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Dealing with anger in someone with dementia: How do you respond?
Caregivers: Dementia | Last Active: Jun 2 1:00am | Replies (24)Comment receiving replies
Welcome to this horrible trip they call dementia/Alzheimers, a trip NO ONE wants to go on but we have no choice. I've been married to my best friend and lover for 57 years. Up until about 14 years, we've had an awesome marriage with a lot of laughs and great experiences and have 2 fantastic kids. Now, I can look forward to my wife not knowing me every afternoon (and sometimes mornings too). She gets very angry and even physically tries to hurt me because she doesn't know me/wants me to leave her house. (Because of our different sizes, she could never physically hurt me.) Sometimes she doesn't want me to touch her medicine because I know nothing about her medication or condition. Sometimes I can redirect/divert her attention and sometimes I ask my son or daughter to call her. She ALWAYS knows their voice and they can get her to calm down. calmed down enough to take some medicine. my respite is when she goes to Easter Seals day care during the week from 9:00 to 3:00. but what I ALWAYS think about when she doesn't know me is HOW SCARED SHE IS ....NOT KNOWING WHO THIS GREAT BIG GUY IS AND WHY IS HE IN HER HOUSE. Wouldn't you be scared to if some big person you didn't know is walking around your house?
My wife sometimes calls my phone 15- 20 times a night and leaves a message asking "when will I be home?". And she never remembers calling me.
I consider myself lucky, in that if one of us has to have this horrible fnnn disease, then it's safer for her to have it. I will ALWAYS LOVE HER because for over 40 years, she gave me her love, laughs and awesome experiences.
Replies to "Welcome to this horrible trip they call dementia/Alzheimers, a trip NO ONE wants to go on..."
@tunared
Just a curiosity: if you show her photos of you together does it help her to recognize that you are her spouse?
@tunared I have been married 45 years and until a few years ago had the perfect life, husband, marriage and everything else. My husband spoiled me and took care of me by loving me and giving the support I needed. Ours was the perfect marriage. As the years go by I am seeing the changes, when it’s good it’s like before and when it isn’t I feel I am on my own, I am exhausted from doing everything but at the same time grateful he does the dishes not always with soap which becomes an issue. Things get misplaced all the time I am tired of being 10 steps ahead. I have no me time he wants to go everywhere with me even if he doesn’t get out the car which is more lately. My friends are all out enjoying their lives while I sit at home with him. I listen to their trips and envy them. I am having a really bad day and find that even though I would doing anything for my husband who is 9 years older I think of maybe in the future that I will get to travel again also which means I will be doing it on my own not what we had planned. Although recently I read an article that said most caregivers die first, that really helped my moral.
Of course tomorrow hopefully will be a better day? Thanks for listening
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@tunared I am so sorry that you are having to go through this, as well as your wife. I watched my father, but he also had congestive heart failure, so I only saw the last couple of months and he still knew who I was but he did get really, really agitated with his wife (not my mom and that is another story altogether). My mom still knows me and my brother, she still talks about my dad, missing him, albeit forgetting the divorce and all the pain that caused. She is more volatile with my brother, probably because he lives with her and he has his own mental health issues. I am trying to tell him the advice I am getting on this site. It is a dreadful, cruel disease. So far, the meds have not seemed to make a difference. The doctor just upped the dose on Thursday and she went from a patch to pills, so we will see. I can't imagine what you must be dealing with. My partner (who passed away 2 years ago), his father had this and he just passed away a couple of weeks ago. I talked to my mother-in-law and she told me that he would recognize her but sometimes ask her where "she was". She thinks that he was looking for the younger version. I never realized how many people have this. Your resilience and love is obvious from what you wrote. Thank you for writing.