Emotions as a carer

[Diane_K]

Hi, my mother has suffered three strokes in the last year and she lost a great deal of her cognitive skills on top of being immobilized. Has anyone been experiencing overwhelming emotions of losing a loved one? Sometimes having an impression that my mum is no longer there. How did you cope?

[cat3]

Hi Diane and welcome. It's apparently not uncommon for carers to experience all the stages of brereavement when a loved one undergoes a change of personality or behaviour after one form of brain injury or another.

Anxiety can quickly turn into grief when caring for someone who hasn't shown signs of recovery for a protracted length of time and, quite often, the carer themselves will develop the need for professional help.

Do you have an support in caring for your mum, or any periods of respite ? x

[StrawberryCream]

Going through the emotions of bereavement is not only experienced when someone dies. You can also experience those emotions when you lose someone to illness like you are with losing the mother she was to a very different and much less capable mother now. Also these bereavement emotions can be experienced by people themselves when illness has left them with a disability that significantly changes them from who they were before and what they were able to do etc. That is what many of us go through when we are faced with lost abilities to brain injury. Emotions of bereavement can take people differing amounts of times to pass through and can take months or years. For you you probably coped when you had to visit your mother in hospital, make decisions for her and make sure she received the right care, be responsible for her as a daughter, so its role reversal, from your mother being the one who cared for you. It's only as things settle that suddenly your emotions about it all come to the fore and now you are facing the situation that your mother is a very different person and not able cognitively or physically and so you are experiencing the similar emotions of bereavement. I would suggest that you go and speak to your GP and ask to be referred for some counselling. It may also be that this awful distressing situation with your mum has made you depressed and it would be perhaps worth considering taking an antidepressant for a while if your GP thinks it would help.

Very best wishes

[steve55]

diane k your mum needs to be tested for thick/ stickey blood which maybe causing these problems.

there are brain games you can fin online and just because your mothers cognitive skills, like speech may have gone, with patience and support, she may still be able to point things out, oh yeh, picture cards, tea, toilet,bed.

dont be a stranger

steve

[Hidden]

Yes, Diane, I think we all feel the same. The husband/wife/mother/father that we knew and loved turns into someone we don't really know. They may not be different in a bad way, but they are not the person we have know for so long. They may not be the person you would chose to be married to, have as a parent. Unfortunately it is just a case of getting used to the 'new' person, whilst mourning the loss of the 'old' one.

[Hidden]

Hi Diane - speaking from personal experience - my mother has had several TIAs and strokes - I too can understand the distress at seeing the person you once looked up to, who was so 'together' fade and a new vulnerable person take their place. My emotions went as far as feeling it would be easier to bear if she died - at least she'd then be gone as I remembered her, not debilitated, confused, distressed etc..

The hardest time for me was looking after her personally. Eventually things got too much and she needed residential care. This has dramatically improved things as I'm not so bogged down in the minutia of her care and daily life. If you are coping on your own, get help. I should have shouted up earlier.

I can enjoy the things she now gets enjoyment from - the birds coming to the feeders I have put outside her room window, the jewelry I found in her dressing table she hasn't worn for years but all have a story behind them, her cassette tapes of children in her classes from years ago singing (albeit it was a game to find something to play them on these days lol). None of this I would be doing and enjoying with her, if it wasn't for the stroke - its made me work hard to get something positive for us both.

If you can get to this stage where you can find some good from all the mess, you'll get through it - you may still have bad days but they'll be less traumatic.

[Alibongo60]

Hi Diane, my mam had dementia, which was very similar. I cared for her for the last ten years of her life, and it was like role reversal, you become the parent, by the end of it she didn't even know who I was. You have to make new memories, try doing things with her she used to like doing, music, singing,etc it is like grieving for the loss of the lady she used to be, but she is still there, I wish mine was, xx