Feeling low

[valis2]

I'm just so sad today. I went with my parents to visit my grandmother at the rehab facility she's in right now. It's awful, because I look around and see so many elderly people in the last stages of life--unaware, slack-faced, mumbling, and I know my grandmother isn't really close to that yet, and she's trapped there, away from her beloved birds and her "treasures". It was terrible to leave her there. It felt terrible. It still feels terrible, to know that she's away from her cocoon, in an unfamiliar place with no feeling of home at all.

As awful a human being she is, as underhandedly nasty as she is, as angelic as she seems while the devil lurks underneath--I still care about her and wish that her life right now could be different. Her physical health is pretty good, except for the cracked pelvis which landed her in the hospital and now the rehab facility.

When she's done with the rehab she's going to an apartment. Assisted living. I know we'll be able to put some of her "treasures" there and try to make her comfortable, but I'm still so sad about this. Sad and yet not sad. She made her life into what it is today, and while you can say she has to lie in the bed she made, at the same time you know the bed is full of suffering.

I'm so conflicted about all of this.

Thank goodness I have wonderful friends coming over tomorrow. I'm just so cheerless right now and the inevitability of mental degeneration looms like a spectre over everything. My parents are going out of their minds trying to deal with this, and I wish they didn't have to deal with such a difficult situation.

I am seriously tired from a long week of crazy and I have a headache and I'm feeling stretched too thin. And I know that when I get in bed that, even as incredibly worn-out as I am right now, I will not be able to fall asleep.

(Am just venting. No need for hugs or stuff. Just knowing that a few of you are listening makes me feel better, and less selfish and stuff.)

Comments

[sylvadin.livejournal.com]

*Hugs* It's not being 'selfish' needing to talk about a difficult situation with others - it's being human.

Rehab centers, assisted living... Unfortunate but necessary realities when an older person no longer possesses the health to live independently. The fact that she's not the nicest of people yet you still wish she was facing a 'better' solution shows how compassionate a person you are.

You said you're feeling guilty about your grandmother being separated from her 'cocoon' but... what other practical option was there? Let her stay at her house were she could not/would not be able to care for herself? Let me tell you from personal experience that's not a solution - either you'd go nuts always fretting over whether she had gotten hurt and was laying on the floor incapacitated OR she'd drive you and your relatives nuts with her demands to be rescued every time she got into a situation where she couldn't physically handle any longer.

No, it's not nice being in a rehab center, but if your grandmother still has her mental faculties then she still has the ability to make choices and take responsiblity for her actions - and the most mature action she can take is to chose to co-operate with her rehab team and work on her recovery so she can move out of there and into assisted living as rapidly as possible.

[valis2.livejournal.com]

You said you're feeling guilty about your grandmother being separated from her 'cocoon' but... what other practical option was there? Let her stay at her house were she could not/would not be able to care for herself? Let me tell you from personal experience that's not a solution - either you'd go nuts always fretting over whether she had gotten hurt and was laying on the floor incapacitated OR she'd drive you and your relatives nuts with her demands to be rescued every time she got into a situation where she couldn't physically handle any longer.

She hides everything--she is getting paranoid and she's delusional at this point, and has been diagnosed with dementia. It's been pretty contained until recently, when she fell out of her bed in the middle of the night. My parents were coming to pick her up and take her to a new doctor, one who specializes in geriatric patients and who would be able to deal with her situation (her original doctor never caught on to her delusions! Seriously, we were going crazy about it--she had that doctor CONVINCED that she was totally in her right mind). As they were driving to the house, they were called by a neighbor because the driveway was full of police cars, an EMS truck, and a fire truck. She told the police that she had been robbed and beaten up--I'm sure she had no idea that she fell out of bed. She is fixated on robberies.

At this point she's called the police three times. You're right--she has no ability to care for herself at this point, and she's proven it completely.

She's acting very nice right now, because she wants to go back home, of course. When she realizes she's not, all hell is going to break loose. My parents are thinking of leaving her alone for the first week there--they feel she might come to terms better with it, because her passive-aggressiveness will make her behave nicely with the staff, perhaps.

She has never been mature, and cooperation is not in her vocabulary, so I cringe to think of where this is going. Time and time again my mother has presented her with the idea of moving into a smaller home or apartment (seriously, for ten years, ever since my grandmother's second husband died), and time and time again she's played along, only to later act like no conversation ever occurred. She says whatever she can to make you think she's listening and going her way, but privately, she only goes her own way.

Thank you so much for listening. I really appreciate your comments so very much. *hugs* I miss you!

[sylvadin.livejournal.com]

...She's acting very nice right now, because she wants to go back home, of course. When she realizes she's not, all hell is going to break loose.... She says whatever she can to make you think she's listening and going her way, but privately, she only goes her own way....

Then you need to let go of the guilt you're feeling over your grandmother having to leave her 'cocoon'. Much of what she's going through has been brought upon her by her own choices and actions in her life. She chose not to look at reality, she chose to live in denial rather than honestly face her growing limitations. She chose to be immature and manipulative in her dealings with her family. Now she's have to deal with the consequences of those choices, and you're not being cruel or vindictive when you make her face those consequences.

[valis2.livejournal.com]

It's tough, though, to see her lie down on a bed of nails, even though she hammered them all in herself. The logical portion of my brain is quite convinced that this nightmare is of her own doing, and after all of the unhappiness she's brewed for everyone around her, quite justified; the sentimental heart cringes, however.

*hugs*