My PWD remembers virtually nothing from the last 50 years and therefore is often unaware that the person who cares for her 24/7 is her husband since the 1970s.
When this first became an issue a couple of years ago, I was quite offended and my mission was to enlighten her: wedding and holiday photos, the fact that we had the same surname, title deeds to the house and so on. But I soon found that her level of awareness of her marriage had little to do with rationality. Her condition means that even if I ‘convince’ her that we are married, she will have no memory of that insight a few seconds later.
Sometimes she’ll be surprised but pleased to hear that we were married – but why had I been absent in recent decades? Sometimes, particularly when anxious, she’ll be quite straight-laced, upset at the suggestion that she is married and concerned about what family members would think of us being together. In the evening she will often say, “where do you live?”, and then wonder where I’ll be sleeping. And a short while later will happily have me sleeping beside her. And when we meet strangers, she will routinely introduce me as “my husband”.
This is all very interesting for me but for her it is just one small example of the turmoil and confusion she faces every day.
“Going home” is the basis of daily sundowning beginning at around 4 - 5pm. Most days she wants to visit her parents, brothers and sisters, and aunties and uncles. She thinks her parents must be quite old and wondering where she is, and this causes her great anxiety. Sometimes a local walk can be calming, but the anxiety often resurfaces later in the evening – most exasperatingly for me when she has agreed to stay and had supper in bed. After organising a full-on day of experiences she doesn’t remember, I find having to cope with her agitation, anger, abuse and aggression very challenging. It seems to be worse on the occasions when I’m not giving her my full attention, for example when I’m trying to watch an evening football match on TV – which means I never actually watch a whole match, just recording and then fast-forwarding to catch the goals.
Her sundowning behaviour makes some sense in the context of 50 years of lost memories: consequently she believes she’s much younger than she is, that it’s months not decades since she’s seen her parents, that we’re not married, that the home we share is not her home, and that she can’t wait to get back to her family. After all, no matter how rich and varied are her experiences with me, she doesn’t remember any of it, leading her to believe that her life is a dull and grey nothingness. If only she was back with her family, how much better life would be.
When this first became an issue a couple of years ago, I was quite offended and my mission was to enlighten her: wedding and holiday photos, the fact that we had the same surname, title deeds to the house and so on. But I soon found that her level of awareness of her marriage had little to do with rationality. Her condition means that even if I ‘convince’ her that we are married, she will have no memory of that insight a few seconds later.
Sometimes she’ll be surprised but pleased to hear that we were married – but why had I been absent in recent decades? Sometimes, particularly when anxious, she’ll be quite straight-laced, upset at the suggestion that she is married and concerned about what family members would think of us being together. In the evening she will often say, “where do you live?”, and then wonder where I’ll be sleeping. And a short while later will happily have me sleeping beside her. And when we meet strangers, she will routinely introduce me as “my husband”.
This is all very interesting for me but for her it is just one small example of the turmoil and confusion she faces every day.
“Going home” is the basis of daily sundowning beginning at around 4 - 5pm. Most days she wants to visit her parents, brothers and sisters, and aunties and uncles. She thinks her parents must be quite old and wondering where she is, and this causes her great anxiety. Sometimes a local walk can be calming, but the anxiety often resurfaces later in the evening – most exasperatingly for me when she has agreed to stay and had supper in bed. After organising a full-on day of experiences she doesn’t remember, I find having to cope with her agitation, anger, abuse and aggression very challenging. It seems to be worse on the occasions when I’m not giving her my full attention, for example when I’m trying to watch an evening football match on TV – which means I never actually watch a whole match, just recording and then fast-forwarding to catch the goals.
Her sundowning behaviour makes some sense in the context of 50 years of lost memories: consequently she believes she’s much younger than she is, that it’s months not decades since she’s seen her parents, that we’re not married, that the home we share is not her home, and that she can’t wait to get back to her family. After all, no matter how rich and varied are her experiences with me, she doesn’t remember any of it, leading her to believe that her life is a dull and grey nothingness. If only she was back with her family, how much better life would be.
