but can I ask, even though the situation doesn't get easier, haven't you found that your ability to cope with it does get better?
Yes. It is a little like when someone is in an accident and has a very nasty injury and the body provides shock as a way of numbing some of the pain, to get the person through.
With a spouse or close relative with dementia, the successive and repeated jars of the development of the dementia eventually make a sort of shock set in for us, the carers, so that it becomes more possible to cope. I was going to write "gets easier" but that doesn't happen; we just cope better.
I still think that, out of everything that has happened to Jan, my biggest shock was the realisation that she couldn't write her own name, when that stage came. That was when I knew we were in this thing for real, and I was scared witless, unable to discuss it with the one person I could always talk with about anything - Jan.
The other thing that helps us, as carers, is our acceptance that what we are doing is in some way helping, that we are not just going through the motions.
just wanted to clarify this because I think its important for people to know that there can come a point where although the situation doesn't get easier it gets progressively worse, somehow we begin to cope with it better.
It is important to differentiate between the situation itself, and our ability to cope. The situation will always be a horror. Our ability to cope seems to grow as each new challenge appears. Some challenges we can't cope with, or can't cope alone with. Which is which depends on the person, their age, physical and mental wellbeing, their situation etc.
I've come to terms with Jan's destiny now though it still hurts to see her so. But I do get immense satisfaction out of her occasional smiles or acknowledgements, such as she can manage.