RouletteWeekend

Turns out you can be a victim of circumstance or you can make circumstance your bitch.

I think in every woman’s life (well, maybe there’s a few that this rule does not apply to) there comes a time when she has to leave a toxic relationship. Whether that’s physical abuse or mental abuse, I believe most women have had to walk away from someone or something for the betterment of their mental or physical health.

I’ve thought about this a lot lately as I’ve been navigating my new life as a caretaker for my mother in law.

It’s not even that she needs constant care, but I feel like lately, she does need constant attention.

She’s not been officially diagnosed with any form of dementia, but the longer we are here, the more “things” I’ve noticed. There’s a reason they say “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.” When she doesn’t have anything to occupy her time (like quilting), she goes inside her head and creates these disastrous worlds that don’t really exist, but to her they are very real.

On mother’s day, we all went to lunch, me, Martha (my MIL), Will and my oldest son. We had the best time just talking and visiting and eating. We got in the car to go home and I asked Will to make a quick stop at Trader Joe’s so I could grab some falafel. I was in the store for 5-10 minutes and they sat in the car talking. The conversation led to children and how she wished Will had given her grandkids. They were finishing up the conversation when I got in the car and we drove home listening to music. It was a beautiful day so Martha went to sit on the porch. She was out there for 10 minutes or so and she came back in the house, angrily grabbed her purse and car keys and went out to the car. Will, of course, followed her out to see where she was going and she was giving him the silent treatment, before she ultimately told him that she was mad because how could he be so selfish as to not want kids. She had turned the whole conversation around into something that made her so mad at him that she couldn’t see straight. This obviously made Will upset because of the delusion. It made me upset because she left the house to go angry drive wherever she was going to. It turned out to be the grocery store. I have a tracking app on her phone so I can always tell where she is, but then she was in the store for over 30 minutes, so, of course, my worst case scenario anxiety brain kicked in and I thought maybe she left her phone in the store and took off, maybe she couldn’t remember where she was, maybe, maybe, maybe…

I decided if she was not on her way home by 5 pm, which was like 10 minutes from the time I was stalking her location, I was going to drive to the store and get her.

Then the little dot started moving in the direction of home. She got her and all was right with the world. She forgot that she was ever mad at all. I guess dementia is gracious in that way for the person afflicted with it, but the memories of all those small delusions add up for the ones doing the caretaking.

And they don’t go away. They just fall into the bag like Halloween candy until it overflows and creates madness.

Last week, I thought I would leave. Not because I don’t love Will. I thought I would leave because our ways of dealing with things are completely different. His way is avoidance. My way is head on. These two methods of coping make it really hard to meet in the middle when one is always running toward the problem and the other one is running away from it.

We finally found some sort of common ground or maybe I just decided that it’s not worth the fight. This is what we signed up for. Me to be the caretaker. Him to be the breadwinner. And both of us to take time away to reset when necessary even if that is every other day.

Nobody really tells you how the circle of life really works when you are young. They just say you raise your kids and then you end up taking care of your parents. They don’t mention the part where your parent becomes someone else and needs constant interaction and activity or they will hallucinate every terrible thing that has either already happened but make it current or turn every “what if or if only” thought in their head into a reality that pisses them off and makes them take it out on those around them.

They don’t mention that.

But, luckily, we have an appointment next week with a dementia specialist. Hopefully, they will confirm what we already believe and maybe the diagnosis will come with resources. It’s hard to explain to someone why we need a caregiver a few hours a week when they don’t think there is anything wrong with them.

For now, I’ve started working out and taking back my mornings. I’ve started waking up earlier than the rest of the house so I have some time to myself before the day swallows me into this alternate reality of repeated stories and things that never happened.

How are you dealing with this if this is your reality? Do we need to start a zoom room called “Spilling the Caregiver Tea”?

If yes, I’ll host.