I’ve talked to many caregivers over the years and some have lives they plan to go back to. This is almost a detour in their road. But some wonder with a bit of trepidation what life they will piece together when it’s all over.
Comments closedCategory: Caregiver Roller Coaster
The Caregiver Roller Coaster is where I share what it feels like to be a caregiver for an Alzheimer’s patient. From my experience over the past 10 years, this is the area that most support groups focus. And it is for good reason. As I got swept up in the speed of living with the added level of responsibility, my stress increased and I found that my mental health, in general, declined. Caregivers lose sleep, lose focus at work, and quite often lose their ability to cope with anything that goes wrong.
I have discovered that everything that I have felt during this journey is common among loving and devoted caregivers. While everyone’s situation is different, the emotions surrounding the gradual loss of a loved one are consistent. For this reason, I devote an entire category to these common emotions. People need to know at any stage of their journey that they are not alone or unique in how they feel.
Clearly I’m wrestling with a sense of falling short as my mother’s caregiver. Am I being fair to myself? When I think about all I should do, because I love her, there is no way that I can do everything I expect of myself.
Comments closed
I got right down in front of her so she could see my face clearly. No reaction. Nothing sparked a reaction from her. I had so been wishing for recognition.
Comments closed
With Alzheimer’s disease, the loved ones feel the loss and the grief. In my small family of three, my father and I felt the loss as my mother slipped away into her own world leaving us behind. I watched as my father tried to hang on to his wife, the love of his life. At the same time, I was struggling with my own loss of my mother, my confidant since early adulthood and my best friend. I became my father’s support and therapist of sorts during a time when I needed my own support and therapist. It felt like an impossible situation sometimes.
Comments closed
I doubt my mother ever feels a sense of loss when I leave. For me though, it still hurts sometimes because she doesn’t remember me or know that I was just there. An Alzheimer’s patient lives entirely in what he or she sees in the moment. I know that she loves having me in her world while I’m there. When I sit with my arm around her, she gets as close as possible. But once I duck out of her sight, I don’t exist to her. She does not miss me.
Comments closed
The reality is that I need to be present for her to oversee her quality of life. It is therefore important that I find a way to alleviate caregiver exhaustion on a regular basis. I need to regain my whole self and actually live.
Comments closed
Caregiver grief has altered the way I connect with my own emotions. I’ve never been void of emotion but some days I just can’t feel anything. I’m numb. Other days I’m so overwhelmed all I can do is sob. I’ve burst into tears in restaurants and hidden tears in public behind my dark sunglasses. I can’t turn those off.
1 Comment
I cannot fathom that there will be a noticeable change in her from day to day. But as I’m learning, there are variables that I don’t understand and no one can predict and so, this notion of day to day consistency is just an invitation for heartbreak.
Comments closed
But I had weeks to embellish this fantasy that people cared about us, or at least about mom, and they were going to swoop in and garnish hugs on us. I received several more texts leading up to the visit. It seemed they understood that caregivers need emotional support and their visit would be just that.
Comments closed