JOAN’S BLOG – MONDAY, JULY 11, 2011- CONFUSED AND CONFLICTED

After 5 weeks of feeling like death, I am back. Not full time yet, but getting there. As I mentioned on the July 7th notice on my home page, my surgery went fine, and I think I’m healing well. I will see the doctor on Wednesday. It was a series of quite debilitating drug side effects and a secondary illness that has had me totally down for the last 3 weeks.

After 4 years of running this website and attending a face to face support group, I thought I had finally mastered the art of dealing with a spouse with Alzheimer’s Disease. One of the most difficult facts to accept was that all of the personality traits and cognitive abilities of the man I have loved for 41 years were not only gone, but not coming back. After much kicking, screaming, and fighting, I accepted it, but I will never get over it.

Before my surgery, I built a wall around my emotions, so I would not break down in tears each time the man who looks like my husband stared at me blankly when I asked his opinion on a subject; when I asked him to make a simple decision; when I tried to give him directions. The two years he was violently verbally abusive were the worst. I could not take the constant hurt, so I distanced myself emotionally. I hated it, but I did it for self preservation. I also learned not to ask him to make a decision or try to follow more than a one step direction.

Before my surgery, as I wrote in my December 30, 2010 blog, I FINALLY gave up expecting any help from him. I did it all. Grocery shopping, laundry, phone calls, driving, doctor appointments, directing his exercising, hauling, lifting, pushing. It left my already injured shoulder in constant pain, but there was no one else to do any of the heavy lifting. I was it. So I did it, and did not expect any help in any way from him.

Now my husband’s reaction to my illness has thrown all of my desperately hard work to build that brick wall into disarray. The wall is crumbling. His empathy, concern, and genuine attempt to help me in any way he is able, has opened up my heart to the man he used to be (see below for the June 22nd blog), and after my initial euphoria, I am now confused and conflicted. How much longer will the “old Sid” stay around? Until I am able to drive and do everything by myself again? Will he retreat into the “ME ME ME” mode he resided in before my surgery? Of course he will, and as he continues his Alzheimer’s decline, I will have to do all the emotionally wrenching work of piling up those bricks again.

I HATE living behind that wall – It is so lonely back there without my lover, my best friend, my life connection, but I also do not have the emotional strength to keep tearing it down and building it back up.

Usually, at the end of my blogs, I come to some kind of conclusion or solution. I have none today. It seems that I either revel in the torn down wall for as long as it lasts, or start building it right back up now, which may or may not ease the pain of rebuilding later.

Being an Alzheimer Spouse is a living Hell.

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©Copyright 2011 Joan Gershman 
The Alzheimer Spouse LLC
2011 All Rights Reserved
Under penalty of copyright laws, this information cannot be copied or posted on any website, media, or print outlet, without referencing the author and website from which it was taken.

Feedback to joan@thealzheimerspouse.com
©Copyright 2011 Joan Gershman 
The Alzheimer Spouse LLC
2011 All Rights Reserved
Under penalty of copyright laws, this information cannot be copied or posted on any website, media, or print outlet, without referencing the author and website from which it was taken.

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