JOAN’S BLOG – MON/TUE, MARCH 28/29, 2011 – EXPECT NOTHING AND YOU WILL NEVER BE DISAPPOINTED

Just because someone tries to teach you something by “telling” it to you, does not mean that you will learn it. School, whether it is high school, college, or technical school, prepares us with facts and information, but until we are out in the “field” and experience the actual problems we have been educated to solve, we know far less than we think we do. “Experience is the best teacher” is not merely a worn out cliché. It is the absolute truth. And nothing illustrates the veracity of that statement better than the experience of being an Alzheimer Spouse.

My latest revelation has come in experiencing what you have been trying to teach me for at least two years. Expect nothing and you will never be disappointed. In Alzheimer Spouse terms, that means we must give up every expectation that our spouses will behave and respond to any situation as they did as their former selves – before AD.

As with everything related to this miserable journey, my education has come in very slow increments. I discussed in the weekend blog, how it took YEARS of experiencing irrational arguments and rants from my husband for me to finally give up expecting him to respond to a reasonable argument. I now never expect him to understand reason, so I never argue with him, and am not subject to shock and disappointment when he cannot see logic.

I long ago stopped expecting him to remember to check his blood glucose levels without me telling him to do so; a conversation from an hour ago; what we are doing for the day; what he did the day before; the plot of a movie or TV show within an hour of seeing it; make the bed when he get up hours after me; empty the dishwasher; put the dishes into the dishwasher;  so I am not disappointed when he does none of these tasks.

Lately I have been shocked, frustrated, and angry when I tell him I am going to take a shower, and 15 minutes later he is yelling from his chair in the den, wanting to know where I am; when I tell him I am going grocery shopping, and ½ an hour later, he is calling me on my cell phone wanting to know where I am; when he is asking me about an incident on a TV show that was explained in the show 5 minutes before he asked. I know you are shaking your collective heads while reading this, and most likely thinking – will she never LEARN? Stop expecting him to remember; stop expecting him to do anything on his own, and you will save yourself a lot of frustration. I do understand that, but the changes in his functioning are coming so fast, I cannot keep up.

Now that I recognize these current changes, rather than expect him to remember where I am going (even if it is in the house), I WRITE IT DOWN for him. Beginning tonight, rather than express surprise and annoyance that he, at his own admission, “zones out” while watching TV, I will patiently (?) answer his questions concerning the plot. Rather than express frustration that he places his dishes on the counter ON TOP OF THE DISHWASHER, instead of INSIDE the dishwasher, I will simply put them into the dishwasher myself. Rather than get myself worked up into a frenzy of stress and disappointment because he does not think to do anything without being told, I will tell him what to do and when to do it.

I am learning through experience – expect nothing and you will never be disappointed. The less I expect from him, the sadder I will become for the “us” that Alzheimer’s Disease has stolen. 

MESSAGE BOARD: Expect Nothing

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The Alzheimer Spouse LLC
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