JOAN’S BLOG – TUES/WED., JANUARY 4/5, 2011 – THE STRESS OF THOSE REPETITIVE QUESTIONS

In my New Year’s blogs (see below), I discussed how letting go of the fight, and accepting our spouses’ Alzheimer changes, reduces both our and their stress levels. As I said, I have done well in learning not to argue, but those repetitive questions are stressing me to the max, particularly when I have JUST answered one barely 30 seconds before. I decided to look inward for the answer to why they bother me so much. After all, as the experts have told us repeatedly, WE have to do the changing.

So I looked deep, and this is what I found. After 20 years of marriage, I discovered that my husband had Attention Deficit Disorder. It was undiagnosed as a child, and continued into adulthood. It explained the unfinished projects around the house, the difficulty concentrating, and the workaholism. Many adult ADD sufferers are workaholics, because it takes them three times longer to organize, focus, and complete a job than someone without ADD.

He always seemed not to be “paying attention”  to what I was saying. I found that if I used the same methods of engagement that I used with my students, he was able to focus. That is, I needed to get his attention, make sure he was not doing three tasks at once, and make sure he was looking at me. It has been my experience that as ADD students mature, if they are motivated, they learn to understand their attention problems, and can deal with them effectively, utilizing behavior modification. I taught all of this to Sid, and it worked fairly well, but he always needed “reminders” to focus. And yes, I did get angry when he seemed to drift off and not make the effort he knew was needed.

Now you are probably beginning to see why we had such a difficult time diagnosing the Alzheimer’s Disease. The early symptoms perfectly mimicked his ADD. In any case, now that he is well into Alzheimer’s Disease, MY old annoyances and resentments are surfacing. When he asks the same question that I answered less than a minute ago, my back bristles, and my mind hops back to the ADD. He’s not listening! He’s not focusing! He’s not even trying to pay attention! I become stressed and angry.

Combine that with the fact that he is so unaware of the extent of his disease. He thinks he has a memory problem that is getting worse, but he really does not see or understand just how severe the situation is. If I answer his question for the 4th, 5th, or 20th, time, as if it was the first time, he will be even less aware of how his disease is advancing. Who cares? What purpose does it serve for him to know? Once again, those are questions for me to answer that have nothing to do with him. They have to do with me. Why is it so important to me that he know the extent of his Alzheimer problems?  

As I am writing this, I am trying to answer that question, and am coming up with the same answer I have to every Alzheimer’s change I have fought. The dismantling of our relationship. One more nail in that coffin. The less aware he is of what is happening to him, the less we can discuss and share. Once again, I am trying to hold onto a piece of a relationship that is gone and will never return. That is why they call Alzheimer’s Disease “grief on the installment plan”. It is not one death. It is many deaths over and over and over again. I fight the loss of every piece of our relationship at every change. When I finally give in and accept the next one, my stress decreases. I guess I am not ready to accept this one, but neither do I need the stress these questions are causing me.

Since I wrote the New Year’s blog vowing to try to “let go” of the question stress, I have been doing better. When he asks a question that I have answered innumerable times, I close my eyes, take a deep breath, repeat to myself that he can’t help it, and I answer the question without editorial comment. It is better, but it is not the true acceptance that leads to real stress reduction. I know that I must accept the loss of the “discuss and share” part of our relationship for good before my stress over the questions is truly alleviated.

Now I am wondering about you. How do you deal with the repetitive questions? How did you get to the point where they no longer bother you? (If you did.)
 
Message board topic: The Stress of Those Repetitive Questions.

©Copyright 2011 Joan Gershman 
The Alzheimer Spouse LLC
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