Disliking who they’ve become

@kjc48
Our band was called Uncle Alberts Orgasmic Orchestra.
we played old time vaudeville type music.
I am in touch with one of the guys who does solo gigs out Pukekohe way.
last week he had another ex-member join him.
I am dying to get out there for a catch up, but at the moment we don`t have a car

@clam Great name for the band! I hope you hook up with your friend on his solo gigs and get to play some heartfelt music. I just saw a quote: "Drums are the bacon of music" - the extent of my "drummer" lingo this morning! Best, Karla

@clam
We're so sorry, Uncle Albert.😄

For caregivers, the transition time from when their loved ones begin to show clear signs of dementia or other severe memory loss conditions, is the most difficult part. The biggest thing, for me, during this time is to remember that you are not only dealing with their personality changes but your own as well. Especially if you have been very close to this person for your whole life. Your perception of who that person is or was is really what affects you the most. There are always going to be parts of you that are going to be selfish in your desire to have them behave the same as you remember or be the person you perceived them to be. The thing is that you only know as much as they have allowed you to see over their time with you. NOW you are with them or at least paying more attention to their every move or every word. 1. That is tiring for you. 2. How would you like someone watching you 24/7? They are scared, confused, frustrated, and generally exhausted about trying to be the person they have always been. Think about how you present yourself to others vs how you feel about yourself internally. Now, Invision a wall that stands between the person you are, say, at church, or in a meeting with your boss, or with your best friend hanging out, or even the person you are when someone jump scares you in a dark room. A wall between each version of you. When you are young and able to control your thoughts and reactions your mind will just open the correct door whenever that version of you is appropriate, whichever version suits the environment you are directly involved in. NOW, take down all the walls! It's constant mayhem! Every version of oneself, more appropriately spelled one's self as each are separate and different, all fighting to be at the front of the line because the part of you that opens and closes the doors is gone. This is obviously an exaggerated way of looking at it and my punctuation is horrible, BUT it's a fair description. If you take everything and put it into a frail and feeble version of a person, YES that person is going to have a hard time keeping up with the persona they have always showed you. THEN add on YOUR daily thoughts, worries, concerns, and general discomfort in having to deal with the whole thing to begin with. (No matter how much we love someone or tell ourselves we want to help the person we love tremendously, if you do it long enough or you are REALLY their full-time caregiver, you WILL come resent them.) If you are a caregiver and you haven't felt this way, you will. It won't necessarily be an aggressive feeling. Sometimes it's slight and in the back of your mind showing itself only at the worst of times but some of us will have some pretty intense thoughts we thought we would NEVER HAVE. (If I could have started several paragraphs to make this easier to read I would but I can't for some reason.) Anyway, it boils down to this. If you consider how many personalities or "moods" there could be in 2 different people, that is what you are facing. You cannot control their group of personalities, you can only control your own. If you remain in the thought that no matter what that person says or does, I will love them through it and beyond it because of who they have been to me all through the past, you will start to appreciate the new and different personalities you are seeing from the person you are caring for. Even the rude and nasty side of those people will have a different look to you. Sometimes you just have to let things be WHAT they are and let people be WHO they are. You don't have to make sense of it. You don't get to make sense of life. Life makes its own sense. What you do with it is what makes it GREAT or something else entirely.