Healthy living Blog
Carer Diary
Feb 6, 2008: the last straw
Marianne Talbot's powerful online carer's diary Keeping Mum, is a raw and moving account of what it is like to care for a parent with dementia
So much for my holiday. Three days back and it’s as if I haven’t been away.
Before I went I had had a dreadful week trying to stabilise mum. She was constantly on my heels, bad tempered and uncharacteristically aggresssive. I was drained, near screaming pitch and desperately conscious of the work I wasn’t doing. I couldn’t wait for my sister to arrive.
But when she did we had a hissing, spitting row. Not surprising, perhaps. She had had an exhausting five hour journey, and was expecting me to be sociable. But I was desperate to shut myself in my study and tackle some of the backlog so I could go with a clear conscience.
We made up over a pizza after mum went to bed. Then I worked until 2am, got up at 5 am, and cleared the most guilt-making stuff.
But a huge amount of resentment is building up. I feel my life isn’t my own, and that all I do is think of other people.
In order to go away, for example, I have to rely on the goodwill of others. This puts me in the position of supplicant, which I loathe. It also makes me responsible for their comfort.
So I make up their beds, remember their likes and dislikes as I shop, empty drawers for them, order their paper and try to write down everything they might need to know whilst they are here (chiropodist Tuesday, bins Wednesday...). And so on.
All this might seem straightforward, and so it is when mum is her normal self and I am on top of things. But when she’s as she currently is it can feel like the final straw. My head feels as if it might explode with all the things I have to do.
It’s not that I am not grateful. But to be honest I am sick of being grateful. And I am sick of thinking of other people. The person I need to think about is me.
I am unable to sleep (partly thanks to mum), and stressed out by mum’s looking miserable and following me around, and by the work that I’m not doing. When mum’s at daycare I can’t stop crying.
Yesterday I rang the doctor. I burst into tears as he came on the phone so I think he’s got the message. He arranged for the Community Psychiatric Nurse to ring.
‘What do you need?’ she asked. ‘Help.’ I said’. ‘What sort of help?’ she asked, quite reasonably. But I can’t answer that. Everywhere I look I see contradictions. Mum needs me, but I have nothing left.
What I need is for her to die peacefully in her sleep, dreaming of daddy and the cat.
More from Marianne
- 13 Feb, 2008: Could I face putting mum in a home?
- 30 Jan, 2008: Care issues come home to roost
- Marianne's action plan for carers
- Care homes in an ideal world
More on care
- Care homes: the questions you need to ask
- Nursing homes and free care
- How to get a carer's allowance
- Long-term care Q&As
More on dementia
- Medical conditions factfinder: Alzheimer's disease
- What's your risk of developing dementia?
- The dementia time bomb
- Medical conditions factfinder: multi-infarct dementia
Useful websites
Information on this site is for interest only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. You should consult your own doctor about any specific health concerns.