So fed up with being my sister

[Thighdentitycrisis]

Just feeling sorry for myself tonight and hope someone can listen

I spent the day with mum (83, Alzheimer’s) doing stuff with and for her and she just called to say she’d had a good day and Dsis had been with her. I know it’s a million times worse for her but it makes me feel so invisible. Sorry

Aw heartbreaking isn’t it
My MIL has Alzheimers and mixes up people and names. She often says to my DH “ How’s your Mum?” ( me we think) Last time I saw her she said oh I thought it was that other one coming ( our adult daughter)

My Mum died years ago but for the last 6 years or so of her life she didn’t know me at all which was so heartbreaking. She had Dementia.
When she died it kind of felt like I’d already lost the Mum I knew. Her last word to me was “ gerroff” as I stroked her arm. She’d have been mortified but seen the “ funny” side.

Interestingly she always knew my lifelong best friend! She had lost the memory of having children though.

Try to focus on your happy memories. Your Mum still appreciates what you do for her and I know it must hurt for her to use your sister’s name. Cruel disease.

Alzheimer's is a bastard disease. My Mum had it for 12 years and it'll be 2 years next month since died. You have every right to feel sad.

I don't know if this would help, but your Mum's call tonight actually gives you a window into her experience. She told you she had a good day. You gave her that! I know her mind confused you with your sister, but that doesn't change the reality that your Mum remembered your visit and had good day because of it. So much so that she wanted to tell someone about it. You're not invisible or unimportant to her.

It's also possible that she phoned you thinking she was calling your sister to her about her day and your visit.

@RegainingTheWill2023
thanks for your replies it helps to talk about it.
I know I’m helping her and she gets very upset about mixing things up. She’s ringing to check up what happened I think but didn’t want to say that. I don’t know what’s best, to keep correcting her which gets her upset or to just agree. I go for agree yesterday.

DH’s mum confuses him with his brother, his (long dead) dad and recently her own father, who died in 1944. It hurts, doesn’t it, even though you know there’s no hurt intended.

We’ve been advised that not correcting is much better.

I think agreeing or deflecting is always better than correcting. Whichever you do, you'll probably get the same thing again tomorrow but if you correct you'll make them feel bad now. The end result is the same so I think it's better to skip the bit where they feel bad for getting it wrong. With children you correct them so that they will learn but to learn you have to remember so that's not going to be happening.

Towards the end I was upset because I had the feeling that my mother really preferred my sister (aka "the other one") to me despite me being the one that did all the work. "Take a day off dear, your sister can pop round instead" which I would have appreciated except that I didn't have a sister.

My mum doesn't know me most of the time. I visit with my cousin and she always seems to prefer my cousin. She talks about me in the third person. "Hairbrush has been poorly", "Hairbrush says ....." or the best one when the nurse told her I had come to visit - scowly face "Hairbrush who?"

However last week we were teasing her and I asked her who I was and she knew straight away but she didn't know my cousin! My uncle visits every couple of months and she has no idea who he is. She thought he was her father.

You're doing a great job @Thighdentitycrisis
Generally the guidance is to accept the perspective of the person with dementia and go along with their 'reality'. It's actually easier to do this as the dementia becomes more severe. I remember the earlier years as really upsetting as Mum's awareness was greater and her distress at realising what was happening was utterly heartbreaking.

We learned to go with the flow and either go with what she was experiencing or be helpfully vague to avoid her having the distress of her being faced with the reality of her memory loss / confusion.
Sending an anonymous hug of support.

And to you @IthinkIsawahairbrushbackthere

My DGran, who I adored and saw a lot of, had memory issues that the family kept quiet about. I got used to being called a religion teacher or politician or something similar, depending on what the chat had been about with the other relative in her presence (she couldn't be left alone but lots of family to cover).

It was very sad. And sometimes quite annoying (especially days when I had done lots or it had seemed like she was more with it and remembered me).

But it was a slow decline over a few years that I saw relatively closely as I live locally and visited a lot, but my DPs and siblings were further away and it used to upset them a lot when they saw the huge declines between visits. They were strangers to her, whereas I wasn't necessarily family but I was a person she knew and accepted without fear or upset, IYKWIM.

Thanks for all your replies it does really help.

I think its compounded for me by a couple of factors: DM left our family when I was very young so I have huge self confidence issues, and gave a tricky relationship with her anyway, then recently her health records were shared and I saw for the first time that she had been diagnosed with personality disorder.

She’s not at the stage yet where she doesn’t know what’s happening and she ties herself in knots about not being sure what is happening or has happened

thanks everyone for all your support