JOAN’S BLOG, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 5, 2008 – PUTTING THE MENTAL HEALTH OF THE SPOUSAL CAREGIVER FIRST

A comment made yesterday on the Message Boards by our wise and experienced reader, “Bettyhere”, struck a chord with me. She was agreeing with my reasoning for starting this website –she said “There were times when I found it difficult to relate to those caring for their parents and I know they can have problems understanding how we feel as a spouse. It may be the same disease, same meds, same behaviors, but it is not the same for those of us who are married and also caregivers, not even close. I can remember early on at UCLA when they kept calling me the 'caregiver.' No, I kept insisting, I'm the wife, not the caregiver.”

Yes, we are the “spouses”, and being a “spouse” of an AD patient comes with a completely different set of issues – relationship issues that only another spouse can understand. I don’t know about you, but I always think of myself as “spouse” first, and “caregiver” second.

However, last week, after stressing myself into an anxiety attack so severe that I could not catch my breath, I decided that it was time I DID look at myself as the caregiver first, and give that role some much needed attention. I decided that if I continued on the path I was on, it was going to lead me straight into the hospital emergency room with a heart attack or a stroke. I know that many of you are just as close to the breaking point as I am.

I would like to share with you some information brought back from a Caregiver Conference by my support group friends. The conference was last week, and I was too stressed out and upset to attend. How is that for irony?

Relieving caregiver stress is all about giving up control. Now, doesn’t that sound like the complete antithesis to what our role has become?  We’ve had to assume control over everything from finances to killing the bugs. But there are some events over which we have no control, and when we learn which ones, a burden is lifted. We cannot control the progression of Alzheimer’s Disease; we cannot control the behavior our spouses exhibit when the AD devil possesses them; we cannot control the “losing/misplacing/ scattering all over the house” of their various possessions.

We CAN CONTROL our reactions to these events. That is all that we can control. We can pull our hair out of heads; lose our tempers; cry in frustration over their behaviors, or we can take some very deep breaths; leave the room; and remind ourselves that arguing, reasoning, and pleading does not work with the Alzheimer brain. Take more deep breaths, return to the situation, and distract, agree, and ignore. I know a male spouse who is literally making himself sick because of his wife’s habit of pulling clothes out of closets and drawers and scattering them all over the house. He has to understand that he has no control over that situation. He does, however, have a choice. He can stress himself into the hospital bed next to me, or he can live with the mess for now.

Learning to give up trying to control that over which I have no control, is a very difficult task, but I feel it is essential to maintaining my own mental health. As it is to yours.  I invite you to join me in “giving up on what we cannot control.”

Feedback to joan@thealzheimerspouse.com

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