Before I dive into the meat of this blog and what is happening now in my caregiving,  it’s important for me to lead with a preface. I will be sharing my experience of caring for my partner Tony, who has Early-Onset Alzheimer’s, and my mother Joy, who is 94 years old and has age-related dementia. Tony and I have had a wonderful relationship for 20+ years, and still do, though his Alzheimer’s is progressing quickly. Likewise, my mother and I have always been very close, and I will focus on her in this particular post.

I have nothing but positive memories of my mother from my childhood. I loved and still love her dearly, and she has always been my best friend and my rock.  She was kind, funny, and usually smiling and laughing. She tried to meet our every need, defend our every mistake, and go into battle if needed when someone hurt us. Her family was everything to her, and she literally gave up her own needs to care for us. She wanted us all to be happy and healthy every day.

Mom was the product of a long line of hearty Southern martyrs. She was born in 1931 during the great depression, and her family was not wealthy, but rich in love, hard work, and community. Because of her own upbringing, most every expectation of me was the same as the messages that she received: your family is everything, and you are not to want for yourself, but to give to others. Self-care was unheard of, and expressing emotions such as anger or frustration was rude. Keep everyone happy, even at your own expense. 

With such martyrdom comes complications, messages passed down to me as a young girl that have confused me in my adult life. You can’t be happy every day, though that was the goal I was meant to strive for. You will have difficult emotions sometimes, though I had no lessons on how to deal with those feelings. And if you give up your own needs to satisfy the needs of others, as I was taught, you are going to make some pretty significant mistakes in your relationships. 

These are the feelings I am working through now that Mom is at the end of her life. I’m coming to terms with the (likely) unintended messages that she gave me—some subtle, others blatant—and how these messages have shaped my adult life and the choices I have made. Because Mom has dementia, I can no longer rely on her for answers. I missed the chance to have meaningful conversations with her about some difficult questions I have regarding the whys of the choices she made as a parent and how they impacted me and my own decisions.

I begin this blog, then, with a message of love. We all do the best we can with the tools we are given. We make mistakes, and we soldier through them, hopefully learning from them and reshaping our decisions to make more productive ones later. 

I will likely say a lot of things in this blog that may sound harsh or ungrateful. I do not mean them as such, and it is important for me to have the freedom to speak my truth about my caregiving and the difficulties it brings. I have done a lot of work with caregivers through my counseling practice, and so many of them feel guilty about speaking their truth, trying to avoid seeming thankless or mean. Yet, it is so important to be honest, because in that honesty lies forgiveness, understanding, and healing. 

I am ready to begin now. This has been years in the making, and I am exhausted from protecting  my feelings for so long. 

Thank you for joining me on my journey.

In loving kindness,

Amanda