I feel like a bad person.
I know I’m not but sometimes I feel horrible at the thoughts I would never say out loud.
My MIL is in her 6th year of dementia and going on 2 years in MC. It’s been rough and those years when she was still in her home were traumatic. I think the stress of that experience took a few years off of my life and my husband’s life. It sucked.
Now, thankfully, she’s in a safe place but it’s another, different level of hell. Every time I see her act in ways that would absolutely mortify her if her “old self” could see it makes me die inside a bit. I mean, she would be 100% painfully mortified and horrified and I truly believe she’d rather be dead. I hate how when her grandchildren come to visit a few times a year - the ones she wanted so badly for years and never got to enjoy thanks to dementia happening shortly after their births - she isn’t the least bit interested in them and seems to be annoyed by their presence. The joy of being a grandma was stolen from her. It’s so unfair. I dread our weekly visits because it’s awful to see her like that and all the other people there make me sad too. I wonder what they were like before and now they’re reduced to empty shells of people sitting around a facility that constantly smells like urine. It’s clean but it smells like urine in there 24/7. I hate it. I hate this disease. I hate that people end up like this and linger for years and years and years. I’ve talked to other families and the emotional and financial toll it takes is devastating.
The staff love her for certain personality traits she has that are night and day different from how she was. That’s a good thing in a way but it’s so weird to hear them say things about her that don’t line up with the person I knew. And she wouldn’t like it either!!! Not one bit. She’d be embarrassed.
I also think she would hate that all of her money is going to her care and there will be nothing left to leave to her grandchildren. She’ll probably run out at some point and which means a lot of work for us to get her on Medicaid and probably moving her again. She wouldn’t want that either.
I feel like a bad person because I wish she would die. I think she’d want that though. But it doesn’t feel good to wish a human being was dead. She’s in perfect physical health so likely this will go on for many more years. Maybe 10 or more is possible.
Sorry for this ramble. I’m psyching myself up for our weekly visit and I’m going to have to push through dealing with the urine smell and seeing her new personality and decline on full display. And wishing she wasn’t going through this. And selfishly wishing we could get our life back too.
Thanks for reading.