‘It’s just a chimpanzee, a cuddly, fluffy one, obviously, and it sits on the sofa looking at me. It probably seems quite random. Most people are either intrigued or perplexed at the idea, but when I explain, they totally get it. I found him in a charity shop. He doesn’t have a name, he’s just called Chimp because that is the important word: chimp.
My daughter brought a book up with her when she came to visit by a guy called Professor Stephen Peters. It’s called The Chimp Paradox. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it. Basically, he’s talking about the way that human beings interact and behave. It’s a psychology book. He says there are three elements to the brain: there’s chimp, there’s human and there’s computer. We can park the computer because that’s just processing information. But the primordial instinct of any human is the chimp instinct, which is flight or fight. So that is always your kneejerk reaction: to be a chimp. Basically, it’s a very important thing because that is what preserves us in times of danger, but it’s also important in terms of relationships. It’s about not over-reacting when someone says or does something we don’t like. The human part of the brain, which is the more developed part and separates us from chimps, is that maybe they didn’t mean it the way we thought.
I use this chimp thing with Mum because she drives me bloody bananas. I don’t know if you’ve ever had to deal with someone with dementia, but it is mind-numbingly aggravating. Repeating the same question. She makes a goldfish look as if it has got the longest memory going. She can’t remember friends she’s had for 50 years. Every morning I give her a hot cross bun for breakfast and she can’t remember that she’s had them five or six days a week since September. “Ooh, these are lovely, when did they invent them? Have I ever had one of them before?”
When this happens, I remind myself of the book and I go into another room and shout, “Chimpanzee”. It reminds me that I’m having a kneejerk reaction to her dementia and what she’s actually got is a disease and she’s repeating herself because she can’t help herself because she doesn’t know any better. She’s ill. So now I just look at the chimp and go, “Chimp, chimp, chimp, chimp, chimp, chimp, chimpanzee, chimpanzee, chimpanzee.” It breaks the tension.
The dementia is alcohol-induced. Mum is an alcoholic. She’s always been a drinker and it got worse in the last 25 years or so. I’ve managed to stop her now. But you’re watching someone you love slipping away. It’s not my mum anymore because of the dementia. I do everything I can – like I promised Dad before he died. I keep her warm, I keep her well fed, she’s a lot healthier now she’s stopped drinking, she’s put on some weight, and physically she’s a lot better.
But she has to be watched all the time otherwise she messes with things. She’s a pyromaniac. I have to hide all the matches and put tape across the fireplace. She almost burned the house down once and she’s blown up three toasters trying to make cheese on toast.
When it happens, I have to understand, “Don’t do the kneejerk reaction, Helen, just step back, shout ‘Chimpanzee’, quietly or loudly, take a deep breath, and use the human part of your brain to justify why this behaviour is taking place. Stop yourself getting cross”. A chimpanzee is my coping mechanism, basically.’