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What is the best thing to say?
Caregivers: Dementia | Last Active: Jun 23 1:49pm | Replies (50)Comment receiving replies
As I sit here wanting to scream I am so grateful for being able to vent here. I don’t feel I can or want to tell my close friends how things are progressing, I don’t think they understand. I have one friend close by who knows how things are but even then I don’t want to overload on her and spend our special time only talking about this?
My husband wants to help so badly, he just finished the dishes and took the garbage out but now in the middle of me making a new recipe he keeps asking what can he do? Meanwhile I forget what I am doing? I feel like my brain will explode. I just took my blood pressure it was 115 over 66 so obviously that is not effected. He just came into the bedroom where I am and said would you try and help me do things so I will remember? Because he so desperately wants to help. I now feel as small as a pea. So I shall take a deep breath and go and finish my cooking. Thanks everyone.
Replies to "As I sit here wanting to scream I am so grateful for being able to vent..."
HI @jeanadair123, it sounds like your husband would be receptive to a day program. Is there one in your area?
Maybe you could write out a list of things for him to do everyday, easy chores, like make the bed. My husband does that. It's not perfect, but it will do. I also give him his cleaned clothes to fold and put away.
He washes and dries the dishes, not very well. There's no use correcting him because he'll forget, and often I have to hunt to find a certain item, missing from its usual place.
He forgot how to shave so I wrote out step by step instructions which he keeps in the drawer with his shaving tools. He refers to them, but wants my approval to do most things.
When I'm preparing to leave the house, he asks me so many questions about where I'm going and when I'll be back, that I don't know whether I'm coming or going. I ask him to be quiet so I can focus.
Last week he asked me so many questions that I snapped at him and told him to go away. Then I saw him shuffle off like a poor lost soul and I felt so bad. Fortunately, he forgets. A moment later, I engaged him in a friendly tone so we could get back on track, but occasional derialments are to be expected!
I'm fortunate in that he will get engaged in working on jigsaw puzzles. He can handle 100 pieces, and will keep at it for a couple of hours.
There's a good caregivers support group in our area, once a month in person, so I go to that (through the Alzheimer's Association).
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I get it. I feel exhausted as whatever I ask of my husband kindly and or directly he asks so many questions, doesn't remember my responses and often does not complete the task which leaves me tired giving instruction and finding doing double duty as well to get the job redone or completed from turning on the dishwasher to watering plants. Having an hour to myself is bliss. I call it sacred space. I think any carer needs this. I work on getting this to re-fill my cup ( which recently has felt like there is a crack in it. )