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My mom has dementia. Late 80s. She's so negative in her outlook to everything. I try so hard to keep a positive spin on things because I do suffer from depression and have since my youth. I've already had to increase my lexapro dosage because I feel so overwhelmed and down from dealing with caring for her. It just seems to get worse with time. She complains incessantly. One minute she'll say she's hot. Well duh, you've put on 2 gowns. So I finally convince her to take off one gown. She says she's still hot. I turn on her fan. Still hot. Turn on the air conditioning. Then I escape to the den to binge watch or catch some much needed sleep and in she comes to inspect the temperature of the room I'm in. It's cold in here.


And then there's the negative speculations game. She loves to peek through the blinds at the neighbors and speculate on whether they're home and if they're home she just knows they're still in bed sleeping. All I can say is "lucky for them" because I'm so exhausted mentally and physically, I could check myself into a hotel and sleep for a week straight before I call for room service.


Now to negative critiquing of the meals. Either the grits don't have enough cheese in them or the bacon has too much lean on it. Or the brunswick stew has no taste. God bless whoever ends up Gordon Ramsey's caregiver if he ever has dementia, because I'm only getting a small dosage and it's enough to make me want to throw my oven out onto the lawn.


My one wish is for one day....just one day per week, where I can count on happy thoughts and conversations. I feel I'm being dragged into the darkest bought of depression I've ever experienced in my life and I'm scared for what will become of me when I get to the bottom. My heart is so heavy right now, I don't know that I will ever be able to come back to the light. I just want to sleep forever.


Does anyone else feel so lost in this role? So forever lost?

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"I feel I'm being dragged into the darkest bought of depression I've ever experienced in my life and I'm scared for what will become of me when I get to the bottom. My heart is so heavy right now, I don't know that I will ever be able to come back to the light. I just want to sleep forever."

These are serious, scary thoughts. I think it's time to rethink being a caregiver for a person with these particular issues when your own mental health has become precarious. Why does she live with you? Can that be changed? 
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I am in the same boat, and just beginning. My mother is starting to show signs if dementia so she is positive and loving when she has clear mind, then totally unreasonable the next. I had wondered if it would be better if she is "fully dementia" for lack of better words. Now I feel differently. At least I still have some moments when she is sane and makes sensible conversation with me. It's just this makes me emotionally tormented. One minute she is the loving mom I had always know. Next minute she is driving me crazy with extremely unreasonable demand. I am looking into getting personal support worker to help out, but I heard it is going to be expensive. Hang in there, girl. You are not alone. Get help whenever you can and give yourself a break.
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A lot of people feel limited by not having money to pay for a nursing home. It really is ok to apply of Medicaid to pay for a nursing home. If your loved one happens to end up in the ER, you can tell the social worker that you have to get her on Medicaid and get her a placement immidateky because you cannot take her home. Make that CAN NOT. It may be a challenge to you, but you must take care of yourself first. Just like on a plane, we are instructed to put our oxygen mask on first so we can help others, you must save yourself to be able to help mom.
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Ditto what SnoopyLove said. That negativity is soul crushing. You've got to care
for yourself as much or more as the person you're caring for. There are many
fine assisted living placements as well as in home care. Please make the choice to care
for your own life as well as your mother's You deserve it!! Really, you do!!!
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I’m right there with you. The negativity and drama is draining the life out of us. We deserve better.
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Every day seemed like an endless, dark, scary tunnel trying to care for Mom. So many twists and turns with danger around every corner - which pushed my anxiety over the brink. I'd lost touch with current events. I had no time for friends. I had no time for my own minor children - and that is time I will never get back. I have to see a neurologist for headaches now - I'd never had to do so before and that's in addition to a general sense of being unwell. I was lost in a bottomless pit of despair - topped off with my loved one's constant criticism and demands. Mom and her sister thought they could completely break me and get me to do what they wanted -- which was singlehandedly provide ALL the care Mom could ever need (although they never stated that outright so I'm not completely sure what "success" would look like to them). Somewhat understandably, they wanted Mom to be "normal" again - which became impossible at the moment Mom's stroke happened. I do not have the power to restore her & I do kind of get it that they needed someone to blame - however illogical placing blame would be in a case like this. She's in a facility now & is not getting out. Her last trip to the ER resulted in her not coming home again - I made sure that everyone I encountered understood that home care was no longer an option &I'd done all I could. I am broken right now... but they didn't break me. They didn't destroy me. I've learned a lot about myself: I'm too sensitive not to at least try to salvage the situation by caring for Mom at home to the best of my ability, but I'm too smart to be manipulated by Mom and sister always thinking they can get more out of me. I will recover. So will you.
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I feel your pain. Mom and grandma are the same way. Dad is not the most positive person in the world and gets caught up in the feedback loop. I've learned to blow it all off and just say "OK".
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There are so many of us right there with you! We get you and we care about you because we walk the same road. And I have no easy answers for you. Yet you seem to be trying to maintain a positive attitude, but the air you breathe is filled with the negative actions and words of you mom. It does no good for anyone to say to you " that isn't really her". I have heard that so many times over the last three years that I could scream. Of course this is not the husband I fell in love with 33 years ago! But it is him now, and I have no choice but to care for him as best I can for as long as I can move and like you, it is sucking the life out of me and then I feel guilty about not being able to be the mom and grandmother to our grandchildren and to his step kids ( my kids ), who are adults now and remember a mom who loved spending time with them. I apologigize for this being so much about me, but it is really about a lot of us. My husband has three adult children who claim to love him and who sometimes criticize me for my "depression", saying that I need to be more understanding and upbeat - this as they come to visit and laugh and chatter and see the best of him, then leave in three hours-returning to their happy lives without ever offering to provide actual respite care. My hope for you is that you find some emotional support here as I have, and that your depression is such that you can find moments of unexpected joy in each day, even if it is a beautiful cloud formation in a sunny sky, or standing in the rain foe a moment, feeling the drops on your face and smelling the lovely wetness of the rain on the grass. We. Are all here for you, even in our own drake moments.
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