JOAN’S BLOG – WED/THUR., JUNE 16/17, 2010 – HAS ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE HARDENED MY HEART TO EVERYTHING?

For the first 3 years of my husband’s Alzheimer’s Disease, my heart was broken so many times, I did not think I would survive. At first, the man whom I loved so much, that I considered him the other half of my heart, became irrational, argumentative, and unreasonable. Then he lost his impulse control, flying into a rage at the most insignificant incidents. The changes in him kept escalating until he became verbally abusive, vile, and vicious to me. I tried everything to “make things right”, to bring back the man I adored. When I finally realized that Alzheimer’s Disease was not going to allow that to happen, I endured a sadness so deep, I could not have imagined it existed.

Now, 5 years after the Alzheimer’s personality alterations started, he has calmed down, become “nice”, “loving”, and “appreciative” of me. It is a different kind of love – a dependent, childlike love, but it is better than the rages and venom. Unfortunately, it does not penetrate the hardened shell around my heart.  I have built such a high, thick, brick wall around my emotions,  that I fear I will never “feel” again. I block out thinking about how our relationship used to be, so as not to feel any pain. Although I attend to his physical caregiving needs, I take his physical ailment complaints in stride with little sympathy. I let his complaints about just about everything slide off of my back.

As if that is not disturbing enough to me, lately I have found myself almost immune to other’s suffering. I used to cry at the television images of earthquake, tornado, and hurricane victims. I used to cry at sad movies. I used to “feel” for others, even if they were strangers to me. I no longer do. It is as if the broken pieces of my heart melded together into steel. I do like it.

But it seems as if I cannot be satisfied. I could not bear the pain from the destruction Alzheimer’s Disease wrought on my marriage; yet now I am fearful of the defense mechanism I have employed to keep that pain at bay – a lack of any feeling. What do I do? I cannot live constantly with the anguish I suffered the first 4 years of the disease, yet I do not like living void of feeling. I suppose that is another of Alzheimer’s brutal assaults on spousal caregivers – making us miserable no matter how we choose to handle the situation.

I want to feel the joy of love again. I miss it. I miss my husband and the relationship we had. Alzheimer’s Disease is a sadistic foe, isn’t it? 

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