JOAN’S BLOG – MONDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2009 – I WISH I WERE NICER

Lately, I find myself being short-tempered with my Alzheimer husband for actions over which he has no control. His brain is not only working at turtle speed; it is working at turtle speed in a pea soup fog. Unless I stop what I am doing, tell him to stop what he is doing, tell him to look at me and listen to me, and then speak in simple, short sentences, in a slow, clear voice, he does not process what I am saying. His answer to anything and everything that comes out of my mouth is, “Huh?”  It is annoying me to the point that I sigh, grouse at him, and hear myself scolding, “Don’t you listen to ANYTHING I say? Where ARE you? Where is your head?”

How stupid and inconsiderate of me. Of course I know where he and his head are. They are lost in the murky land of Alzheimer’s Disease, where there is no one for me to talk to.

In thinking and writing about this, it is dawning on me that I am angry that I no longer have a partner with whom I can share stories, have a meaningful conversation, work together on a project. There is no working together. There is just me telling him what to do on slow speech speed. I hear about Alzheimer couples working as a team to get through this disease. How?  Is there something wrong with me because I feel I have lost half of my team? Is there something I am doing wrong or is there something I can do to make it better? If there is, I wish someone would tell me what it is.

I am so sorry that I hurt his feelings when I snap at him. It is not his fault. I should not be taking it out on him just because I am desperately missing and yearning for someone who is no longer there – someone who can keep up with my thinking and speaking. Then I feel even worse when I turn it around – what if it were me? How would I feel if my spouse snarled at me because I could not keep up with him intellectually?

As I write this, I am thinking what a mess I am – angry because Alzheimer’s disease took away my intellectual partner; angry at myself because I am hurting his feelings; feeling guilty and hurt because I am seeking intellectual stimulation, conversation, and learning from other avenues; and angry because I do not want to be married to a child. I want to be married to an adult. Preferably the adult I was married to for 35 years before the Alzheimer Devil possessed his brain.

I try to be nicer, but the bottom line is – I miss my husband, and I am taking it out on the man I live with who looks like my husband, the man who can no longer be the person I want him to be. Alzheimer’s Disease stinks.

TOMORROW: You Cannot Prepare for Everything - As I found out.

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The Alzheimer Spouse LLC
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