Having been taking care of people many many years, and this is the hardest part. I have seen it often enough to see some similarities. Here are a few. Someone becomes ill, they don’t know what’s happened. Like being in an earthquake. The ground under your feet should be stable, but it isn’t. They are scared and confused. But we don’t like to show those feelings because they make us seem vulnerable. So, we replace them with other things, often, anger, especially directed to the only person we see, the caregiver.
When an animal is injured, it attacks. It knows it has little defense so it tries to scare off anything getting close.
Sometimes, we do something like that, too.
The hardest time I had was caring for my Mom, who would loose it and accuse me of trying to kill her. Now, she knew that wasn’t true, I knew it wasn’t true, but it still hurt. Fortunately for me, my Dad was always there and he could calm her down.
But what about you? Well, perhaps just a warm hug, change the subject, put on soft music, go out in the sunshine. Have an ice cream sundae. Look at old photographs. Do her hair, every woman likes that, or manicure her nails. Even have someone come in to do her nails. Buy new sheets and pillows. Use perfume. Buy pretty soap.
Somehow, replace the drudgery and work with something light.
One thing I did get from Mom was she would say “ Enjoy the little things in life, because when you look back on it, they were the big things after all.
Let me know how it’s going, and you know, I never regretted anything I did for my family, no matter how hard it was.