I don’t want to lose my mom

AASH

Hi… I am new here as my mom was just diagnosed with Alzheimer’s last week. My family and I knew this was a possibility but now it feels real. I am only 23 and this diagnosed has destroyed me. I fear the moment my mom doesn’t remember who I am and cry daily thinking about it. I also feel like an absolutely horrible daughter because I was not the greatest to my mom this last year. My mom was an alcoholic for a large part of my life…my sophomore year of college my mom was driving drunk and got into an accident with another car. Luckily the people she hit were fine but my mom was pretty hurt. She did recover but I always thought the memory issues she was having were due to this accident and I hated her for it because she was driving drunk. Now that my mom is diagnosed and sober for 4 years I feel like I wasted precious time with her because I was mad. Now I’m losing her and freaking out because I can’t imagine being without her. 

Just looking to talk to anyone as I feel so alone right now…

Stuck in the middle

I am sorry this happened to you.  All I can suggest is you follow the AA motto of one day at a time.

There may have been things you could have done better during the past four years, and there may have been things your mother could have done better in the 20 years before that, but you can't do them now.  All you can do is enjoy the time you have with your mother, starting with today.

When you feel like crying, pray the serenity prayer.  Ask for the courage to change what you can, the patience to accept what you cannot change, and the wisdom to know the difference.

AASH

Thank you I needed this so badly right now… I truly appreciate your reply. One day at a time…

JDancer

Beautiful reply, Stuck in the Middle. Words of wisdom for many of us.

Arrowhead

Forget the past because you can’t change it. You can change today and you can change the future. Rebuild your relationship as best as you can. You still have time to develop a deep relationship with her. My wife was diagnosed just over five years ago. You will find that there are still many years of laughter ahead. Look for humor where you can find it and it will help to ease the pain. There will also be some sad and stressful times. I usually handle stress very well but there have been times when I have completely broken down and cried hard. When needed, a hard cry can relieve a lot of stress. You probably can’t understand this now, but by the time you have to say your final goodbyes you may feel that it’s actually a blessing that her struggle is over. You will survive. You’re stronger than you realize.

HeartOnSleeve2210

I understand how you feel. When I learned that my Grandfather had AD, I was devastated, knowing that this disease would one day take him from me. Growing up, both my parents worked, and my Grandparents lived next door so I was with them the majority of my childhood. As such I am incredibly close to my Grandmother and Grandfather. For the longest time, all I could dwell on was that one day, he would forget who I was. I would constantly pray for a spontaneous cure, hoping that God would be gracious, and just take the disease away. Unfortunately, life doesn't work that way. I still fear that day coming, but it's been four years since his diagnosis now, and I find these days that the diagnosis is easier to handle. When I first spent the holidays with them after my grandfather's AD diagnosis, I wasn't fully prepared for how the disease had affected him, and I broke down in tears when I first fully witnessed it. It still saddens me. However, I now find joy and peace that I get to spend this time with him while he is still, for the most part, himself. Sure, he calls me different names, I often find myself answering to both my Mom's name, and my Aunt's, which makes me laugh! However, I fully agree with the advice given to you so far. Take it one day at a time. It's all you can do. As a favorite saying of mine goes:

"Worry not for the future; Weep not for the past."

You can't change what was and you can't change what is. Cherish the time you still have now with your Mother, and I encourage you to remember that no matter how much the disease seems to take her from you, she's still in there somewhere. I firmly believe that.

GothicGremlin

I am so sorry, AASH.

My sister was diagnosed three years ago, although we all were noticing symptoms a year or more earlier. We just didn't know it was Alzheimer's.

After she was diagnosed, the best piece of advice I got (from a therapist and from those on this forum) was don't put off plans. Do it now because your mom is only going to get worse as time goes on.  Go on that vacation, go to the park and hang out, whatever it is that you both like, do it now, don't plan to do it a year from now. You just don't know where she'll be in a year.

harshedbuzz

AASH-

I am sorry. At 23, you are just too damned young to be processing the future with a mom who has a dementia diagnosis. This is just all kinds of unfair. 

That said, I wonder if you would benefit from therapy or participation in an Al Anon group to deal with the residual pain and anger from the years when your mom was an active alcoholic and you needed her to be a different kind of parent. It's OK to recognize she chose alcohol over others and that you were likely traumatized by her behavior- especially DUI and accident. That really happened. IMO- and I had a negligent and alcoholic parent- recognizing this reality and the reality that you deserved better is the first step to getting on with your best life. You can't really let something go until you admit the impact it had on you. Your anger is justified; were your mom not facing a terminal diagnosis you'd probably still be angry. And that's OK. One thing that helped me was reminding myself that like dementia, addiction is also a disease.

My dad had mixed dementia. He had garden variety Alzheimer's and an alcohol-related dementia called Wernicke-Korsakoff's Syndrome. Early on, the WKS was causing most of the behaviors and cognitive losses we were seeing and it was difficult to process the idea that this disease that was sucking the life out of the entire family was basically self-inflicted. My dad and I did not have an easy relationship; he clearly had some mental health issues.

I will say that his dementia did have a silver lining in that as his needs and nonsense consumed my life, I did get a chance to create a better relationship with him and caught a glimmer of the sweet little boy his ancient aunties swore to me that he had been. It sounds like your mom's diagnosis will afford the two of you a chance to build a different kind of relationship going forward.

I can't speak to how your mom's dementia will play out, but I will share that my dad sort of time traveled and never got to a place where he didn't know my mother or myself. He was also quite verbal until he passed. I had a long and crazy conversation with him over lunch  hours before he died. 

Wishing you peace-
HB