depression – Shrinking Horizons

That sinking feeling.

You really would think that things should get better as time goes by. I even tell people when they ask how things are that they are all good, hoping I guess that they will improve, that life in our ‘care home’ is rolling along nicely but the truth is just the opposite. It’s rolling along but not necessarily nicely.

I wake up in the mornings with a sinking feeling that we have another day with the claustrophobic presence of the AP living with us. I take her breakfast up to her room and always have to take a deep breath before producing a cheery ‘Good Morning’ in a rather desperate attempt to start the day off in the right direction. Most times it works but not this damp and rather dreary Monday morning. I find the AP slumped in her chair staring at the ‘no satellite’ image on the TV, and when I make a comment she says she has just put it on and is waiting for the programmes to come up. I explain she needs to press the Sky control and this prompts a nasty and unpleasant response that she was just going to do that, that she always does that. All lies of course, she had forgotten that part of the process and just hates being caught out so her immediate reaction is one of attack. Unfortunately my response is extremely terse as I leave her room feeling a sense of utter despair sweep over me.

This is no way to start the day or even the week and just to add to everything we have my cousin from Scotland and his wife coming to stay until Friday. We will have to witness the AP alternating between being gushingly sweet to moaning about her health which in truth, for her age is extremely good. Fortunately they do know what she can be like and are both good company so we will just sit back and enjoy the charade that is, of course, in between our ‘below stairs’ activities. There will be a sudden attack of good manners, seldom apparent when it is just the LSO and myself here, the comments will abound about how wonderful we are and how well she is looked after. OK, the last comment is actually correct but we know she doesn’t really feel that way herself because she still makes vain attempts to dominate us and is completely delusional about how much she is capable of doing.

As I have said before, looking after this ungrateful, self opinionated and vain old woman is a thoroughly thankless task.

Dealing with the situation.

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Once again some time has elapsed since my last blog but I have not been idle. Since starting ‘Banting’ I have lost eight and a half pounds and that is quite an achievement because the first week is eating normally and I am now one third of the way through the six week period of restoration discovering a whole new way of thinking about food in general.

My blood pressure is slowly reducing and I have yet to check my blood glucose but I feel that must be improving too. One of the biggest plus points is the fact I feel so much better and much more like my normal self; I no longer am oppressed or depressed by the AP and indeed will take no nonsense from her. That doesn’t mean I am cruel or uncaring, just determined not to be bullied in any way.

The last four years have knocked holes in the LSO and myself but now the AP cannot push us around anymore, we have finally got the measure of her and in truth of ourselves too. But it took a rather terrifying situation to make us both realise how serious it had all become and how at the end of all this we need to be fit and well in order to enjoy what time is left to us. We cannot dwell on what has passed but we are now improving what is in the present and hopefully the future too.

Another result of this new found way of life is that my pleasure in cooking has also returned. I had begun to wonder as I sank further and further into illness, depression and despondency if this was going to be how our lives were going to play out, bored, boring and disinterested in just about everything.

Thank goodness for our hugely supportive medical practice and the intelligent and ultimately workable advice and support from our children, in particular our daughter whose in-depth dietary knowledge has been a godsend.

I can in all honesty say this time that there truly is a light at the end of the tunnel.

A conversation with myself.

Ten months ago I began writing this blog to help me cope with the hugely onerous task of looking after my ageing mother. Writing has been a great release and has helped me to keep problems in proportion. I joke that it has kept me out of the asylum but there is some truth in that statement and although I still have bad days at least they are more isolated. The LSO reads the blog and hopefully it helps him too. It takes two of us to deal with the situation and even then it is often too much for both of us and it is at that point I feel a blog coming on and the need to offload the anger, frustration and resentment that has built up as a result of having a one hundred year old woman living with us whom we no longer recognise or truthfully, understand.

The situation deteriorates each day now. The AP has become ever more self orientated and sees very little beyond herself and her ability to compute what is said to her is lessening. This is difficult to deal with on an every day basis because meaningful conversations are an impossibility except in very short bursts. If she is trying to go somewhere her concentration is totally on what she is doing and even if you speak to her at that time, she doesn’t take in any information. If the AP asks a question, the answer has to repeated several times before any understanding occurs. She still tries occasionally to dominate us but we have put strategies in place to deal with those moments and I must admit to a sense of detachment growing which is a blessing.

Normal courtesies are forced when speaking to us and thank you doesn’t come naturally anymore. She does try but it’s sad to see how difficult it has all become for her. She gushes all over others which is definitely a ‘get me a bucket’ time for us but it is often a release to have people here then her focus is altered.

Before the the AP came to live with us the LSO and I were always busy, we entertained people, went out and had a spontaneous lifestyle, enjoying our retirement. In the last four years all that has gone and the current situation has left us despondent and depressed and although we realise that we must weather this period in our lives it is hard to know what to do to improve things. How do we regain the enthusiasm we had for life in general before the AP became our permanent house guest?

There isn’t a simple answer and it is a road we have been down many times during the last four years.

What a difference the sun makes.

The long grey days this winter have been depressing and have done nothing to help the time to pass easily. I still have a deep sense of anxiety but a sunny day does a great deal to dispel some of the fog that lingers on the outskirts of my mind. I do feel that some positive thinking and taking some positive action would help to ease the angst but it’s finding the energy to stop being negative and basically shake off the torpor that has crept into my soul.

I am still very positive about the diet and although it is not a rapid loss, it is steady. My sleep patterns are slowly improving too which is a huge improvement. I enjoy the fact that the recipes I have found have been ‘family friendly’ and apart from a couple of times I haven’t felt the need to go down the ready made meal route. This has meant that no explanations have been necessary which in turn means no constant questions from the AP.

It’s interesting to note that as we are getting closer to the AP’s trip to bonny Scotland she becomes more imperious and words like ‘thank you’ begin to vanish and expressions such as ‘do this’, ‘can you’ and ‘put that’ become more prevalent. But this time I will not be provoked or harried and find that ignoring the situation or just refusing to jump to attention is a far better approach.

I just think the LSO and I need some time on our own, in our home and without the stream of appointments and demands from the AP. Just some space to do our ‘own thing’.

Fifteen days to go.

Finding some freedom.

Its a week since I wrote anything in this blog diary but it’s not because I didn’t want to write but mostly that everything is so damned depressing. I really must find a way out of the feeling of doom and gloom that is shrouding the LSO and myself.

Just to put the final touches to these feelings of misery I caught a really violent tummy bug that is still attempting to linger on four days later. The up side to that, if there is one, is that I have lost some weight and the LSO became Captain Dettol!

We really cannot blame the AP although her presence is a big part of the situation but she is not to blame for where we are now, we did that all on our own. We really had no idea what we were doing when we suggested that the AP comes to live with us four years ago.

The AP had always appeared to be a thoroughly social and outgoing person but we soon found out that the reality is exactly the opposite. She is highly critical of others and at times quite malicious about our friends basing everything on what she sees as a slight against herself. My god, who is this person I am writing about, I am shocked and horrified to say it is my mother, heaven forbid that my own children would feel this way about me or the LSO.

She has a better social life than us but that wouldn’t be difficult because, at the moment we don’t have one. The highlight of last week was trip to the bottle bank! Unless we instigate outings with the AP or arrange for her to go anywhere she will do nothing to help herself, just sit in her room watching television or staring into space or nodding off in the chair. That’s all ok and to be expected at 99 years of age but the downside is her attitude and general demeanour when spending time with us. The AP becomes bored and wants entertaining, like a child really. She gets everything mixed up now and is forgetful but is equally insistent that her absolutely wrong statements are true, refusing to accept the correct versions of events even when they are about us and not her. Her own mixed up memories of her life are no problem but it becomes more difficult when she makes incorrect statements to visitors and family about us and others. It’s all very sad really but in the meantime our lives are slipping by in this fog of extremely slow moving boredom.

It’s easy to think that we should snap out of this but it is becoming increasingly difficult. Before her arrival here we never stopped, we went out and explored, socialised, laughed a lot, the LSO did his printmaking, fishing and enjoyed his gardening. I painted in my studio, even selling the odd one, enjoyed my experimental cooking, the joy of living here and of course my bread making and now? Well it’s all too much of an effort.

We are trying so hard not to be resentful but I think we should put our energies into being more determined to change our situation and start going out more. There is a whiff of wallowing that can become habitual and we do need to stop that in its tracks. We have contacted the Careline that supplies the personal alarm and key safe but as yet no-one has come back to us. That should at least give us some peace of mind when (not if) we go out. We must also ignore the inevitable guilt trip the AP will put us on the minute we do it.

Well here’s to at least some guilt free freedom at the end of the rainbow that would be more welcome than a pot of gold.

It’s always the straw.

……….that breaks the camel’s back or so the old adage goes and it is so true. I am trying to be positive but sometimes feel the tide is against me. The pain in my calf continues to cause me distress, it does go away when rested but returns the minute I begin walking. This is not helpful when what I need to do is get regular exercise and all I can do is limp slowly, painfully and miserably. I’ve always said its better to have spots then at least they can be seen and elicit some sympathy or do I really mean some acknowledgement that you really are not right, sympathy just makes me weepy. Then just to make things a bit worse the lady who cleans the house once a week is not coming on Wednesday and we have visitors arriving and commitments that take us away from here.

I know it’s all a bit pathetic and gammy leg or not I am sure I can manage to vacuum and dust and the LSO will clean the bathrooms, so the bedrooms will just have a flick round and stairs won’t get done but does that really matter? The kitchen is huge but apart from the floor it is always kept clean so what’s the problem? Frustration at feeling so trapped at the moment not just emotionally but physically. I do feel a bit overwhelmed sorting out my diet but just generally feel under the weather.

The AP is ok still and really trying to be pleasant. Occasionally the mask slips but we come back later as if nothing has happened.

Four weeks tomorrow we will be beginning our four week break from the relentless routine that has become our lives. I know we must not wish the time away as life is short but in this case I am counting the days.