#idek i am also like i gotta lie down most of the day tired | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

strawberryspeachy · 5 years

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I want to be around my mom but then it just stresses me out to do so. I think about having to take care of her constantly and... I’m selfishly just like. No. I’ve done so much, let my family do it now.

And I fucking adore my mom. She was not only the best mom but the best person. She had her flaws and she fucked up but if everyone in this world were like my mom it would be a utopia

I tried to hang out with her when she was going downhill. As much as possible. Do memorable things. Generally I just came home tired and upset because the times of having meaningful conversation with her passed without me even noticing.

Like I think the last time I had a real good day with my mom was my senior year of high school when we skipped my lame reward ceremony and got pizza that we shared in the parking lot and talked.

Like we talked on the phone a lot while I was in college but it was just us sharing what was going on in our lives not like... deep connection stuff

And today I ended up having to watch her. I wasn’t happy about it. But I’m leaving soon and felt like I really should force myself to hang out with her cause I’ll regret it if I don’t.

She wanted to come in the kitchen and hang out with me. I have her a chair and she watched me cook. Asked every so often if she could help. I wish I could give her something to do - she had a cooking lisince. But she can’t do even simple things anymore.

She’s like a puppy. Just wanting to be close. Just wanting attention. And I kept thinking how 20 years ago I was the one sitting on the chair just watching her cook wishing she’d let me do something.

And I wanted to just sit in my room and check on her every so often. And I know that’s a dick feel and I knew it and I faught it. But I hate watching her play with a baby doll that she revived for Christmas and went ‘why would I want this?? How old does he (my uncle) think I am’

I keep purposely distancing myself from her...idek it’s not entirely on purpose. Idk

But when I finished cooking and she went and sat in the living room while I clean up she started crying. She does it a lot now and I asked her what was wrong and she gave me some nonsense. And asked about my grandfather being out

Then. She went ‘idk why I do this. I know he’s coming back. I don’t know why I do the things I do. I can’t help it’

And for a second I heard my mom.

It’s only ever for a second or so these days that I hear her... and normally it makes me cry. But it didn’t. I consoled her and explained her dementia to her and told her that we love her and it’s not her fault.

And she thanked me for always being nice to her and hugged me.

And that’s when I gave into the fact that I should sit with her. I hoped for a little while she could stay that way but she went back almost immediately to pacing around the room and talking to her baby and looking out the windows and saying people were out there. And she’s always asking about her older brother. Her brothers coming. My uncle is coming. Where is her husband. Ect.

And I sat on the couch watching tv responding to her if she asked a question or got to ansy

And another things she’s been saying the past few months is she’s gotta go. She likes me but she’s gotta go. She has small children waiting for her. They need her.

Today I addressed it for the first time instead of just being taken back that she obviously thinks my mother aunt and uncle are kids waiting for her at home

I told her all her kids are adults. I’m her youngest and I’m right here. It’s ok.

(I’m her granddaughter)

She said yea but (my name) needs me. She’s still small

And I told I’m me

And she looked at me like she hadn’t seen me in years. And started crying and went

You’re (my name)

And she grabbed my face and hugged me and went like

Wow! You were so small! This is you now?

And telling me how happy she was that I was here and ok and that she can’t believe it. And started apologizing.

She thinks she didn’t see me grow up. And I told her we’ve been together all along and she kept saying. “Why didn’t anyone tell me you were here”

Of course I started crying. I haven’t really been able to stop...

And she was like overjoyed for a moment. And I thought maybe she’d sit down and be happy for a second.

But then she said now that she knows where I am she needs to go feed the dogs.

I let her go on talking about them till she regressed back even more. Started saying she was waiting for her brother to come get her because she has to go home. And asking me “when is mom and dad coming home” an hour before that she was crying saying that she missed her mom

I miss mine too.... it feels like I lose her every day. And for seconds I get this hope. That she’s still there that she’ll pull through and be better even though I know she can’t. But just for those seconds I can’t help it.

Of course she would talk about the dogs. We had so many dogs and other animals. She always loved and cared about me, I was also just one of the many tasks on her daily schedual That’s why we didn’t get to hang out much. She took care of animals and went to work form 5am to 11pm for most of my life. In high school I told her I think she has adhd because even when I’ve done the work so she can relax - she wouldn’t sit down, always found something to do

I tried to play with my bop-it with her. She tried but gave up. I wish I could find something for her to preoccupy herself with. Even without this disease she never sat still. How could we possibly expect her to now. But she can’t do anything.... she stopped being able to when she started to get it because she would be so overwhelmed by how hard it was for her and get so upset that she’d just give up

Like when she tried to take a message that cvs had called and for five minutes she kept writing the letters out of order or upsidedown and backwards and randomly throwin in other letters into “cvs” and she just got mad at me for watching her. Told me she could do it if I weren’t there judging her and correcting her. The first couple times I just wondered what she was writing and asked her. But after that I went quiet and was just upset along because I knew what was happening and she was still in denial

I hate to lie. I told her today that I’ll always be here. There went anything else I could say. I couldn’t remind her that the animals are gone. That all the dogs she wanted to take care of died years ago. That my uncle is not outside - he is in Texas. That her mom and dad aren’t coming home. That this is her home now - not whichever house she was thinking over at the moment.

So long as my string of awful things don’t happen. - I’ll be in Japan in a couple weeks. I won’t be here. And today I kept wondering if I’m making the wrong decision.

I’m leaving because I can’t take the stuff going on with my grandfather and the house and my mother and all the boys who’ve hurt me. I can’t find a good job and everything sucks. That I want to and have tried to kill myself. That in almost any way I’m not going to be here anymore.

I want to me. I want to help my mom. But I can’t. She doesn’t even want me most of the time. She wants her parents. She wants her brother. She wants my grandfather. I am the 4th. Most asked for person. Top of the list when she remembers I exist.

And today was just a reminder how much my mom cares about me and how much this all fucking sucks. And I can help her and I can’t help her. And this will repeat. And each time it’s new to her and each time it kills me more

#dementia #mom

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