Not an uplifting post
July 15 2015
I don’t lie to myself. Ever. I lie to other people when I say that everything is fine. It isn't and hasn't been for a while.
I know that Mom is sinking further into the bog every day. I know I am losing her a bit at a time but I still look for those signals and signs that she is present sometimes. They are fewer and farther apart but they still happen. And I treasure them as much as I hate them. They tell me she is there and they tell me she is THERE trapped and she knows it. And I cannot help her at all.
In this life, Mom and I became partners. We created a business together that was becoming successful but had to give up when she needed surgery and then got a staph infection. I could not do it alone so we gave it up. Then we bought a house together that she wanted to be my inheritance. It took her income and my income to support the house and her loans/gifts to the other kids but we managed until the dementia destroyed her judgment. I didn’t see the signs early enough so we made one big mistake and took out a second mortgage because she wanted to do some work on the house. A potentially saving moment came when we inherited money form Dad and we made a plan that would allow us to keep the house and make a place for her as she aged and needed assistance. The well-intended intervention of family members ensured she ended up in a nursing home and I lost the house and all my savings. But the first mistake was ours. The second mistake was that I did what Mom wanted; I did not fight the other kids for Mom and for the house. She asked me to not fight and so I didn’t. That was me mistake. They did not understand what was happening and their solution to the problem was to destroy the partnership Mom and I had created and to try to break her dependence on me. We lost everything. And it still hurts. Especially when I see her looking out at me from that bog and I know she wants to be at home and with family. She hated the idea of ending her days alone in a nursing home with no one there. And so I try to see her almost every day. And it hurts because I have failed her. I cannot protect her. I cannot bring her home again.
And then there is the worry about not having a job that supports my bills. I must take home enough money to pay the rent, utilities, one credit card, and groceries. I have had no responses at all to my applications and although I have enough to last through September, I am beginning to have panic attacks that Shelton and I will end up in my car in a parking lot someplace begging for food money.
I keep trying to remember that I have always managed to have enough in the past and that I am certain there will be enough in the future as long as I keep working, keep trying, keep believing. Still, panic attacks. Sadness. Anxiety.
I don’t lie to myself. Ever. I lie to other people when I say that everything is fine. It isn't and hasn't been for a while.
I know that Mom is sinking further into the bog every day. I know I am losing her a bit at a time but I still look for those signals and signs that she is present sometimes. They are fewer and farther apart but they still happen. And I treasure them as much as I hate them. They tell me she is there and they tell me she is THERE trapped and she knows it. And I cannot help her at all.
In this life, Mom and I became partners. We created a business together that was becoming successful but had to give up when she needed surgery and then got a staph infection. I could not do it alone so we gave it up. Then we bought a house together that she wanted to be my inheritance. It took her income and my income to support the house and her loans/gifts to the other kids but we managed until the dementia destroyed her judgment. I didn’t see the signs early enough so we made one big mistake and took out a second mortgage because she wanted to do some work on the house. A potentially saving moment came when we inherited money form Dad and we made a plan that would allow us to keep the house and make a place for her as she aged and needed assistance. The well-intended intervention of family members ensured she ended up in a nursing home and I lost the house and all my savings. But the first mistake was ours. The second mistake was that I did what Mom wanted; I did not fight the other kids for Mom and for the house. She asked me to not fight and so I didn’t. That was me mistake. They did not understand what was happening and their solution to the problem was to destroy the partnership Mom and I had created and to try to break her dependence on me. We lost everything. And it still hurts. Especially when I see her looking out at me from that bog and I know she wants to be at home and with family. She hated the idea of ending her days alone in a nursing home with no one there. And so I try to see her almost every day. And it hurts because I have failed her. I cannot protect her. I cannot bring her home again.
And then there is the worry about not having a job that supports my bills. I must take home enough money to pay the rent, utilities, one credit card, and groceries. I have had no responses at all to my applications and although I have enough to last through September, I am beginning to have panic attacks that Shelton and I will end up in my car in a parking lot someplace begging for food money.
I keep trying to remember that I have always managed to have enough in the past and that I am certain there will be enough in the future as long as I keep working, keep trying, keep believing. Still, panic attacks. Sadness. Anxiety.