The mental patterns of the patient add to the problems of the caregiver. Due to the Alzheimers and the Anxiety Complex, my mother's thought patterns were almost totally negative - and, believe me, it was sometimes hard to escape the effect of those vibes.. I know she could not help it, but here I was - as is any caregiver in a similar situation - locked into the spinoff from those brainwaves day and night. Don't let anyone steal your soul.
I realised some years ago that whereas my mom had always been pretty healthy all her life, suddenly she seemed to be thinking in sickness mode and in her mind only she was allowed to be sick. She began to affirm phrases like "I don't feel well," "I'm not right," "I wish I was better," "I'm not well," - occasionally to start with, but with increasing frequency as time passed.
Another favourite word was "Help!" In fact the first thing I heard in the morning was, "Help!" or "Will someone help me?" During the day, this continued and even if I was actively helping her do something she would say, "Please help me!" Very strange.
A diet of that plus "I don't feel well" and "I'm not right" isn't just frustrating. Worse than that, it's infiltrating MY brain with thoughts I do not wish to have, put to me in the first person singular. It's quite scary when you think about it - anyone who has studied mind power knows this is not good.
All I could do was affirm something positive in my own mind and try to let the negativity flow off my back. Maybe this is one of the reasons I developed the selective hearing I mentioned earlier.
But there are always moments of supreme clarity to remember with a smile. One day - and I can't quite recall what it was she did because this is a few years back, I said to her, "Mother you will wear me out!" "Huh," she replied without missing a beat, "YOU are the strong one!"
Never stuck for an answer. "Well," I thought - "I sure hope so. Under these conditions, I need to be."
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alzheimers, alzheimers care, dementia, caregiver, alzheimers disease
2 comments:
Interesting. Although my mother never descended into any kind of negativity, even while demented, I, too, once mentioned to my mother that she would wear me out. She responded exactly the same as your mother; which I found curious, considering that my mother was a very strong woman, right up to the day she died. However, I think, in her moments of clarity, she probably realized how vulnerable her dementia and various other physical conditions rendered her...and, in that sense, she was right; I was the stronger one because I was able to protect her and, somewhere in her mind, she knew she needed to be protected.
I wonder if your mother felt the same.
Very interesting, because in her heyday Kath was a strong person too. I had never looked at it that way, but you are probably right. That probably explains all the self-protective behaviour, also. I'm sure it must be terrible to know that you don't have all your faculties anymore. My neighbour's wife has dementia and she sometimes says to me, "Well, I can't remember anymore." Or, "It's no use telling me..."
My neighbour, a farmer, has been a tower of strength to me over 20 up-and-down years of my farming here. Now at last I can do some small thing in return by being there for him. It's harder for a man to cope with than it is for a woman.
Patricia
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