Can I vent?

[smartieplum]

This might be long but please bear with me. I live(d) with mum and dad all my life. Mum was diagnosed on 31 July 2014 (a date I shall never forget). She was okay and pretty independent up until a year ago although did not go out alone for about 3 years. She was becoming more confused, using cat food instead of washing up liquid, drinking floor cleaner, etc. I cut my days of working as dad also has his own issues. Anyway, after a sharp deterioration since December, she wandered out one night in Feb. I never heard a thing and only knew when she was returned by the police. She went into hospital and was there for about 2 weeks. She then moved to intermediate care and we started looking at care homes. We found a lovely one and she moved there a week ago. I was coping really well until her permanent home. I can't function. We are very close but I had my own life away from them until her diagnoses which has consumed all our lives. Everywhere I go reminds me of mum. She is my best pal, a lovely lady. I dread the day she will forget me. It is like a death.

I've just returned to work after being off 10 weeks. I'm due in tomorrow and am dreading it. I'm really surprised by my reaction.

Mum seems to be settling. She has her photos and music around her. She's clean and the staff take care with the small things like matching her clothes, etc. She already has a few wee pals.

But how do I go on. The house is so lonely without her. Every time I'm asked about it I cry. I'm not sure I can go on.

I'm sorry to go on but really have no where else to vent. Will this get better? Thanks for taking the time to read. X

 

[karaokePete]

Can you vent? Absolutely, that's one of the things TP is for.

 

[love.dad.but..]

It will get better because you will gradually adjust and although it seems daunting going back to work may be a positive step in reclaiming your life whilst knowing your mum is being well looked after and your mum if she were able would say to you...you have cared for me to your absolute best and now is the time for you to pick up a bit of your life again and visit me with a big smile on your face

 

[canary]

You are suffering from grief, @smartieplum
When someone goes into a care home it is like a form of bereavement. I also think it sounds like you had reached carers burn-out when your mum ended up in hospital.
Be gentle with yourself; your mum is settling and you will settle too - it will just take time for you to adjust and heal.

 

[karaokePete]

This might be long but please bear with me. I live(d) with mum and dad all my life. Mum was diagnosed on 31 July 2014 (a date I shall never forget). She was okay and pretty independent up until a year ago although did not go out alone for about 3 years. She was becoming more confused, using cat food instead of washing up liquid, drinking floor cleaner, etc. I cut my days of working as dad also has his own issues. Anyway, after a sharp deterioration since December, she wandered out one night in Feb. I never heard a thing and only knew when she was returned by the police. She went into hospital and was there for about 2 weeks. She then moved to intermediate care and we started looking at care homes. We found a lovely one and she moved there a week ago. I was coping really well until her permanent home. I can't function. We are very close but I had my own life away from them until her diagnoses which has consumed all our lives. Everywhere I go reminds me of mum. She is my best pal, a lovely lady. I dread the day she will forget me. It is like a death.

I've just returned to work after being off 10 weeks. I'm due in tomorrow and am dreading it. I'm really surprised by my reaction.

Mum seems to be settling. She has her photos and music around her. She's clean and the staff take care with the small things like matching her clothes, etc. She already has a few wee pals.

But how do I go on. The house is so lonely without her. Every time I'm asked about it I cry. I'm not sure I can go on.

I'm sorry to go on but really have no where else to vent. Will this get better? Thanks for taking the time to read. X

Amongst all the rest, dementia throws what is known as 'anticipatory grief' at us. It is a bit like grieving for a death even though no-one has died, as such. In my own case I experienced this upon my wife's diagnosis. All I can say is that I busied myself with doing what needed to be done and I got through it quickly. Obviously everyone is different but I hope your tunnel won't be long and that you'll soon see a light at the end of it. Stay strong.

 

[jaymor]

@smartieplum you are still your Mother’s Carer, you just have some help to do the daily tasks. Your Mum still needs you to watch over her, to make sure everything is as you know she would want. She will need you to get the bits and pieces we ladies can’t live without.

You will be watching to make sure the care is right and the staff know all they can about your Mum, especially her likes and dislikes. You really do still have an important place in your Mum’s life.

 

[Trapisha]

This might be long but please bear with me. I live(d) with mum and dad all my life. Mum was diagnosed on 31 July 2014 (a date I shall never forget). She was okay and pretty independent up until a year ago although did not go out alone for about 3 years. She was becoming more confused, using cat food instead of washing up liquid, drinking floor cleaner, etc. I cut my days of working as dad also has his own issues. Anyway, after a sharp deterioration since December, she wandered out one night in Feb. I never heard a thing and only knew when she was returned by the police. She went into hospital and was there for about 2 weeks. She then moved to intermediate care and we started looking at care homes. We found a lovely one and she moved there a week ago. I was coping really well until her permanent home. I can't function. We are very close but I had my own life away from them until her diagnoses which has consumed all our lives. Everywhere I go reminds me of mum. She is my best pal, a lovely lady. I dread the day she will forget me. It is like a death.

I've just returned to work after being off 10 weeks. I'm due in tomorrow and am dreading it. I'm really surprised by my reaction.

Mum seems to be settling. She has her photos and music around her. She's clean and the staff take care with the small things like matching her clothes, etc. She already has a few wee pals.

But how do I go on. The house is so lonely without her. Every time I'm asked about it I cry. I'm not sure I can go on.

I'm sorry to go on but really have no where else to vent. Will this get better? Thanks for taking the time to read. X

Dear smartieplum i do know how you are feeling I've been feeling the same as you for
the last six months when my mom was diagnosed after she fell and broke her wrist
although i knew there was something wrong as she was very forgetful but she seemed
worse after her fall which made it more awkward for her to be alone so we have a care
package sorted out for her but even after her wrist healed the carers still continued to
come as it was obvious that she needed some help with her lunch and meds etc.
i get days when i cannot accept what is happening and i feel frightened of whats to come
and i don't know how i will go on, then days when i feel stronger i had to go on meds for
anxiety to help me which they have done and i felt a bit better for a time but i still get
days when i feel so unhappy that this has happened and dread each day i see her in
case there is a deterioration in her i feel like you i need someone to say you will get
stronger and cope with it in time but when will that be i hope soon as i can't get on
with my life i dread every day i wake up fearing phone ringing etc. so keep talking
on here at least we can get it off our chest xx Take Care x

 

[smartieplum]

Dear smartieplum i do know how you are feeling I've been feeling the same as you for
the last six months when my mom was diagnosed after she fell and broke her wrist
although i knew there was something wrong as she was very forgetful but she seemed
worse after her fall which made it more awkward for her to be alone so we have a care
package sorted out for her but even after her wrist healed the carers still continued to
come as it was obvious that she needed some help with her lunch and meds etc.
i get days when i cannot accept what is happening and i feel frightened of whats to come
and i don't know how i will go on, then days when i feel stronger i had to go on meds for
anxiety to help me which they have done and i felt a bit better for a time but i still get
days when i feel so unhappy that this has happened and dread each day i see her in
case there is a deterioration in her i feel like you i need someone to say you will get
stronger and cope with it in time but when will that be i hope soon as i can't get on
with my life i dread every day i wake up fearing phone ringing etc. so keep talking
on here at least we can get it off our chest xx Take Care x

You take care too. Xx

 

[YY60]

I do hope you can adjust back to work knowing your mum is safe and cared for.

Our mum went into a home 2.12.17 an awful day and as seen many times here felt like a bereavement.

I hope in time it works out for you.

 

[Nandi]

This might be long but please bear with me. I live(d) with mum and dad all my life. Mum was diagnosed on 31 July 2014 (a date I shall never forget). She was okay and pretty independent up until a year ago although did not go out alone for about 3 years. She was becoming more confused, using cat food instead of washing up liquid, drinking floor cleaner, etc. I cut my days of working as dad also has his own issues. Anyway, after a sharp deterioration since December, she wandered out one night in Feb. I never heard a thing and only knew when she was returned by the police. She went into hospital and was there for about 2 weeks. She then moved to intermediate care and we started looking at care homes. We found a lovely one and she moved there a week ago. I was coping really well until her permanent home. I can't function. We are very close but I had my own life away from them until her diagnoses which has consumed all our lives. Everywhere I go reminds me of mum. She is my best pal, a lovely lady. I dread the day she will forget me. It is like a death.

I've just returned to work after being off 10 weeks. I'm due in tomorrow and am dreading it. I'm really surprised by my reaction.

Mum seems to be settling. She has her photos and music around her. She's clean and the staff take care with the small things like matching her clothes, etc. She already has a few wee pals.

But how do I go on. The house is so lonely without her. Every time I'm asked about it I cry. I'm not sure I can go on.

I'm sorry to go on but really have no where else to vent. Will this get better? Thanks for taking the time to read. X

 

[Trapisha]

Dear @smartieplum, I can feel your pain in every sentence of your post so I am going to start my own response to you in reverse order of what I want to say. Yes, at some point it will get better as you adjust to your Mum being in permanent care. This rawness of the physical loss of your Mum from your home, where you have been with her virtually every day, all your life, will not always feel this raw for you as it does at this moment in time. @canary is right, what you are feeling is pure grief and grief can only be lived with and worked through. At your own pace. In your own time. In your own way. It can be so excruciatingly painful to bear that I think we wish we would do anything to not have to feel it, but that is not an option. Another TP member, @Hazara8 wrote a post for me, when I was hurting a while back, about seeing all the reminders in the home of the person you love, the empty chair, perhaps a cardigan still in the same place on the back of a door. It struck such a chord with me as everywhere I looked, home was filled with pieces of Mum and her absence was acute. You sound as though you are feeling exactly the same and my heart goes out to you.

Let me explain, I gave up my job and home for my Mum 3 years ago to move in and care for her. During that time, I put aside 99% of my own feelings and wants and needs. We all do as full-time live-in carers. Dementia is such a difficult disease and demands everything of us 24 hours a day (and oh my goodness, the nights). When that stops, suddenly, for whatever reason, in amongst the relief that the person we love is safe is an enormous chasm that is empty of everything but them. In my case, I knew I could no longer go on caring alone and my Mum was admitted to hospital and moved in to permanent residential nursing care only 2 weeks ago. Although she had been in hospital before, this time hit me like a ton of bricks. The permanence of it. My part in the decision about residential care in itself was agony. For the first time in the last 3 years I was actually able to cry without worry of being seen or overheard, where before I had hidden my feelings for Mum's sake for so long. My Mum's life and mine will never be the same again. Our friendship changed long ago as I had to become my Mum's Mother because of her decline, but this last change has been so very painful and final even though she is still very much in the land of the living physically. It has been another small death in a long line of emotional bereavements that caring for someone with dementia causes us to feel. This is literally what anticipatory and ambiguous grief looks and feels like.

It does get better. It won't stay this raw for you. It has lessened a little for me already. I now have to look for a job and like you, am dreading attempting to go back in to the workplace when I no longer even feel like the same person I was before. You have an existing job waiting for you and it just may be your lifeline. For the time you are at work, your thoughts will be focussed away from recent events and even if you can only sustain the concentration for an hour at a time, that will help. You will adjust dear Smartieplum but sadly no-one can take away the pain you are feeling. Your Mum is safe and being cared for. I hope it helps you to know that many of us on TP have felt and are feeling the same pain and we are still here. Still living, still going on. You will too, sweetie. I hope once you have got through your first day at work it will help you a little more. In the meantime, we are all always here. Sending you a huge cyber hug xx @Trapisha, I won't hijack this thread, but just wanted to send you a huge cyber hug too xxx

 

[Trapisha]

Sending you cyber hug too xxx thank you your the only person that has told me it will
get better means a lot xxx

 

[Nandi]

We all find being carer stressful but do it and imagine life without it but then think what will I do then we have a 2 year old dog the last of a long line of dogs he seems to know dad has a problem sleeps .with him perhaps a pet would help makes us get out and about , meanwhile you can still visit mum on a lighter note u have to laugh sometimes mine got bathed in shaving foam I am not allowed in bathroom, survived
Augh

 

[Kikki21]

I can only imagine how it must be for you @smartieplum being so close to your mum. It feels weird to think that the care home is now my mum’s home & my mum & I did not have a fantastic relationship & she has been there a whole week now!

I still felt the guilt & still do & I sometimes think she probably hates me for having put her in there but we had no choice. It just had to be done & in time you will realise that is simply how it had to be.

Returning to work wise if you cannot cope then
a phased return to work should be discussed with your workplace & GP & maybe you could benefit from some counselling. I am absolutely frazzled over the last few months & I so need I go on holiday next week! Xx

 

[smartieplum]

You are all wonderful people and I am reading this through tears of grief but also thanks at your kindness. I was looking out some old pics this afternoon to put in a book for her and came across a letter dad sent mum when he had to go to London for work. So sweet. I went up this evening to make her a horlicks and we had a chat. She was fine. She did say "oh that's not my house (our house) any more, this is my house". One of the carers passed the room and said it was so cosy. Im working tomorrow and then back next week. I'm going to speak with my Line Manager about more phased return. I have joined a carers group for peer support and am going to apply to Cats Protection to do voluntary work. Hugs to all x

 

[smartieplum]

Bravo @smartieplum. Your Mum sounds content. We are tough cookies we carers, even when we ourselves think we are falling apart! Whilst I was reading your response, an old war song from way before our time came in to my head "pack up your troubles in an old kit bag and smile, smile, smile". Don't ask me where that came from but it seemed fitting for you, so I am posting it here. Wishing you all the best for tomorrow, at the carers group and the Cats Protection League.

Thanks. I'm not a brave or even a "pushy" person. I just want a life.

 

[canary]

Thanks. I'm not a brave or even a "pushy" person. I just want a life.

Of course you do - and you will.
Ive been through carers breakdown and come out the other end. I returned to work as well, so its doable. I think a phased return would be a very good idea.

 

[Hazara8]

Your post would enlighten many who know about 'dementia' in general terms, but who have never been subject to a direct and all encompassing relationship, say as daughter and mother/son and mother. Also, if it were printed and set in place in Care Homes per se, it would reveal a reality which is sometimes not truly perceived, even by Carers - that the lives of those in care, ARE lives ( of which we each have just the one) now compromised with dementia, taken from their home and loved ones - changing everything, as your post sheds so well a clarifying light on what that means, in truth. Alike old soldiers who have faced real combat and trauma, only they can converse together and 'know' the truth of what they have experienced, secondary reportage has its value, but light years away from the 'here-and-now' reality. In that respect, your post strikes a profoundly familiar chord. Thank you.

Dear @smartieplum, I can feel your pain in every sentence of your post so I am going to start my own response to you in reverse order of what I want to say. Yes, at some point it will get better as you adjust to your Mum being in permanent care. This rawness of the physical loss of your Mum from your home, where you have been with her virtually every day, all your life, will not always feel this raw for you as it does at this moment in time. @canary is right, what you are feeling is pure grief and grief can only be lived with and worked through. At your own pace. In your own time. In your own way. It can be so excruciatingly painful to bear that I think we wish we would do anything to not have to feel it, but that is not an option. Another TP member, @Hazara8 wrote a post for me, when I was hurting a while back, about seeing all the reminders in the home of the person you love, the empty chair, perhaps a cardigan still in the same place on the back of a door. It struck such a chord with me as everywhere I looked, home was filled with pieces of Mum and her absence was acute. You sound as though you are feeling exactly the same and my heart goes out to you.

Let me explain, I gave up my job and home for my Mum 3 years ago to move in and care for her. During that time, I put aside 99% of my own feelings and wants and needs. We all do as full-time live-in carers. Dementia is such a difficult disease and demands everything of us 24 hours a day (and oh my goodness, the nights). When that stops, suddenly, for whatever reason, in amongst the relief that the person we love is safe is an enormous chasm that is empty of everything but them. In my case, I knew I could no longer go on caring alone and my Mum was admitted to hospital and moved in to permanent residential nursing care only 2 weeks ago. Although she had been in hospital before, this time hit me like a ton of bricks. The permanence of it. My part in the decision about residential care in itself was agony. For the first time in the last 3 years I was actually able to cry without worry of being seen or overheard, where before I had hidden my feelings for Mum's sake for so long. My Mum's life and mine will never be the same again. Our friendship changed long ago as I had to become my Mum's Mother because of her decline, but this last change has been so very painful and final even though she is still very much in the land of the living physically. It has been another small death in a long line of emotional bereavements that caring for someone with dementia causes us to feel. This is literally what anticipatory and ambiguous grief looks and feels like.

It does get better. It won't stay this raw for you. It has lessened a little for me already. I now have to look for a job and like you, am dreading attempting to go back in to the workplace when I no longer even feel like the same person I was before. You have an existing job waiting for you and it just may be your lifeline. For the time you are at work, your thoughts will be focussed away from recent events and even if you can only sustain the concentration for an hour at a time, that will help. You will adjust dear Smartieplum but sadly no-one can take away the pain you are feeling. Your Mum is safe and being cared for. I hope it helps you to know that many of us on TP have felt and are feeling the same pain and we are still here. Still living, still going on. You will too, sweetie. I hope once you have got through your first day at work it will help you a little more. In the meantime, we are all always here. Sending you a huge cyber hug xx @Trapisha, I won't hijack this thread, but just wanted to send you a huge cyber hug too xxx

 

[Trapisha]

You are all wonderful people and I am reading this through tears of grief but also thanks at your kindness. I was looking out some old pics this afternoon to put in a book for her and came across a letter dad sent mum when he had to go to London for work. So sweet. I went up this evening to make her a horlicks and we had a chat. She was fine. She did say "oh that's not my house (our house) any more, this is my house". One of the carers passed the room and said it was so cosy. Im working tomorrow and then back next week. I'm going to speak with my Line Manager about more phased return. I have joined a carers group for peer support and am going to apply to Cats Protection to do voluntary work. Hugs to all x

Thats lovely sending hugs to you too xxxx

 

[smartieplum]

I thought I should see my GP. I did go to work but couldn't cope. GP said I was very distressed and signed me off again. Manager is being supportive. I hope I get over this and can move on to a new normal