I am in denial

[gigi]

It's a strange disease..and we are caught up in it.
The problem is that just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water........

It all changes again. So it changes for us too..
Honestly ...we'd have to be superhuman to deal with that and not feel negative thoughts.

There are no time limits, no set patterns, no guarantees with dementia.

It just is..

That's why we're all here..even the experts don't know.

Sometimes we just have to accept that we are 'down' about things. Its a normal reaction to abnormal levels of stress.

I think that's true, Hendy.

Good days and bad days will come and go..

It's comforting that you're all here to share both!!

Love gigi xx

 

[Kate P]

Hi Helen,

Well it's a tricky subject - again it's hard to label these feelings because each means something different to someone else.

I wouldn't have thought of you as someone in denial at all - I think you are hopeful and making the best that you can out of a very hard and emotional situation.

For me denial was when my dad wouldn't take mum to the doctor because he had asked her to bring home salmon and she did so there clearly wasn't anything wrong with her!!! This "fish" test went on for several months!!! That was denial...

For me I have moments were I feel my dad is still in denial but I think there is a level of hope and maybe a smidge of denial that is necessary when you're caring for that person 24 hours a day and especially when it's your spouse.

For me my mum isn't my mum anymore and although I found it hard to manage at first I have gradually come to terms with it so it only hits me now and again. But if this is your spouse how can you accept that this isn't the person you married anymore - how could you stil look after them if you couldn't see in them that person you had spent so many years with? I'm quite sure if it is ever my hubby who has dementia (God forbid!) that I wil handle it totally different to how I do with my mum and that I'll understand my dad a whole lot more.

Sorry it's a bit rambly but the gist is I think you're doing great!

 

[Margarita]

For me my mum isn't my mum anymore and although I found it hard to manage at first I have gradually come to terms with it so it only hits me now and again.

I wonder if we just perceive things deferent about denial, I know that my mother would never get better, but I found it hard to let go of the hope that she lose the ability of doing things for herself sooner rather than later . So would prompt her to do it herself would let her keep that ability longer. May be that what your father doing or was trying to do.

May be it make you feel better to thing that your mother not your mother anymore, so it’s helping to except what is happing I went through a stage that I felt my mother was not my mother any more. But strangle since medication for AZ is not working it seem to me that she is my mother.

I don’t believe that they not the person that they use to be , they just slower losing the ability to do thing for themselves so became dependant on us so the caring mother daughter role is revised . you have lost the mother daughter relationship , but she always be your mother because she gave birth to you . no one can take that away from you , only yourself in your mind .

 

[Grannie G]

Mothers are still mothers, fathers still fathers, husbands still husbands and wives still wives.

They just have different personae, as dementia kicks in.