JOAN’S BLOG – WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2008-  DENIAL – DO WE ALL HAVE A LITTLE OF IT?

Not me, I said to myself. I’ve never been in denial, not from the first moment I noticed something wasn’t quite right with my husband’s memory and comprehension. I knew there was a problem, and I immediately started looking for answers and solutions.

I was the first to complain that the original neurologist wasn’t listening to me; that no one else around us was noticing the changes in Sid; that we needed help. When the diagnosis came, although devastated and emotionally unable to cope with the personality changes, relationship changes, and rages, I certainly never denied that he had Alzheimer’s Disease.

But as things calmed down, his moods smoothed out, I got used to the memory loss, confusion, repetitive questions, and the decline seemed to have stabilized, I found myself, not denying the Alzheimer’s Disease, but maybe, just maybe, denying that he was going to descend into the end stages that those of you are so bravely dealing with.

This thought occurred to me recently, as I sat around a table talking with friends, whose husbands seem as functional as mine. The conversation was about care facilities, which ones are the best, how they would try to manage with hiring help in the home, how difficult it will be to place their spouses in a facility. I did not participate in the discussion AT ALL. I kept my mouth completely shut (a rarity for me, as you probably are aware).

As I was listening to the others talk, I actually heard the words in my own head – “We’re not going down that path. He’s doing fine. He’s not going to decline like that. He’s going to stay at this level of functioning until he dies of something else.” Even as I thought it, and as I am writing this now, I am astounded at myself. I attend Alzheimer conferences; I read articles, books and essays on it; I communicate daily with hundreds of people who are experiencing their spouses’ declines; I see decline of my friends all around me, and yet, I actually denied to myself that my husband was going the way of all the others.

I am so shocked that I could think this way, that I don’t even know what to say about it, except that I suppose the human psyche holds onto hope until the end.  This website has taught me that I am usually not alone in my thoughts and emotions, so I am wondering if any of you, even as you fully understood, accepted, and DID NOT DENY your spouse’s AD, harbored thoughts that they would not decline – would stay stable forever?

MESSAGE BOARD TOPIC: Do we all have a little denial?

©Copyright 2008 Joan Gershman        

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