i’m so so lonely. There i’ve said it and i’m almost afraid to admit it. It seems such a tainted word these days, almost dirty and unseemly. Oh he’s such a lonely person you might hear them say, he spent a long time talking.... i think he’s just lonely you know.
I don’t need to explain anymore to my fellow posters as you’ll all know what i mean. I certainly didn’t believe i’d be one of the lonely but here i am aching for company so i don’t have to get up every day to a empty depressing kitchen eating my breakfast alone.
Hardly any of my posts are worthy of a reply but i find a release in just writing it down.
Where are my old posters on here? Have i upset you or, as i suspect, you’ve just run out of things to say which is more likely. So Dutchman is still here stumbling through each day as miserable as ever. Am i allowed to have this self pity? i’ve been told by non grief carriers to snap out of it, stop ruminating, look forward, be brave, oh and a raft of other gee up advice. Yes, well, you try it,, see how you like it!
I now have to consider re insuring our little caravan sitting pathetically on the drive. It’s just a reminder of what we shared.
Forgive me for these emotions today. i feel a little less lonely when i’ve got it out there.
Peter
Hello
@Dutchman. I'm fairly new to this forum and have been reading through your posts with an ever-increasing feeling of "this could be me he's talking about". I had to call an ambulance last June when my wife, Margaret, who's been suffering with LBD since about 2015 at least became unmanageable and violent to the extent that I feared not such that she would harm me but that in trying to restrain her/protect myself I might harm her. She was in hospital until November and then transferred to a nursing home where sadly she will have to remain.
I have been through all the emotions you display - guilt, self-pity , leaving everything in the house just as it was on the day she left, asking why and, yes, floods of tears on a regular basis. I finding myself regularly going over the past 5/6 years, wondering where it all went wrong, chastising myself for all the things I should have done better, the times I should have been kinder, not got angry, accepted the position. But when you're so close to someone (we've been married 48 years) you don't believe that they won't in some way "come back", that's it's all a nightmare that you'll wake from, and that your remaining years will somehow be restored to you would have hoped for.
I know that the nursing home is the right place for her to be. They're very kind and caring. Like you I find such visits and occasional phone calls that I've been able to have distressing. She hasn't recognised me through the window and just walked off. She's become angry on the phone and told me to "go away and stop interfering in my life". The only upside is that perhaps she has in some way found herself a new life and inside herself she is happy. At least that's how I console myself and, who knows, it may be the case. Dementia is such a beast - it strips away everything
and gives back nothing. As you say, you think to yourself "this is what bereavement is" and hope that when the end comes you'll be prepared. Maybe, but I remain to be convinced.
People tell me regularly, that I mustn't feel responsible, that I couldn't possibly carry on caring (true I think), that "they" wouldn't allow me to anyway (again probably true as she's under a DOLS), that I should make a "new life" for myself, meet new people, all the usual things and I know they're trying to be kind but I can't make a new life, I don't want to meet new people, join a club or whatever. Anything like that would feel a betrayal. I can't move house, e.g. nearer to my children, because that would be a betrayal. So I do the housework, walk the dog, tend the garden and keep everything as it was when she went into hospital I suppose, deep down, I think there just might be a miracle and just in case everything must be ready for her to come home.
,I've gone on at some length, partly, it's true, because it helps me to talk to someone who has been down the same path but also because I would like to think that you might be helped by someone else recognising all the emotions you display and understands. You are not alone!
God bless.