Annj,
I am so sorry I didn't see your other post to reply to you before you posted this thread starter. I haven't been on ATP as much lately for, as I have mentioned in other posts, my new job's hours make it hard.
I know from experience that it is alway really horrible to pour your heart on here and either get responses that show that the others didn't really get what you were on about (which can happen a lot when you've been doing this for as long as you or even I have, because the majority of users according to the polls are in earlier stages with their loved ones) or worse yet, no one replies (something else that I have found can happen a lot when you post in the 'younger people with dementia' section because again its a minority - in fact I don't know if others have noticed that I like to post in this section even when my problem/discussion point is not specifically about 'younger people with dementia' just because I don't want this minority to be forgotten).
So annj you should have gotten a fantastic response to your original post, I was very touched by it when I did eventually read it so much so that I read it out to my husband and said 'See I do do some good posting on here' as he often worries that I get more upset than get healed by posting on Talking Point. Its funny how the thought that I might be helping someone else cope with things that I have struggled with, makes me feel better, makes it easier for me to find the strength to go on coping myself. I guess I feel like if my coping makes others feel like that they too can carry on, then I am more motivated to keep on coping??!!
I am glad to see that all the people who have posted to you on
this thread have responded as they should have. If you are like me and so tired emotionally from this experience, even though you know its probably ridiculous, at times you find the wrong reply on these posts can really hurt (even though its done by others with the best intentions, its just that they haven't been where u are yet and u knowing the true extent of how horrible things can get are too kind to rub their faces in the reality you know.)
I am also aware that there are younger sufferers on this form and i dont want to make it all seem black.
I so know how that feels, do you know how many times I have yelled at the responses I have gotten on here but felt I couldn't reply to explain why I was upset because the words I would have to say to explain would be too much for the person I am angry with to cope with at the stage they are at at present. So you bite your tongue and just hurt and feel alone. Though occasionally I haven't bitten my tongue and then have felt terrible when I read the effects of my 'negative' post!
Thinking I should stay away from forum, scared im gona hurt somebody even worse.
Oh yeah, been there! So many times!!!!!
However, despite the results from posting on TP are not always positive and can actually make this experience of dealing with dementia in our loved ones momentarily harder at times, I think I have found that in the long run its positive benefits far outweigh the negative. If its hurting too much at the moment then by all means walk away for a while (I need breathers from Talking Point sometimes) but don't completely walk away, have peek in every now and then read through some posts to see if anyone is saying something that means something to you, and PM people that you know might understand, if posting seems to risky. Amy has been doing this for a long time and even though I've only been doing this for 6 yrs I think Dad's progession makes it easier for me to understand yours and Amy's situations better than others might.
Dad is now still in a home, my heart is still sad every day, i have been unable to talk on this forum because of ????? every day I try to escape the raw pain i feel from seeing my dad like this.
Guess what? I know this feeling too. Feels like you're drowning doesn't it? You can't talk on this forum when times get like this, it takes every ounce of your strength just to put one foot in front of the other, until you get to that point where you are finally breathing again. Thus my mantra, 'in time this too will pass', I just say it over and over again to myself, until I find that I am out the other side again, where I can breathe again.
feel like punching god in the face!!
Ha at my aunt's funeral last year there wasn't enough room for my mum, sister and I to fit in the church (although had dad been well, my mum and him at least would have been in the front pews..that mum was treated as if she wasn't family because Dad was unable to be there mad me so mad, but thats a whole other story). Anyway I whispered to my sister during the ceremony that it was probably a good thing we couldn't fit in the church, and she asked why, and I said, because we'd likely get struck by lightning. She started giggling (she's 37) and said 'Yeah for sitting inside His house and wanting to frikken take him on for being such a pr**k' , I'm grinning back at her and my mother is freaking out that the rest of the relatives will see us chortling..but at the same time she's thinking the same thing about God as we are and trying not to giggle as well. Feeling like punching god in the face and saying it, I think is a damn good way to vent. As I see it, if he is a decent God after all and I am just not wise enough to understand why all this is happening he will understand my anger, he understands we are just human, and there will be no punishment for feeling this way toward him when he made us in such a way that we can't understand. And if he is an ***hole then, well he deserves every bit of anger I throw at him!
Your posts are so REAL AND SPOT ON, thinking of you and your dad, and me and my dad, and any other person affected by this truly cruel and horrific illness.
And...you don't realise it but your posts were spot on too, else I wouldn't have had so much to write back in response to.
So, gotta go now, but lots of love to you Annj, please PM me anytime, especially if you think the things you want to say are too black for the general forum, believe me I can handle it...might not be able to help much, but sometimes we don't need help we just need to be able to tell someone else who knows the feeling hey?
And same goes to you Amy, who I know will be reading this, I pm'd u yesterday but didn't have much time to say anything of worth and now I've used my spare time doing this post so can't say much more...but Amy I think you've been feeling like Annj a little bit too, so much black stuff with no where to put it, because you don't want to blacken things for other people...just letting you guys know I have an empty cupboard where I can store it for you...its got a special ventilator that will clear it out of there in a few days.