The Commenter, who is in a remarkably similar position to myself with regard to her/his Mother, reassured me that my feelings of coldness and distance are sometimes a necessary protection for the Carer.
But I was particularly struck by a wonderfully apt description of how it feels to talk to our relatives with dementia:
"It's like I'm trying to talk to her through a hole in the wall and the hole is getting smaller and smaller."
I would have been delighted to come up with such a perfect simile. Somehow, for me, the more precisely I can describe an event or situation in my writing here the more tolerable I find it. I can only hope that my anonymous friend gains an equal comfort.
3 comments:
I also find an intense amount of comfort in being able to describe something. That's an understatement for me. I think it's tied to my hope of connecting with others in deep or meaningful ways, even if I'm not relaying an experience to someone else right then. If I can find the words for myself, I know I could tell someone about it if I needed to or got the chance. I hope that makes sense.
That IS a great description!
My sibling described it in a way that I didn't think of before and it made sense to me too:
"Communicating with someone with Alzheimers is like they're in a gradually worsening storm. At first, it's raining and they miss a word here & there and communication is a slight issue. Then the storm get worse they start missing entire sentances. Soon, the storm is so loud they're missing entire ideas and conversations. As time passes, they can barely undertand you anymore. You can see them and try as hard as you can to talk to them but they can barely see you or hear you anymore."
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