@labrown
I've read a few folks on this site recommend gummies to take the edge off their loved ones challenging behaviors.
I may try this someday if my husband starts to sundown.

@labrown

It's amazing that you're just beginning to get worn out. You are a trooper.

I have been worn out and worn down for over a year, but I just pick myself back up and start a new day--hoping that it will be better but prepared that it might be worse than the day before. Caregiving might do me in, but at least I will die happy, knowing that I did my best. And as we keep reminding each other (and quoting Karla), with God's help: "We can do it!"

P.S. George's sundowning behavior has gone through different phrases during this past year. At first, I gave him a melatonin around 8 p.m. He would go to bed around 9 p.m. and sleep for two hours, wake up every hour on the hour after that, and then stay up for a three-hour interval every night. While he was awake, he got in and out of bed up to 16 times during that interval.

Now, on most nights, he refuses to come to bed because he's either afraid that his back will hurt too much, or that he won't be able to get back out of bed; so he insists on sleeping in his recliner, which is in another room. I still give him a melatonin at 4 p.m. and another one around 8 p.m. He falls asleep in his chair at 9 p.m., sometimes earlier. Around 3 a.m., he gets up and starts wandering around and hollering. I give him a drop of THC/CBD, which gets him to sleep for two hours. When he wakes up again, I give him a gummy and he'll sleep until 8 a.m.

One manifestation of George's anxiety is that he asks me all day long and at night right before bedtime: "Where's my wallet? Where are my keys? Where's my cell phone?" I got him a pouch for him to keep all those things together in one place, and I tell him to keep the pouch on top of his desk in his office. So, when he asks for one of those items, I tell him that it's in his pouch. I thought that would simplify our life; but now, he'll ask me where's his pouch, and I tell him that it's on top of his desk. Then he'll ask where's his desk, and I tell him that it's in his office. Then he'll say: "I don't know where that is." Did God choreagraph variations of a new dance for dementia partners? Is there humor in this somewhere? I must be missing it because the repetition drives me crazy--then I have to snap out of it.

@labrown Been through this. 2:30 AM. Bad.

@labrown LOCKING doors is all of a sudden “a thing” here, also. We thankfully live in a very safe neighborhood, and during the day (with dogs going in and out frequently) we never locked the back door to our fenced yard. Now, he locks it constantly. I guess it is all part of the disease… and you called it a fear factor. Guess I need to read up on that aspect of this sad disease. Thank you.