When a parent or spouse can no longer do what they did yesterday, it becomes another transition for the primary caregiver and for the extended family.
These transitions catch us off guard and an overwhelming sense of loss and grief is experienced by the primary care provider. The caregiver often does not label this as a grief process, but it is about loss – however slow – it still has the power to stop us in our tracks.
If you are caring for someone with a progressive dementia, such as Alzheimer’s Disease, you probably have had a similar experience. I think of a story of a spouse who called me one day in tears and said, “Linda, I thought I had accepted this disease and today my wife could not remember how to get toothpaste out of the tube. I could not even help her. I just had to go into the other room and cry.”
And that is what we need to do with this type of pain – express it, find someone with whom to discuss it and move on. What this gentleman said to me a few weeks later is, “I just put the tooth paste on the brush and then she knows what to do and soon I’ll probably have to help her brush as well. And when that happens I’ll probably have those same feelings all over again. But, today we are enjoying our backyard and watching the birds at the feeders with great pleasure.”
If you can learn to let go of your feelings, express them, find a coping mechanism, so as to preserve the dignity of the person with the dementia it will be easier to move on to what you can enjoy together and make this a less painful journey.
Being in the moment is all each of us has. However, we feel pain at little losses as well as big ones and it is important to do the grief work and not let it eat at your inner soul.