Person A versus person B

Alan19531953

Registered User
Jun 16, 2015
36
0
You start off with person A but end up with person B. But what about the 'soul'. Is there anything of person A? Do we have person B living in the body of person A? I. Am now living with someone who looks like my wife. I feel like a carer looking after some 'old lady'. Is this wrong?
 

Jessbow

Registered User
Mar 1, 2013
5,680
0
Midlands
I can understand what you are saying.

I wrote this sometime ago...and it brought it back to mind

Where is My Mum, the lady I knew
Consumed with dementia, her every vein through.

She sits in her chair with a smile on her face
Her dress smeared with breakfast, and all over the place

We'll pop to the bathroom,
well, totter and drop,
removed the soaked clothing, and help her to wash

get back to her chair now,
the TV switched on
What happened yesterday already has gone.

Soon be tomorrow, don't wish life away
Make no promises, she'll think
''That's today.....''

Let's go for a walk, well a push in her chair
3 people speak, yet no-one is there

Get her some dinner,
I guess what she'd like
Hope most gets eaten not dropped ....out of sight.

Put her to bed
and tuck her in tight
Safe from the visions that come every night

...The girl in the pink coat,
The cat on the chair
The fireman
The milkman
and My dad.....that's not fair

Her beloved in heaven
Who left her behind
to this life full of torment

Who said ''life was kind?''
 
Last edited:

sistermillicent

Registered User
Jan 30, 2009
2,949
0
Alan, it is not wrong as far as I am concerned anyway. I used to think there was a monster inhabiting mum which even showed through her eyes. This phase has now passed and mum, although just a shadow of her former self and unable to string a sentence together or even recognise me any more, is back.
Have you got any help?
 

Chemmy

Registered User
Nov 7, 2011
7,589
0
Yorkshire
Alan, it is not wrong as far as I am concerned anyway. I used to think there was a monster inhabiting mum which even showed through her eyes. This phase has now passed and mum, although just a shadow of her former self and unable to string a sentence together or even recognise me any more, is back.
Have you got any help?

Gosh, I remember thinking that too. There was an alien blackness about Mum's eyes. But you're right, that phase did pass.
 

cragmaid

Registered User
Oct 18, 2010
7,936
0
North East England
A word or a gesture, you'll recognise it when you see it, that is the old one you love.
The rest of her soul is with you while you do the caring. And while you can still care, she is not gone. x
 

stanleypj

Registered User
Dec 8, 2011
10,712
0
North West
After several years of reading TP Alan, I can assure you that many members would agree with those who have responded already. In many cases, there are phases when the person we love all but disappears but then that phase will eventually pass and the essence of the person we love starts to show again. I hope that you will find that this is the case.
 

LadyA

Registered User
Oct 19, 2009
13,730
0
Ireland
Have to agree with what's been said. There was a time (which lasted several years) when I had actually forgotten what my husband was really like - his illness had crept up and changed him so gradually, into a paranoid, suspicious, controlling madman who made our lives a misery, and if I'm honest, the thoughts of him living on and on for years, in the perfect physical health (and at the time, we didn't realise he had dementia - like I said, it was so gradual, we thought he'd always been like that!) used to fill me with despair! I spent as little time as I could with him, because he watched every move I made with suspicious, glittery little eyes. And still wasn't satisfied. He was trying to police my thoughts, my beliefs - everything.

However - eventually his illness progressed. I now think that a lot of that previous time was caused by his knowing that "something" wasn't right, and desperately trying to (a) hide that fact, and (b) trying to maintain control, when he felt and knew that he wasn't in control anymore. Things were slipping away, and although he could hide it from everyone around him, he knew it himself. Later, I found files full of research he had been doing on alzheimer's disease, how to treat it, folk remedies to prevent it, herbal remedies, quack cures, etc. etc. Dating back years.

Further on, and as he progressed further into the illness, he lost all that control-freakiness. He lost the nastiness. It's as if, once he got to the stage where he no longer knew he was ill, no longer realised that he had to try and keep up a front of nothing being wrong - he was able to relax, and the real person shone through again. He became again the lovely, gentle, caring man he really was. And of course, medication thankfully dealt with the paranoia & hallucinations. So the last few years were really good - until he progressed again to where I couldn't care for him alone any longer.

Our minds are such a labyrinth, there's so much in there, any illness that affects our minds is bound to be difficult. But your wife is still in there somewhere. I'm sure there will be flashes now and then.
 

cragmaid

Registered User
Oct 18, 2010
7,936
0
North East England
Quote Originally Posted by cragmaid View Post
And while you can still care, she is not gone. x
If only that were true, how happy I could be.

I had to believe that, when I was caring for my late Mum, otherwise the hatred that I felt during the time she was Person B would have won.

All it took was a word or a gesture and I could remember that Mum was in there and my resolve was boosted.
 

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