Just need to have a 'virtual' scream

marionq

Registered User
Apr 24, 2013
6,449
0
Scotland
It will come, I promise.
It is nearly three years now since mum died and I can remember all the good times again. The sad memories are there too, but they no longer dominate
@canary that is a very important point to make. While I can never forget the traumatic times of John’s wandering it is no longer the dominant memory. Because he stayed at home with me during the 7 years of his illness we climbed to peak despair then down the other side as his mobility and general awareness declined. I am hoping overtime that I’ll just remember the pre dementia days.
 

Izzy

Volunteer Moderator
Aug 31, 2003
74,002
0
72
Dundee
@canary I am hoping overtime that I’ll just remember the pre dementia days.

I’m almost at that stage after coming up for 4 years Marion. I do still remember the 15 years of dementia as they were a major slice of our marriage but the good memories of the happy times we had together are more prevalent now.
 

jenniferjean

Registered User
Apr 2, 2016
925
0
Basingstoke, Hampshire
I'm worried that I'm forgetting what my partner was like before this horrible disease, so often I wish I could just have a few minutes with him as he was pre-Alzheimer's, I don't want the only memories to be him as he is now.
I feel that too. Even when I look at photos of pre-Dementia days the man-sized toddler is too fixed in my mind. I do try but I struggle to see him as he was. When I think about my feelings for him then my mind is too easily pulled back to the present.
 

White Rose

Registered User
Nov 4, 2018
679
0
I’m almost at that stage after coming up for 4 years Marion. I do still remember the 15 years of dementia as they were a major slice of our marriage but the good memories of the happy times we had together are more prevalent now.
Thank goodness, it would be so awful if the only memories of our loved ones were the dementia years
 

White Rose

Registered User
Nov 4, 2018
679
0
I feel that too. Even when I look at photos of pre-Dementia days the man-sized toddler is too fixed in my mind. I do try but I struggle to see him as he was. When I think about my feelings for him then my mind is too easily pulled back to the present.
Yes you're right @jenniferjean, it is a struggle to remember the pre-dementia days - I was lying in bed trying to sleep while he tossed and turned and fidgeted and desperately tried to recall better times, some came, mostly holidays and when we first met but they seemed like memories of someone else, impossible to correlate that person with the one he is now, the difference between the two people is too great.
 

Olliebeak

Registered User
Sep 13, 2014
151
0
Buckinghamshire
Oh dear, so many of us need to scream. No one who doesn't deal with what we do on a daily basis has a clue do they. I was thinking yesterday how huge the stress is when you have to be looking after their needs from the minute they wake to the minute they go to sleep and often during the night as well, when there is not a minute to yourself. My partner is more demanding than a child, even on the days I work, as soon as I collect him from day care it starts, wanting attention, attention attention, 'talking' all the time, making sure he goes to the toilet and then flushing and often cleaning it, giving him tissues when his nose is running, cooking, helping him brush his teeth and get undressed for bed, wake up in the night to put the bathroom light on so he can use the toilet, then talking him back to sleep...... I'm beginning to dread being home, dreading the weekends, dreading his mood swings. I've heard that the PWDs worst traits are often magnified with the disease, I wonder if it's true, if it is then mine was very spoilt and self centred when he was a child, maybe because he was an only child. Here I am waffling on when the fact is he can't help it and would be horrified if he knew this is how his life has turned out. So unfair.

I have been wondering about dementia magnifying existing traits too. My OH was always a bit OCD. But as his AD progresses it seems to become more of an issue. He obsesses about his little routines like laying out the plates and mugs for breakfast. Often while I’m still cooking dinner. I ventured into our loft extension room today which is packed with all his stuff and he has put up an old card table and laid out photos, newspaper clippings and old documents all over that and the bed in tidy little piles. I suppose as behaviours go it’s harmless!
 

Justmary

Registered User
Jul 12, 2018
204
0
West Midlands
I feel that too. Even when I look at photos of pre-Dementia days the man-sized toddler is too fixed in my mind. I do try but I struggle to see him as he was. When I think about my feelings for him then my mind is too easily pulled back to the present.
@jenniferjean I think you are spot on. My mind is also pulled back to the man-sized toddler and the present. I feel that the only way I can deal with the day to day trials is to be this hard- headed, practical woman doing a job. And like others have said, I hope that one day I will be able to think about all the lovely times we shared and remember the man he was.
 

Linda G

Registered User
Oct 23, 2017
56
0
Hi. Singing certainly has a feel good factor. If you cannot get out to join a choir, I have got a Prime Alexa. I tell it to play any tune I want and then sign along with the music in my own home as loud as I want and that certainly makes me feel better.