Just been to the doctor as I feel it all too much. It has affected me at work and I have been signed off for a month plus put on tablets for stress. Compared to some people on here my problems with my Mom are insignificant. She can look after herself but needs help with doctors appointments, medication and financial help. My brother and me have got LPA's in place. The doctor thinks that I'm having trouble with acceptance of the situation. To an extent I think she is right. It is the intrusion into my life that I have trouble accepting. I sound selfish I know but having been made redundant 18 months ago I thought my life would never get back on track. I then found another job which I love and became a grandparent to a gorgeous girl, I thought my life was great. Then 9 months ago the process started getting my Mom diagnosed. Finally late January she was told she had early onset Alzheimer's. Since then it's been a continuous learning curve. Every week I wonder if I'm doing enough/ not enough. Should I be concerned by slight changes in behaviour or just put it down to an off day. I tie myself in knots some days. My brother is a great support but like my Mom keeps his feeling to himself and talking to him is like getting blood out of a stone. I too am a bit like that and don't wish to burden my husband or children but they are good listeners. Reading other people's posts I realise I'm not the only one who feels like this but it's good to write it down and get it off your chest. A problem shared etc.
Feeling overwhelmed
- Thread starter Daisy j
- Start date
Hello @Daisy j, it’s good to write it down - that’s one of the reasons TP exists.
Dementia is a difficult and complex issue for all concerned and we all get the feeling of being overwhelmed at one time or another. I know I feel it at times.
It is early days for you and you are probably still in the phase that is known as anticipatory grief. This is like experiencing a bereavement while the person is still alive and I think many feel it because they are aware that their way of life has changed for the foreseeable future. I felt that but with time I got through it - all be it will the occasional relapse into it. Don’t be hard on yourself, all anyone can do is the best they can manage.
Dementia is a difficult and complex issue for all concerned and we all get the feeling of being overwhelmed at one time or another. I know I feel it at times.
It is early days for you and you are probably still in the phase that is known as anticipatory grief. This is like experiencing a bereavement while the person is still alive and I think many feel it because they are aware that their way of life has changed for the foreseeable future. I felt that but with time I got through it - all be it will the occasional relapse into it. Don’t be hard on yourself, all anyone can do is the best they can manage.
Hello Daisy, I know how you feel, my mum is yet to be diagnosed but all the same, it can be all consuming and obsessive so it feels like it is taking over your life already! When I read others' posts, I know that things are relatively easy for now but that it is very likely to become much worse. But what can we do but our best and come onto this site to talk things through with others and take on board their great advice when it all becomes too much.
Big hugs XXX
Big hugs XXX
For every single person who comes first to dementia in a parent or loved one, it is something quite new and in the case of dementia, something quite different and challenging. And it is not fair on yourself to term this change in your circumstances as 'insignificant' in comparison to other people's association with dementia. Your 'problem' is as valid and significant as any other because it is unique to both yourself and your own mother, as you are indeed different and unique as mother and daughter. Thus, the journey into dementia, whilst crossing in many cases a familiar terrain and having a given destination (at present we no of no cure) still remains your own journey, as with your mother. So comparisons should be set aside. Also, it is very easy to become overwhelmed by expectations of a negative nature, or indeed that feeling that one is not doing enough and so on. Acceptance of a diagnosis with dementia can be problematical for the one directly concerned and the immediate family, it seems to carry that kind of label. What is most certainly true, is the fact that caring for a loved one with dementia does change lives, simply owing to the fact that once you take
on that role of caring it embraces all manner of implications and responsibilities. That means also that 'family' are included by default. Day-to-day becomes something of a cliche in respect of the journey into dementia, but it holds true all the same. Dementia is unpredictable and complex and each and every case will be different. To have an ongoing relationship with your GP is always very helpful and prudent, especially if they have a speciality in this area.
In the Care Home, the aim is to operate a person-centred approach to care in terms of dementia, whatever the nature or variant. This suggests not only empathy and awareness, but a real sense of 'being there' with a given dementia, i.e. entering that world as it so presents in order to validate and function with it, rather than against it. Not easy. Not easy in the domestic situation, but neither hopeless nor a cause for despair. At an earlier stage, one can plan and plan accordingly in terms of care and try not to allow anxieties to inhibit that planning. Whatever accounts one shares on TP - many of which can be truly challenging - your dementia journey with your mother, is yours - but a journey not alone. And throughout that journey, you must have respect for yourself and your own well-being, in order to function.
Words are rather too easy, but nevertheless, nobody can live for tomorrow, nor yesterday, only in the present. Practicable matters have to be attended to, always, but in the case of dementia, taking each day as it comes is prudent, because each and every day can be so very very different. And there are thousands out there treading their own' dementia path', anonymously, all of whom matter profoundly - simply because they are doing just that.
