The very Fabric of This Blog

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "talking it out":

Hi there Lynn & Joe. You two sound like such a perfect couple. I'm sorry to say that I am not feeling that way about my husband and I. My spouse is 17 years older than me. He was diagnosed about the same time as Joe and yes, he seems to be experiencing relatively the same stages that Joe is going through. But I must confess, I am not feeling like the pleasant, let me make you feel better caregiver right now. The TV can only be on one of the two channels he chooses, Fox News or the Weather Channel and he doesn't even watch them. He, like you Joe, stares off into space. I try to strike up any type of conversation by commenting about what they have just shown on TV but he wasn't watching it and has no idea what they were talking about. Then he gets angry with me because he is confused about my comments. Lately, he is always crankey and YELLING at me and our extended family (5 children, 6 grandchildren) so they don't seem to come around anymore. I do go to work part time but he is insistant that I not leave him for more than a few hours at a time and demands that I not go anywhere away from him for any type of enjoyment. He doesn't even want me to go shopping to get things that we need, only to the grocery store a half mile away. He makes me feel guilty that he is afraid he will die alone and that I must be with him at all times. And I don't mean just at our home, he insists I be in the same room with him ALL the time. People say to me that I should get out and do things for myself. I agree. But the reality of life is that other people don't include you when they know you have to be home with your spouse all the time. They don't want to be the cause of his anger either. So here I sit feeling so all alone in the same room as him. I provide his meals, cut his hair, do the grocery shopping, take care of our expenses and accounts, pick up his prescriptions, do his laundry and clean up after him. He refuses to go ANYWHERE. Will not leave the house and wants me to do the same. I do understand that what he is going through is very difficult. But there is never any expression of gratitude or even acknowledgement that this is difficult for me to go through also. He used to tell me every night when we went to bed that he loved me, but even that has gone. Now I only seem to be the object of his anger and frustration. But all the same, I will keep on keeping on. I won't give up, but it does help to have an outlet to release my feelings, even if it is to someone I have never met and never will.

Joe, please give Lynn a hug and let her know how much you love and appreciate her. Sounds like you have a real piece of gold to hang on to through this journey we all pass through. My love to you both.

The above is a comment shared on this blog in respose to a posting by my wife Lynn, who I am 16 years older than. This lady is suffering just as Lynn is, I have become very combative, pig headed, a dick, paranoid and more withdrawn.  I have asked many of you to be guest bloggers for the above very reason. I cannot tell you how many 100's of emails I have received just like the above comment.  See all I can respond to these people is that I am sorry for your mate and you, but it is only going to get worse, a lot of comfort right, wrong, but it is the truth. I ask again that you help with posting. See even if you do the same thing everyday, you still do something a little different and that little difference could help someone like this lady. Me i love and appreciate your words of encouragement, but really they are gone as soon as I read them. You see I know that I will not get better only worse and it is doing that quite well. I am on a journey to keep an appointment with mental collapse and physical death that is the reality of it. It sucks, i hate how i feel, i do not like my distrust and disgust with others, but my emotions are no longer mine, I even do not feel bad anymore when I am a real pain in the ass or hurt feelings, my brain says tough crap to you. I hear and see things now that are not there, i do not even know when I am being talked to. Sex keeps rolling in my brain but the old pecker does not help out and I even say who the hell caaares to taht. I am getting like my good friend Dr. Joe Savick, making a 42 paragraph post. Thanks for listening shit has hjust built up in me and while I am thinking of it I am making this post.

God Bless & Keep You & This Country of Ours.
Joe