Today was a hard day.
Helping someone with Alzheimer’s has many challenges. It’s not like how it looks in the movies. She doesn’t think she’s 16, she knows who I am. She has memories, she remembers faces and names, she just gets them mixed up sometimes. Her brain will compensate by filling in details when things don’t make sense. Usually she can correct herself. She knows when people are talking down to her. She gets frustrated being constantly told she’s wrong, that she’s misremembering. She may not remember specific instances but she knows that this happens a lot. It’s discouraging to always be told you’re wrong. She needs a bad guy to blame and unfortunately right now that’s her family. She understands that there are things we’re trying to push on her. What she doesn’t understand is why. Why we’re trying to uproot her life, her habits, the things she eats, her daily schedule. There’s a lot of changes that hopefully will help but how do you help someone who doesn’t realize they need help? How do you help someone who doesn’t realize there’s a problem? How do we make sure she’s following a protocol when she doesn’t remember what it is or why she should be doing it? She gets increasingly more and more annoyed at us. It’s harming her relationships because she feels that everyone is her enemy. How do we keep from stressing her out, while also pushing her to take the steps towards healing? I hope we can find some answers to the never ending questions. I hope we can all work towards a place of healing. I hope it gets easier.
Today was just hard