Dementia advice fatigue

RobertsBrown

I know they mean well, but I have had just about enough of book recommendations, articles that I should read, and videos I need to see.

The Titanic metaphor is pretty tired, but it's a pretty good fit for how I experience my life with my wife.  We were sailing along pretty well, heading for what we thought was a better future.  Then we hit a life changing obstacle.  The end is coming, albeit very slowly, and I have plenty of time to experience every glorious moment of it while friends and family are offering books on boat building, and swimming, and offering suggestions that I should bundle up, because 'it might get pretty cold'.

Like I said, a tired metaphor.  Sorry about that, but seriously....just make them stop.

M1

RB, would it help to have a list of practical ways they could help to counter with?  Such as:  great, I'll look at that, why don't you come stay with her Saturday afternoon so I can go play golf and then get groceries on my way home?  Or, great, why don't you bring it over Sunday and bring dinner, too?  That would be nice,.....

Ernie123

My first reaction to your comment is that you are indeed fortunate to have friends and family trying to reach out and help as they see best. Many caregivers find that friends and family drift away and lose touch, probably because they are uncomfortable and uncertain about what to say or do. As time passes you may find you will need to rely on those people and the suggested resources as your care giving challenges increase. I like the Titanic analogy, a slow and inevitable sinking. But I see my wife as the Titanic, and she after ten years of disease and three years in LTC is indeed almost sunk. But I am still here and after three years of living alone I am trying to look ahead and build a future and not focus on our loss. My friends and family are so important in supporting me. If they offer advice or video suggestions that I don’t particularly want, I thank them and value the motivation that prompted their offer.

A. Marie

RB: Fortunately for me, my friends and family know me well enough--and DH is far enough into the disease by now (he's been in an SNF for 1.5 years)--that they know I don't need further advice (and would probably start biting heads off if they offered it).. But your post made me smile all the same. Solidarity forever.

Paris20

I’ve read it here before but it’s worth repeating. No one who hasn’t been living with a person with dementia can truly understand the experience. I have had friends tell me I should take a trip, now that my husband is in a SNF. I’m a Francophile so I hear that a trip to Paris is just what I need. When I hear this advice I confess that each month at the facility is what I paid for my annual two-weeks in France. Usually that ends the discussion.

CStrope

I had an ex-friend come out of the woodwork after 11 years of ghosting me to tell me I needed to get a divorce!!  That was her "helpful" words that she felt she needed to offer me.

Oh.....she also told me to get a second opinion!  Never mind all of the cognitive tests, PET scan, MRI, and EEG.......

toolbeltexpert

Connie I think advise like that is when one should consider the source. 

Stewart