Unbelievably hard dealing with a loved one who has dementia. You never know which ‘ person’ will greet you each visit.

I’ve just come back from visiting my Mum in her nursing home. I was also there yesterday and we had a lovely day together, she was pleased to see me and seemed relatively content. Today however, it was a totally different story ! She was grumpy, irritable and I felt like I couldn’t do anything right ! It upset me SO much.

To explain, I live near London and my Mum is in a care home in her native Wales, there ARE valid reasons why I chose a care home in her home town which I won’t go in to here in this article.

I find it hard to deal with the guilt that I feel each time I leave my Mum in the care home and drive back to London. Why?

 She gets great care, is never alone, is well fed and entertained and I KNOW 100% that I ‘m NOT able to care for her in my own home.

Part of the guilt, I suspect, comes from the fact that, 40 years ago my Mum & Dad took in my grandmother after my grandfather died and she lived with us for 12 years. I FEEL that I should do the same with my Mum but our generations are different, my Mum & Dad NEVER travelled, had the same jobs for years and years and had a whole family support network around them.

I don’t have that family support, I travel and spend weeks at a time out of the country.

I’ll write more on this shortly but in the meantime, I’ve been listening to a hypnosis download called ‘

Dealing with the guilt of putting someone you love in a nursing  home’

by hypnosis downloads.com.

So far it has been very helpful, puts a lot of things into perspective and I’m definitely a lot calmer this evening .

I have to drive to London tomorrow but when I get back I’ll write my review of this download.

Home now, it was a very long drive, 6 hours this time.

I had a lot of time to think on the long drive home. My problem is that although I know I can’t care for my mum at home I can’t shake the guilty feelings I have full leaving her each time. I just have to tell myself that the best thing is for her to have 24-hour care and doctors on-call and be entertained every day.

She is also clean and warm and has company of her own age which she wouldn’t have if she was living with me. I spend a lot of time out of the country and it would also unsettle her too much if she had to move in and out of care homes so I’ve convinced myself I think rightly so, that she is in the best place and her needs can be met both physically and mentally.

We made her room cosy, put in some of her favourite furniture and filled the window sills with photographs of the family. Many times when I go and visit her she’s sitting looking at the photographs and smiling or at other times she sitting downstairs calmly holding hands with one of the other lady residents she looks peaceful and well cared for and that helps to put my mind at rest.

I’ve been reading a lot of comments from dementia forums, here are some of the answers people have received when they asked how would dealing with their feelings of guilt;

“The guilt will never go away but it will ease. You need to look at it from a different perspective otherwise you are going to beat yourself up and that’s going to be detrimental to your health in more ways than you can imagine.

Ultimately you need to say it was not in my Mum’s best interest that she stays at home because had she stayed at home I would have become ill myself and unable to look after her or after myself which would be no good for anybody.

I have not failed I did everything I could her for as long as possible so in that sense I have succeeded.

I can get some rest and relax a little bit now and when I visit my mum I can be happy because I have the chance to recharge my batteries and give her the love she deserves while she gets the care from qualified professionals who can do what is needed to keep my Mum dry , fed and safe.”

” We need to ask ourselves what is best for our Mum or dad and then ask ourselves if we are the most qualified individual to provide those services. We wouldn’t try to fix our cars without the right tools and technology of the day so aren’t our parents important enough to receive the best medical care?

Let the nursing home professionals do their jobs that’s what they are trained for. They even have experts right there on the staff to help in any way that is needed. You could not do what the carers in the home can do because they work  only eight hours a day not 24 hours every day without a break as it would be for you  at home. NOBODY can do that without getting sick themselves!

Don’t ever feel guilty because you are getting the right care for your mum and had she been in her normal state of mind she would have been the first to agree that as long as she has the care she needs you must get on with your own life.

As the daughter of another lady in the same home as my mum said to me once,”  this is your mum’s journey not yours it’s something that is hers alone to take you can help her but you cannot live it for her ”

Back soon,

Alex

Tagged with:

Filed under: Alzheimers • Dementia • Nursing Home Guilt • Tweets

Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!