book by Pauline Boss

JDancer

I have been struggling with the "loss" of my DH to dementia.  At the suggestion of someone on this forum, I looked up Pauline Boss. My (wonderful local) library ordered her book, Ambiguous Loss: Learning to Live With Unresolved Grief. I started reading today, and it's just what I need. She gets it, as so few people do. I'm less than 20 pages in and I have found words of comfort, validation and new coping strategies.

jfkoc

thank you....will ad to the book list

JJ401

My library does not have that book, but it does have another book by the same author— Loving Someone Who Has Dementia. I added the first to my ‘to buy’ list and the second to my ‘holds’ list. Thank you.

Old89

For what it is worth, I have read Loving Someone with Dementia 3 times and plan to read it again.  I am just starting Ambiguous Grief.   

The books are very similar.   The key difference is that Loving Someone with Dementia is much shorter and directly on point for spouses, partners of people with dementia.  It so validated everything I am feeling so at least I feel less crazy.  It also provides suggestions for coping.  Less about how to interact with the person with dementia but how to manage yourself as you deal with this.  She is brilliant and insightful.  

I am having a terrible time with my wife's AD and have read a lot.  This one has been the most help.  

The book was recommended to me by 3 different social workers.  

I recently took on a therapist and she suggested treating the book a bit like a tool kit to pull out and review from time to time.

It will not change the course of the disease but I might change the course of your relationship to the disease, your loved one and yourself.  

Jeff86

I read Pauline Boss’s books a year or so after DW’s diagnosis (which of course was some time after I knew, and DW did too, that things were wrong).  I found them very helpful as a framework for understanding this challenging situation we caregivers find ourselves in, which our LO is both here and not here.

Highly recommended reading.

mrl

Thank you JD, I can't get enough of these books right now-much needed.

Michele