Healthy living Blog
Carer Diary
August 12, 2008: bogeymen of the subconscious
Marianne Talbot cared for her mother with Alzheimer's disease for five years, but even though her mother is staying with relatives and about to move into a home, the stress of the last few months is still giving her nightmares
I had a dreadful dream last night. Mum and I were together. I knew, in the way you know in dreams, that we were at home, though it didn’t look like it. I was trying to get Mum to rest. I was also trying to tidy up.
So much clutter! The faster I tried to tidy it the more there was. I would put one lot away, check on Mum then turn back to find it worse than before.
In the meantime, Mum was complaining loudly about being uncomfortable. She kept getting up and going in to the next room. The next room was as cluttered as the first.
Mum started to iron. Suddenly the room was full of wet clothes. Mum was putting them to dry on the gas fires dotted around the place.
I became convince the place was going to go up in flames. I tried to turn the fires down, but couldn’t. Mum wouldn’t stop loading them with damp clothes.
Then just as suddenly we were outside and Mum was haring off down the road with a couple who had appeared from nowhere.
I tore after them, but they went too fast. As I ran I was worrying about the possibility of fire. At the corner of the street I couldn’t see Mum anywhere. It was tipping down with rain. I woke with tears pouring down my cheeks.
Hmm.
My dreams have always worn their meanings on their sleeves. This one seems pretty obvious.
The attempts to clear up the clutter symbolises my desperate attempts, over the last six months, to keep up with everything I had to do. I was reduced in the end to comforting myself with lists – lists of all the things I should do, lists of all the things I would do if I could only find the time.
The fear of fire symbolises my fear of dropping the balls. I am a person who likes to keep a lot of balls in the air. Occasionally I have dropped one. Over the last three months I have dropped so many, it is as if I have thrown down the rest.
The couple who came from nowhere are obviously my brother and sister-in-law. In my subconscious they have stolen Mum away from me.
This is not fair. Thanks goodness they took Mum when they did. However I might feel about them at the moment I am absolutely confident they are looking after Mum as well as I did. In fact given that there are two of them, and they are retired, they are giving her the routine she needs and that I couldn’t provide.
But my subconscious is obviously not a happy bunny.
More from Marianne Talbot
- Keeping Mum: Marianne Talbot's archive of blogs about caring for her mother who has Alzheimer's disease
- Coping with caring: Marianne Talbot's top tips
- Give us a break: why R&R helps make you a better carer
- Video: watch Marianne Talbot and Emma Soames talk about the reality of caring
Saga and caring
- Visit our carers' section
- Saga Respite for Carers Trust
- Saga Long Term Care Funding Advice
- Chat to other carers at Saga Zone
Useful links for carers
Reader comments
Marianne needs to be kind to herself now. Be selfish. Have a massage, a holiday, go to yoga. My mother has just died, aged 95 and I have very mixed feelings and feel guilty that one of them is relief. She had Alzheimers and my early memories of her are still obliterated by the stress of the last 6 years.
Posted by: Sheila | 23/08/2008 12:07:51
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