To me it is wasted energy agonizing about what we can't control. What is gone is gone-and it isn't coming back. Hard as it is I have to accept what I have and deal with it. My husband is at end stage-dependent for all ADL's, no recognition of any thing or any one. He is still healthy and could go on like this for years. I am trying very hard to create a new life for myself as a single person. It is very hard.

I come from a different perspective, perhaps because of growing up with my own progressive disability.
On one hand you could say I'm resigned to the reality of my DH's condition. It is and it will progress, and I will lose him, in increments until he's gone. However, just as I was taught as a child, I have choices about how I deal with it. I can throw in the towel, fold up and let this roll over me (us) like a bulldozer, flatten and destroy us, OR. . . I can change my focus and do my damnedest to get him through in the best possible way for him. I'm doing that, because while we can't beat the Dementia,we can give our LOs as good a life as possible, until the end. I have a life now in both the AD world and a little in the "normal" world, and after DH moves on , I will move back into the "'normal" world, stronger and with greater respect for the fragility of the life we have. In that way I (we) will win over the devestation that is AD.

The "normal" world is the world we (under usual circumstances) have to deal with on a daily basis, with all its rules and measures of acceptability. The world we grew up trying to fit into and find our niche in, with all its values to be met and measured up to. Some of it good, some great, and a fair share of it to be ignored unless confronted with.