Mom

[leatherwolf1970]

Moms been going downhill the past year or so. It's been a really frustrating year to say the least. I'm pretty much drained mentally anymore. Over the past summer I've shut out a lot of people from my life even. Just in the past week or so I've noticed her getting weaker even. I thought she would be able to make it until 2011 sometime. I'm starting

Comments

[leatherwolf1970]

I try to take her out and it's just nerve wracking. She can't make a decision about anything from what she may want to eat to the color of a pair of shoes. When I do try and take her out to eat she always says no "I never eat enough to make it worth going out", so it's next to impossible to get her out. We went through the photo albums before we left CA. She had tons of albums of which I didn't know half of the people and most of them she couldn't even remember. A lot of good that did though. About 9 months ago I came home from work to find all of the albums in the trash and several pictures torn up. She decided to go through them again. I lost quite a few pics of me and dad together etc. I basically have next to nothing left of my dad now other than memories. Dad was in the Navy in WWII and had a couple of large certificates framed and hung on the wall. When he passed and we were going through everything she tore them up right in front of me and threw them out without even asking me if I wanted them (I still highly resent that and this was 1984).

People don't understand why I'm always a grouch. Why when I go out (went out last weekend, the first time since last June) I drink till I pass out damn near. Most people just don't understand the amount of stress and crap I have to deal with on a daily basis. Hell in the middle of typing this I had to stop, she was trying to come up the stairs looking for the dog (yes we have one). She was saying how weak her legs were this morning and that she was shaky.

[otterdaemmerung]

Big warm hugs to you. It's heartbreaking to read of people declining and especially throwing away or destroying things like photo albums that mean so much to others. Danny's mother died a few years ago and I consider him lucky in that his whole childhood was shot on B&W film (albeit his mom wasn't great at holding the camera steady), not in color or on Polaroids that degrade over time. It's been a treasure trove for me in getting to know who he was when he was younger, way before he and I met.

Caregiving can really take its toll on you, stress you out and you can feel like few people understand what you're going through. But you can't take the stress out on yourself and destroy yourself from the inside out over it. Remember that you have friends and others who love you and deeply care about you. Live your life well as best you can so that you can make memories that will turn up in your own photo albums.