I have had a lot of stress lately from seeing to the welfare of my parents even though they reside in a nursing home. I tried to tell my friend this and her reply was, “Why on earth would you be stressed? Are they ill?” I nearly blew a fuse but remained quiet for fear of doing that. She knows my mum is in late stages Alzheimer’s and my dad in late stages vascular dementia.
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Many times elders with sever memory issues are either abusive and/or no clue who their daughter even is. This also just adds to the stress and debilitating efforts involved.
i am not sure there is any way to convey that knowledge in words.
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I think it's very difficult for people who have not experienced this encroaching mental deterioration to know how to deal with this and I would agree that only those folks who are walking our same path can truly understand what we go through. I have other friends who have lost their moms to Alzheimer's and their comments and questions are totally different from those whose parents died from physical issues.
I am still in charge of so much of my mom's life, even though I am no longer involved in the physical day to day care, and the weight of watching my mom mentally fade away sometimes feels like a clamp around my heart. When she has a bad day and is angry or agitated, or begs to go home (she has been there almost 2 years) I walk away from the home feeling as though my energy has been totally
depleted. And I still have to function with my life so with time, I have learned to compartmentalize my two lives for my own mental and physical health.
In the book/movie, Still Alice, the protagonist who has early onset, comments that she wishes she had cancer because people would organize fundraisers and rally around her condition, while with a mental issue, people don't want to get too close. Losing oneself so totally is a scary thought and many people don't want to be reminded of the potential for that to happen to them. I don't know the nature of your friends, but perhaps fear is an issue. A support group and activities that put you in touch with other caregivers is probably your best course for true empathy. I organized a team and did a Walk Against Alzheimer's and was surrounded by many, many people who knew exactly how and what I felt because they were feeling it too.
You are not alone.
Short of giving these people a crash course in dementia and certified nurse assisting, they will never know. It’s not worth explaining. If a person has the opinion that it’s “nothing” and we have no business being stressed or anxious, I’d just turn and walk away.
I sometimes tell people it is something you learn and will never use again and you wont understand until you have to experience it.
One piece of advice I would give you is to make sure you are taking care of yourself. And stop worrying about people who do not understand your situation.
Unless someone has been in the same situation they can’t understand.
If you haven’t walked in these shoes, you just can’t get it.
Best of luck & here's a big bear HUG for you today!
Grace + Peace,
Bob
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