I just miss my mum

[hookystreet]

I've NC as long time user and I think I'm only writing this to get it off my chest. Keen to know if others have been in the same situation and how you manage to cope.

My mum has advanced dementia and now barely registers who I am when I go to visit.

I'm in my 30's with a young DC and the grief of not being able to speak to my mum or her have a proper relationship with her GC feels just unbearable at times.

Most of the time I plough through and try not to think of it but I feel so angry and sad that this opportunity has been stolen and she's a living ghost. It seems so horrendously cruel to expect people to suffer the indignity of this disease.

I just want my mum.

My mum died of Ahlzeimer's, 7 years after diagnosis.
The book 'Contented Dementia' really helped us all. She was unable to be in our world, we had to join hers.
One evening my dad spent an hour helping her look for himself! He knew it was pointless telling her he was George.
She would ask constantly "When am i going home?" we always had the same answer "Tomorrow, it's all sorted and you will be back home" this placated her longer than any other response.
She regularly commented that she hadn't seen her mum for a while, we told her that she was on holiday and would be back soon. She'd been dead years.

It's so hard and I felt relief when she died. I had lost her a long time before her death.

Wishing you all strength

This thread popped up on my 'I'm on' list, I had forgotten about it.

My lovely dad died a few weeks ago in the nursing home. After Christmas he got a chest infection that he couldn't fight and he just went downhill. Because he hadn't been eating properly for months he had no reserves left.

The last few days were very hard, watching him struggle to breathe at times, lying in bed, on morphine. But we got a chance to sit with him and say our goodbyes, and I'm grateful that he didn't suffer for very long. Now it's over and I think we all feel a bit numb, I didn't even cry at the funeral, I was quite calm. It was strange.

I'm hoping that old memories start to come back soon, from before dementia. I've started looking through old photos which helps.

I'm sorry to everyone going through similar - dementia is such an awful disease, it had been a dark cloud on our family for the last few years, and I think we're still traumatised.

Apologies, I never seem to get any notifications about posts.

@Farmageddon I'm so very sorry to hear about your dad, I'm glad you got to say goodbye and although we all feel like we are often grieving whilst the person is still alive, these things are never easy.

My mum is becoming less mobile and less verbal now, things she does say are intelligible in the main. Sometimes she recognises me in the sense that I look familiar to her but she doesn't know quite how but most of the time there's no real acknowledgment and little conversation. She does smile at my DC though and sometimes I find myself fighting back a lump in my throat at the granny that she won't have.

I feel terribly sad that so many of us are in the same position, I appreciate you all sharing. Although a deeply shit set of circumstances, I know it's not uncommon.
Strength and peace to you all.