Gone Mad

by Carol Pendergrass, Mark Pendergrass (Illustrator)

The canon of literature has seen many heartbreaking autobiographical works, from the tender sadness of Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar to the stark realism of Bill Clegg's Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man. But never has a work described with equal clarity how a marriage suffers during the decent into the abyss of mental deterioration, until Carol Pendergrass' staggering Gone Mad: Dementia, Family Treachery and Legal Insanity.

Pendergrass' husband of eighteen years is swiftly sinking into the depths of dementia, experiencing hallucinations, delusions and psychosis. As she becomes overwhelmed by his madness, her stepchildren take him from their home and wage a terrifying war against her. Taking possession f their assets, her husband's family files numerous lawsuits against her, including a civil suit, claiming that she not only caused her husband's illness but that she attempted to kill him.

In this gut wrenching memoir, Pendergrass describes her husband's dementia openly and honestly. As she faces the onslaught of lawsuits, false accusations, separations and great personal loss, she refuses to give up her rightful place beside her husband and fights to maintain their love, honor and dignity. In sharing her story, she hopes to show how God can take "what was meant for evil and turn it for good" (Genesis 50:20).

An excerpt:
"The shrouded coffin was taken without a word out the back door of the mortuary. My husband's body was put in a hearse and taken forever away from me to be put in the ground in the dark red dirt of Oklahoma. I was not invited. The graveside service would be their reward and the fulfillment of all their actions: separation from his wife forever.
That afternoon, I watched the skies far to the southwest as a heavy dark thunderstorm settled over the country cemetery where my husband was being buried, and then slowly rumbled toward me like a death march."

200 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 19, 2010

Reviews

[Wilhelmina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would have rated this book a 5, but I found it a little "breathless", as if the author never takes a breath when she is writing this memoir. In actual fact this is such a sad book.......the author marries a man who already has a number of children, after a number years of marriage, during which time the step children appear to accept her as part of their father's life, he develops dementia, and the step children spring into action. Not only do they not support their father, they sabotage the step mother, the financial accounts, and create a living hell for both. They appear to actually have tried to steal their step mother's personal assets........what a nightmare. When "push comes to shove" none of the children are able to take care of their father adequately, do not understand or care to understand the disease process, and in effect the family unit implodes. I feel so much empathy for the author...and I hope this book was cathartic to write. In the best of families brothers and sisters can almost come to blows when one parent is incapacitated by one or other form of dementia, and one must walk a fine line at times......and circumvent situations which could become volatile. One of the main issues with dementia is that the family of the demented person is not with that person 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. When they come over for sometimes infrequent visits.....dad or mom seems fine, they smile appropriately, they are sitting in their nice chair, they seem to be with it, and may even be able to make a cup of tea, and pass out cookies. So they think "they aren't so bad"; "what is my other parent talking about that they can't handle it anymore, that they are up all night etc." Guess what......go live in this house, not for a day, not for a week, but for a month or more, and you will see that mom/dad is up at odd hours of the night, may be incontinent, may refuse to do any personal hygiene, may refuse to get out of their clothes, or not want to wear any clothes, may refuse to eat, may not understand what utensils are for, may be unable to identify pictures of the children. We cannot change the demented person, we have to live in their world, as frustrating as that may be for us. We want to correct, we want to reason, we feel impatient....In my family, my brothers who live near my parents do not feel that my mother is as demented as what she is. In fact, one of them said he is "not playing her games", and she will "just have to suck it up"........case closed. What does one do in such a situation.....when family members refuse to open a book to read about dementia, refuse to try to understand what their other parent is going through. Will they believe that the mother is incontinent at times, that she wanders in the night, that she is becoming increasingly mean in her character. This book is about everything that goes wrong in a family when there is a power struggle.....it behooves me to understand how the children are able to live with themselves, but in fact they did neglect their father while profession to love him, be concerned for him, and in the end they showed their true character and their true hatred........by not allowing the woman to whom this man had been married to for 18 years to sit with the family at the funeral, and to go to the burial. I hope they can sleep at night, and answer to their conscience......