My anxiety about my husband's memory loss is pretty bad

Hello. I hear all of that loud and clear. Like you, I have plenty of stressors on top of the challenge of a spouse in decline. Like you, I am not a religious person, and like you I get much less sleep than I need. My situation got to the point where I had to leave work, and come home full-time. This in no way means I can afford that choice, so we are together on that as well.

How to deal with it? I try to keep all interactions positive, no matter how I feel at the moment. I don't generally let myself freak out, but it happens. I wonder how I will survive, what to do when things get worse, as they absolutely will. I have tried talking to a therapist, and that does help. More than anything, what has helped me is to just accept my fate. Realize that we missed our life goals, we didn't make enough money, we don't have community to help us, and our family is both too small and too distant to help. Yes, things are tough, and they will get tougher. Knowing that helps, and having no false hopes helps too. There are a thousand good things we can do, and we will do them, but the feeling you have is genuine. This really is happening, and there is no good end for us. Knowing you are not alone is pretty thin soup, but it's what I can offer you now. It's not just you. There are a LOT of us doing this same thing. We get you.

I've found the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction approach developed by Jon Kabat Zinn most helpful for my practice. Here is a link to an article in Psychology Today that explains the approach: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/crisis-knocks/201003/mindfulness-based-stress-reduction-what-it-is-how-it-helps. There is a book available on Amazon that would help you get started: "A Mindfulness Stress Reduction Workbook" by Stahl and Goldstein. When I first got started with mindfulness meditation in 2017 I found, via Goggle search, that there was a workshop offered in my community. It changed everything in my caregiving, all for the better. So you might check that out.
It is also important to realize that every time your husband shows a new sign that you are also dealing with loss. An excellent resource to help process this is "Ambiguous Loss, Learning to Live with Unresolved Grief by Pauline Boss.

Thanks for the help. It's appreciated. On a related note, there is a wonderful book by the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu called The Book of Joy. I keep rereading and it seems to help quite a bit. There are meditation practices in the back of the book, but I never looked into those. I'll check out the meditation book you mentioned, the Psychology Today link, and maybe eventually the Pauline Boss book. Thanks again.

My husband is in early stage and also cannot hear well! It is a slippery slope, and sometimes I think I am becoming hypervigilant. Certainly is frustrating and sometimes I am on my last nerve. Now and then he is very much "here," and I explained that I am not mad, but sometimes it is a lot. (I love him, sometimes hard to LIKE him). I am trying to plan for time out of the house daily and will eventually find a self help group (Council of Aging) to help navigate. Our house is safe, and I plan to get a reverse mortgage should we need caregiving funds. Be patient with yourself: remember the airlines recommend you put on the oxygen before you help someone else!

Hi marye2, Your comment about being hypervigilant hit the mark with me, too. That's it in a nutshell. I find it very helpful to see that others are dealing with this in the same way I am. After reading your comment, I don't feel quite so awful about having trouble LIKING my husband. I love him like crazy, though. This is such a weird space we're inhabiting.

My husband has MCI and goes back and forth with normal and it He totally cannot find anything wrong with himself and refuses even to think about a change of residence. What to do?

Meanwhile, the fridge stopped working yesterday while I was at work. I had already called the repair guy twice because it was making a funny noise. And, the beat goes on...
I know a broken appliance is a small thing to have a breakdown over, but it might just be the last straw in this case.