Tag Archive | pain

Grief in a 24/7 Connected World

Grief is complex and complicated and no two people grieve the same way.

However, the more we’ve become connected in a 24/7 way through technology, the more we’ve become a shiny-happy-people (I am a huge R.E.M. fan, but this song annoyed me beyond words the first time I heard it and continues to do so now) society that focuses on the inane, on fluff, and on the ridiculous and real, palpable, tangible grief rains on that parade of lollipops, unicorns and butterflies.

As a result, it (and the grievers) are prime targets for some of the most judgmental, critical, harsh, and mean things that people can say and do to other people.

Better to grieve alone, in private, keeping the deepest secrets and pain in our souls to ourselves than to have the grief compounded by ignorance, attacks, and accusations.

After Caregiving For Our Loved Ones with Dementias and Alzheimer’s Disease Ends

Jun30

For each of us who have been or are primary caregivers for our loved ones with dementias and Alzheimer’s Disease (along with comorbid age-related illnesses), we are firsthand witnesses to the physical, emotional, mental, and financial toll it can have on us the caregivers.

But at some point our role as caregivers ends. Dementias and Alzheimer’s Disease are ultimately fatal since the brain affects every part of the body and as the neurological damage of these diseases progress, the damage spreads to the rest of the body.

As I wrote in one of the very first posts I wrote for Going Gentle Into That Good Night, we will never be the same again after being caregivers for our loved ones with dementias and Alzheimer’s Disease and other age-related illnesses.

But it’s been my observation that the caregiver experience leads us in one of two polar opposite directions after our caregiving days are over.

For some caregivers, their path after caregiving leads them toward helping other caregivers who are or will be on the journey through dementias and Alzheimer’s Disease. They do this through blogs – like this one – and books and online and offline support groups.

This path gives an added benefit to the caregivers who choose it: it facilitates the healing process and it often provides a productive journey through the grieving process.

However, for caregivers who choose this path, they learn along the way that there are some things that will never heal in this lifetime and grieving is not a finite process.

The benefit, though, is perspective and acceptance, even in the deeper wounds that won’t quite close up and the unexpected tears that can show up anytime and anywhere no matter how much time has passed.

For other caregivers, though, the path after caregiving is to leave it behind and shut the door on it. In most cases, this is the result of a tremendous amount of pain and loss in their own lives while they were caregivers because of the huge physical, emotional, mental, and financial toll caregiving had on them.

They don’t want to be around anything having to do with caregiving anywhere in their lives: blogs, books, support groups, or even friends and family who are or will be caregivers.

You can literally see this group of caregivers shut down and mentally check out when anything related to caregiving comes up in their lives. They physically, mentally, and emotionally walk away and never look back.

None of us knows what path we’ll choose when our caregiving days for our loved ones with dementias, Alzheimer’s Disease, and age-related illnesses are over.

And what I hope we remember is that neither path, regardless of which we choose, makes us better or worse than those who chose the other path.

For all the similarities we humans share, we each are unique creations who walk unique paths through our lives. I don’t know the details of where or what you have been through and you don’t the details of where and what I’ve been through.

So I urge each of us to be kind, to be empathetic, to be respectful to every other person who has been, who is, who will be a caregiver for loved ones with dementias and Alzheimer’s Disease and age-related illness, regardless of which path they have chosen, choose, or will choose.

Let’s not forget that we’ve all shared the same experience and that creates a bond between us of understanding. We should also remember that, when it’s all said and done, being a caregiver is an incredible act of love that, sadly, in our society more and more people are not willing to make the sacrifice for.

So all of us who have been, who are, and who will be caregivers are incredibly loving people who made the sacrifice, just like the loved ones we care for did with us, at, sometimes, a huge personal cost to themselves for the rest of their lives.

The path we choose afterward is often self-protective and a path toward some sort of wholeness. And that’s okay, even if it’s not the path we chose, choose, or will choose.

There is no right or wrong in the path after caregiving. It depends on each one of us which direction we take. But let’s don’t attack, don’t condemn, don’t criticize our fellow travelers in this journey because they choose a different path than we did after the journey with our loved ones with dementias and Alzheimer’s Disease ends.

“You Oughta Know: Acknowledging, Recognizing, and Responding to the Steps in the Journey Through Dementias and Alzheimer’s Disease” – Chapter 15 Excerpt

Jan4

In this last installment of chapter excerpts from the book You Oughta Know: Acknowledging, Recognizing, and Responding to the Steps in the Journey Through Dementias and Alzheimer’s Disease, we look at the last step in the journey through dementias and Alzheimer’s Disease.

This post includes an excerpt from chapter 15, which gives comprehensive information on how to walk the last step in the journey through dementias and Alzheimer’s Disease, which is the one that we’ll take alone without our loved ones: grief.

There is no right or wrong way to grieve. There is no time limit on grief. Grief is a process and the reality is that there will always be a hole in your heart when you lose a loved one.

Grief is also complex and complicated. We not only grieve for the loss of our loved ones, but we also grieve for all that intertwined their lives with ours because we recognize that part of our lives is over in this life.

And part of the grief process is sorting through those intertwined lives, the good, the bad, the ugly, as we reflect deeply on our time together.

Some people are able to stuff the hole of loss with busyness and lots of people and lots of things and it seems like they just picked up and moved on without blinking. They didn’t, but it looks that way.

Other people move through the process of scabbing the wound of the hole of loss more slowly, in spurts and stages that at times seem interminable and like they will never end. But it does and eventually, they find a way to move on as well.

You will find that the grieving process will tell you a lot about the people who are around you in your life.

And because death and grief necessitate one of life’s major reset phases, which includes a period of purging (not all on our part) – usually for the better, although it’s incredibly painful at the time – part of that reset phase extends to the people who are around us in our lives.

We find out who the people around us are and what we mean to them during this period.

And, although it may be sad and surprising, depending on our temperaments and personalities, many of those people will exit your life if you don’t meet their expectations and time limits on what acceptable grief looks like.

We have to accept that they were never there for the long haul to begin with.

A very small group of a few other people will hang in there with you every step of the way and beyond.

That’s your inner circle. Love them. Cherish them. And do the same and more for them as life happens to them. They’re not going anywhere. You’re not either.

This series begins with the forward to the book and an explanation of why I wrote this book and why you should read it.

The series continues with the inclusion of excerpts from Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14, and, with this post, Chapter 15.

The steps in the journey through dementias and Alzheimer’s Disease are presented sequentially in the order in which they actually appear in the course of these neurological diseases.

There are no other books that literally walk through each step in sequential order as they emerge in the journey through dementias and Alzheimer’s Disease.

Additionally, there is no other book that discusses:

The process we as caregivers acknowledge each new step – there is an acceptance period that we have to go through
The process we use to guide ourselves and our loved ones with dementias and Alzheimer’s Disease through the recognition phase of each step
The concrete, loving, and practical information on how we should respond and how we can help guide our loved ones’ responses

These are the things that make You Oughta Know: Acknowledging, Recognizing, and Responding to the Steps in the Journey Through Dementias and Alzheimer’s Disease unique and stand alone in the plethora of books about dementias and Alzheimer’s Disease.

Excerpt “Chapter 15: ‘I Have a Lock of Hair and One-Half of My Heart’”

“Death and its aftermath is the last step of this journey through dementias and Alzheimer’s Disease and it is a step that we take without our loved ones.

It is often said that in these neurological and fatal diseases that we experience death twice. The first death is the loss of the loved ones we knew before these diseases. The second death is when our loved ones take their last breath.

If hospice is on board, the first phone call we make is to them. A nurse will come out and confirm death. Hospice will also contact the funeral home and will prepare the body for transport. This includes cleaning and dressing (I actually helped our hospice nurse with this).

When the people from the funeral home get there, they will make an appointment to come in and make burial arrangements (usually the next day) and they will take the body to the funeral home and start the embalming process.

Once the funeral home people leave, the hospice nurse will collect and destroy any remaining medications and there will be paperwork to sign both to confirm the medication disposal and to end hospice services.

It’s a flurry of activity that lasts several hours, and I personally found that to be just what I needed because the reality that Mom was gone was still sinking in.“

The Second Anniversary of Mama’s Death (8-14-14)

Aug14

Today is the second anniversary of my mama’s death.

I miss her. But my love, care, and concern for her well-being outweighs my own pain and loss. Because her journey through vascular dementia, Lewy Body dementia, Alzheimer’s Disease, and congestive heart failure is over and she sleeps peacefully, awaiting the promise of total healing in the resurrection.

For that, I’m thankful.

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