Please!!! Shut the Hell Up!!!

Homer used to bitch at me for starting a conversation that I had going on in my head and jump into talking to him as if he had a clue what I was thinking before I started talking!!!!

Ever have someone do that and they look at you, like, why didn’t you know what I was thinking when I said it?!?!?!?!?!?!?

They say that is being inside your own head too much and when you start a conversation and the other person looks at you with a blank stare, trying to catch up with that conversation, it can make for some very frustrating moments, especially when you are driving…

Homer’s frustration with me early on in our marriage didn’t start until the early 2000’s… By then, my brain had been waking up and it was fighting with it’s self, with alcohol, with pot and with life and I mean life!!!

We had our kids, grankids, everyone moved in and it was sensory overload and most of all… I wanted to hide and stay hidden… I had no time to myself, let alone time to think without being bothered every few minutes…

When our kids made choices and their significant others made choices that were not to our betterment or welfare or good or pocketbook and the impact on us was negative in every aspect of our lives…

Homer quits working for his mom and we move to the coast and that’s when things really started to change…

I had no kids in my ear, I had no gran kids in my ear and I had no people in my ear… We were relatively isolated from everyone, because of our motor home and Homer’s job… Circa 2002…

By the time 2003 rolled around we made a trip to Arkansas and that’s when things really started to happen with my memories and most of all, my brain wasn’t happy with what it was exposed too…

It wasn’t what I expected or hoped for… Instead, it was Trumpism in the Bagwell household in overdrive… Maga, before maga was known and it felt icky and it tasted even worse..

Now why the write…

As Homer’s dementia gets worse, he has a habit of not hearing what is said, that means he is either in confusion or he can’t think as fast as he used too and the pause can be a problem, because, then he adds to the conversation and doesn’t hear what I said and I end up telling him to shut the hell up, because, he wasn’t hearing me, only his conversation was registering…

I been there, I did that, early on, when I quit all the medications the Air Force had put me on and I quit all the junk the VA had me on and I detoxed my body and my brain… All but the thyroid drug was discontinued… HRT, cholesterol, gerd, anything they had me on for sleep, etc… I stopped all of it, but the thyroid drug… Biggest mistake I made not stopping it…

So when I get frustrated with Homer, because his brain is doing what mine did… I don’t feel guilty… I point out to him what happened and how he used to get pissed at me, because I would do the same thing a couple decades ago… I am letting him know…

I know what you are experiencing, it doesn’t mean it won’t irritate me or I will forget for a moment what we are both living, with his dementia… But I can relate and I am not angry at him, I am angry at what the disease is doing to him…

A care giver has to carry the world on their shoulder’s until there is nothing left to care for… We are going to either relate to our patient or partner or we are going to make their world and our own personal world a nightmare…

It’s a high wire act, in public, when things happen and you feel the frustration build and catch yourself before you say anything…

Driving, that’s a bit harder for me, my focus is on what I am doing and not Homer or what he is saying unless he gets agitated because he thinks I don’t hear him and he gets louder and I have to shut him down, because I already know what to do or where to go… (He is struggling to relinquish his job as husband and provider and protecter etc… because our relationship is changing from husband and wife, to caregiver and patient, his disease isn’t slowing down)…

Homer wants to be what he has always been… The man that fixes everything, takes care of what he is used to taking care of and when he no longer has that job, it’s showing, it’s taking it’s toll on his mental health…

So these moments when things go wrong, I file away the information that caused the problem, like the kind of gas I have to get for the mowers and tools, etc… little things that can actually create problems down the road if I don’t know…

It comes down to micromanaging and Homer’s disease will create these moments as it copes with the confusion that comes on out of know where… and this morning was one of those moments, at the gas station…

I always thought being a parent or veteran or survivor was my hardest job…

Not even close to what a care giver does…

I remember…