Couple weeks ago I was constantly on edge struggling with so much pent up resentment with no where to put it! Poor DH could do nothing right. Then I'd get angry just because I am not allowed to be angry with him. Just be angry at the disease dontcha know. It was quickly becoming an untenable situation for both of us. I was going to ask a question here, but decided to search first instead. Try it. Whoo hoo. There are stories from way back. All of it put into words right there in front of me. Some of the names are still commenting on here today. Some are still IN the struggle today. This disease is THE most destructive thing I can think of. And then I look up and there is this warm and fuzzy commercial about some stupid drug. Or someone says something completely inane on facebook. I want to scream.
Then I don't know what happened..... suddenly I am not so overwhelmingly resentful any more. Wonder why. Maybe it was reading all those other words and knowing I am not alone. This is the way it is. I keep coming back to "you can't keep complaining about it if you aren't going to change it". Can't change him. He is better off with me than anyone else I still believe. So I better find a way to change myself. OR find myself somewhere in here.
I am taking charge of the yard. Even more than I did before. I no longer care if he likes what I decided to do.
I am taking a quilting class. Invested in some new tools and am working on the class project. Very pleased so far. It is how to do free motion quilting using templates. The centerpiece will have a piece of fabric with birds that I bought years ago and didn't know what to do with. It has cobalt blue and grass green highlights. The colors my Mom and I both keep going back to.
Today I am going to see a lawyer to see how I should update my estate plan and instructions for my brother in case anything happens to me. I just realized that I need to update my In Case of Emergency card in my wallet. I can't have the police calling DH if I got in an accident. He doesn't know how to respond to the phone. He wouldn't understand what the cops said. He has no idea how to use the phone to call my brother. Holy crap!
Just last week I was expecting a call from a business man who was on the way here to do a job for me. DH answered the phone walked toward me but told the guy "No she isn't here" and hung up. He couldn't tell me who called either. Fortunately I emailed the guy and we straightened it out. So now I am giving people my cell phone number.
Well I still get pretty resentful by the time supper is over and he tries to help put dishes away. He is soooooo counterproductive I just want to use a frying pan in a way it was not designed for.
bhv, you (and Jazzy) have always been the person who I "read" when I get really (what is a good word to use) pissed off, or hardened, or closed in, or angry, or resentful. All of these words work. You stay strong and you are a good roll modal for us all.
You also described wonderfully how this site helps all of us. Sometimes, reading that others are going through the same things helps. Reading also gives us ideas about how to handle what we are feeling.
Thank you for opening this discussion. It has very good timing.
I do wish you luck and wish I could do a whole lot more. You sound like you've doing some very positive things for yourself. Any chance of putting him in respite for a week and giving yourself a break so that you can recharge your batteries? It's such a long uphill battle that we can exhaust ourselves. Even those with good health and boundless energy can deplete their reserve. Ideally, we would retain or at least replace some for ourselves .
bhv, Taking the resentment bull by the horns and making decisions for you is a good thing. You are doing your best in coping with the stress that AD cruelty places on caregivers. Good luck with your lawyer and estate updating. Good that you put that frying pan away or meeting with your lawyer could have been for a much more unpleasant reason! Hang in there and make time for you. All the best.
"Emergency contact" - it still gets to me, wakes me up to reality when at the doctor office when confirming phone, address, insurance and emergency contact - it list my sister not my husband. Seems just when we let our "wall" down, something happens to bring us back to reality and the "wall" has to go back up.
bhv, what an excellent post! I think we have all been there...you are definitely not alone. Dan is in a facility now, but I've been making decisions for quite a while now. Sometimes I would get a nasty look, or an eye roll, but mainly he became rather passive about those things. For me, I have amazed myself at times at what I can do & what I have done. Just a couple of weeks ago, I went out & leased a new car all by myself!! I really had no choice, my former car was 17 years old & I was having many expensive repair bills. I'm just not in a position that I could keep that up. Your quilting class sounds great...I wish I could make myself get back to those things. I've done quilting, counted cross stitch, lots of scrapbooking, but now......? I think I'm developing an attitude (probably a pretty bad one) of what for? I'm old, have had cancer twice, just take to my rocking chair & wait. That feeling of waiting seems to over me all the time...waiting for the next shoe to drop.
Thanks for responding all you good friends. Meeting with the lawyer was great. She is a gal after.my own heart so now I have a team member I can count on. You should have seen her smile when I said that! My brothers are in New York and will need CA lawyer to help if things go the wrong way. Now I can prepare him to handle things if something happens to me. Didn't even cost me anything today. Docs and estate plan are fine. Only I need to have his.doctor and preferably a second doctor declare him financialy incompetent. WOW. I have been resisting the thought of doing that. It just feels so awful. Especially since he doesn't think there is anything wrong with him. As long as I am ok we could go on as we are. But lawyer says that is risky. Plus I haven't been able to imagine how youngest brother could handle that situation if something happens to me. So, to be fair, I will get that done soon. GOD IT FEELS AWFUL. But it feels wonderful to have a lawyer I feel like I can trust and we have a plan.
Wolf. I missed all that brewhaha with the deleted posts. No idea what that person said to you and the others, but, my dear Wolf, please .... please don't go away!
bhv, it's hard, as you say, to take some of these steps. It used to help me when I told myself that I "had to take care of business." No one else was going to. Your lawyer sounds just right. I'm glad you have her for support.
bhv. Found your post so helpful because I got stressed out this morning when my partner spit out her seizure meds, dissolved in purple current juice, all over the blouse I had just put on her. Three problems all in one moment: meds are outside not inside her, clothes are stained, and I am angry. So great to know that our anger and frustration and stress and resentment are shared. And we are not alone on this page. I'm sure I am not the only one glad for your post today. I remember reading those posts you spoke of. This blog is so full of support.
It is good you have a lawyer you trust on your team. BTW I keep emergency information not just in my handbag, but fastened to my seat belt in a red medic alert packet. I was, like you, afraid that were I in an emergency situation, especially when we were in the car together, people responding to an emergency would not realize my partner would need care as well as me.
Hi bhv, As you note, your experience with the businessman's call is all too familiar to many of us. Years ago, when we still heated our house with wood pellets, I ordered 4 tons from a place we had done business with for years. I had cleared out a corner of the garage and told them not to deliver the pellets unless I was there. When the delivery man called, I was not at home and my husband told them to come so they dumped 200 40-lb. bags in the middle of the garage, blocking the door to the house. By that time, I had stopped being resentful of my husband so I blew up at the supplier. We had done business with these people for years so they came back and moved the pellets.
I think when this kind of thing happens, we become angrier than we normally would be since coping with the Alz craziness has already stressed us way beyond our breaking points. Even if we move our spouses out of the line of fire, our anger and desperation is aimed at someone.
I love your line "I wanted to use the frying pan in a way it wasn't designed for." It made me laugh. I remember those days so well. You get so angry, and when you have to walk away so as not to inflame the situation, that's when the resentment grows. Yet now that my spouse has been gone for 4-1/2 months, I wish I had him again, but not the dementia one, the other one. But, of course, that can't happen. I do miss him though, even the Alzheimer's one. I never thought I would miss the daily visits to the nursing home, where he was for the last 2-1/2 years of his life, but I do.
I kept a journal of the days you are talking about and when I go back and read what I wrote I wonder how I ever did it. But somehow I did, and you will too.
Lindylou, the seatbelt idea is a good one. Now that he has no nouns in his sentences that would be a great idea.
Myrtle, I am so proud of you for calling the company and also for them for coming to move.the pellets. It has been strange in my mind that I am finding business people more willing to help me than I expected. I was afraid they would use the alz as an excuse to take advantage. Surely there are those kinds of people out there, but I have not met any yet. Knock wood.
Bev, my friend talks of Pillow Days. As in she feels like using a pillow in a way it was not designed for. And her DH doesn't even have alz. Ha ha. I am not sure I will miss him. I feel like I wouldn't mind so much caring for my husband. I don't like this stranger who has moved into my house constantly making demands, cursing at me and threatening me and unable to help. He went swimming the other day. I found myself wondering if he would forget how to swim. Unfortunately he swam better than he did before alz!