrown, 14 hours ago

I have found that whenever I leave my husband alone for a few minutes, he wanders into the bedroom and begins sorting through all of his personal belongings. He goes into his closet and he moves everything in his walk-in closet around, trying to compact it into as small of an area as he can. He pulls things out and lays them on the bed so he can determine where to move them to. He has also taken everything that he has out of the dresser drawers and the night stand drawers. He never goes into my closet nor does he try to remove my things from my drawers. It’s like he doesn’t want anything personal. The bedroom area is the only place he does this in the house. I have to go behind him and move things back or put them in my closet or drawers so I can find them when needed. When I ask him why he feels the need to do this his he says to keep “them” from stealing everything. He is very paranoid that there are people here, in and around our home, that want to hurt him or steal from him. He does the same in our outside storage area and barn. He is moving or hiding everything…needless to say life at our house is very disorganized and I can’t even find simple tools anywhere…
I have read of and know this behavior is normal in the world of dementia, but how long will he stay in this phase? He is wearing me down. When he is in this mindset there is no redirecting him. He is in year four of his official diagnosis.

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wctdoc1943 | @wctdoc1943 | 6 hours ago

My wife is in year ??? 8 or 9 with MCI diagnosis and for the past couple of years she rearranges the kitchen cabinets, drawers and pantry and refrigerator, often if I'm gone for a few hours. I do all the shopping and meal preparation and I often cannot find what I need, and of course she has no memory of where she put things. There is no logic to how she rearranges, other than sometimes by shape, or color or size. And she creates "space" by putting things in the very back of the pantry compartmenst (where I cannot see them without moving things in front of). She rearrange all my toiletries and personal items below my bathroom sink (not a shared area---she has her own drawers and undersink space). She rearranges what she has already rearranaged sometimes and when confronted, has no memory or denies doing it.

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labrown | @labrown | 5 hours ago
In reply to @wctdoc1943 "My wife is in year ??? 8 or 9 with MCI diagnosis and for the past..." + (show)
Profile picture for wctdoc1943 @wctdoc1943

My wife is in year ??? 8 or 9 with MCI diagnosis and for the past couple of years she rearranges the kitchen cabinets, drawers and pantry and refrigerator, often if I'm gone for a few hours. I do all the shopping and meal preparation and I often cannot find what I need, and of course she has no memory of where she put things. There is no logic to how she rearranges, other than sometimes by shape, or color or size. And she creates "space" by putting things in the very back of the pantry compartmenst (where I cannot see them without moving things in front of). She rearrange all my toiletries and personal items below my bathroom sink (not a shared area---she has her own drawers and undersink space). She rearranges what she has already rearranaged sometimes and when confronted, has no memory or denies doing it.

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@wctdoc1943 Thank you for sharing. I normally handle it pretty well, but it’s been a rough week and it’s only Tuesday😳

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