Carers of people with dementia

I sometimes feel with my wife's total inability to communicate that this is when I feel very depressed about it, I feel it's like a death without a funeral. But I would say to anyone who feels like this, 'Don't sit and dwell on it, don't dwell on the present when you feel depressed, don't dwell on the future, think of all the good times you've had, the places you've been, the things you've seen and shared'. It, we used to sail and my wife used to crew for me, she was never very keen but she used to do it, and we enjoyed it, and these were the kind of things.

We, we went to the States and delivered cars right across America, from New York to Las Vegas, from Las Vegas down to Florida, these things, these are the kind of things you've got to think back to. This was twenty-five years ago I'm talking about, about this business in the States.

When I was 65 and she was 63 we, with two haversacks we had three months going around the world. We had no, we used to laugh because we had no baggage to collect, and we decided anything we wanted we'd buy as we went because it was gonna be hot anyway and this is what we did.

And you've got to look back, force yourself, and you really have got to force yourself to look back at those memories. And memories I think are better than photographs, because photographs can sometimes depress you, but memories you can flit from one to the other quickly and also you just look at the particularly good things, you remember the good things.

But it's not easy but this is the only way out of it sometimes I find, because in the dark hours, the early hours of the morning are probably the worst, when you wake up and you start thinking. But try not to think about the present or the future at those times. If it's daytime get up and go out, go and see somebody, talk to somebody. If you like a drink go and have a drink, so there's somebody to talk to. Whatever your interests are go out and do them. Don't sit there and mope because I find if I sit there and mope it gets worse and worse and worse.

Well first of all I think, admit to your self how you feel. Because I think I have gone through all the negative emotions that a human being is able to go through. Anger, terrible, terrible anger at the whole situation that means [name] has been, hit by this awful thing. I know there are thousands of other people in exactly the same, well not exactly the same situation, to whom it's happening and I have every sympathy for them.

I hope they don't feel as strongly as I do, the terrible anger about the situation. The terrible anger towards him personally and then the guilt, because its not his fault. He didn't choose to be like this. In fact he'd be appalled if he could see himself.

The terrible grief. I got a book out of the library on understanding dementia and it said 'Dementia is like a continual bereavement, because unlike a proper bereavement where you have the great grief when you lose the person because they die, you've got, you're losing a bit of that person all the time and you're watching it happen. So day after day you're grieving for the bit, perhaps the next bit that's going, or the bit that suddenly comes to you that day, so terrible grief.

A curtailment of your own wants, I'm talking to dementias, to carers now aren't I? So don't be frightened to acknowledge your own feelings because they're quite normal and I think if you try to suppress them you're not going to do yourself a service at all, you're going to actually maybe cause yourself mental problems yourself, depression and so on.

And if you need to talk them over with somebody, go to somebody like a counsellor, get the so, not the Social Services so much because they're not just involved with dementia, get the psychiatric services, get the help of somebody who'll come along and sit and listen to all your moans and say 'Look, you're quite normal to be feeling like this.' Look after yourself greatly.

I think it would have helped if I could have joined, if I'd belonged to the local Carers' Association, but again I didn't know how to find it. Certainly I think while, while the person concerned is still capable of doing things, get the, get the Power of Attorney, try and get some, opinions of what they want and try and get, try and get your finances sorted out. 

And tell people. I think the big, the important thing I'd say to carers is 'Tell people'. I was amazed once I went round and started saying to people that I'd got a mother with dementia, how many other people were in this situation. And how many other people were coping, and again certainly if she had been a case in this area, I was able to find out a great deal about the residential homes.

So I know in theory, Social Services doesn't tell you. They, they say 'You've just got to go and have a look.' But, I knew somebody who knew a social worker, so she told me what the social worker told her. But certainly I would say to somebody who's is a carer, once you become a carer, go tell everybody. Introduce it into your conversation because there's an awful lot of people with knowledge and help. But unless you, you mention it, you don't find them.

I do think one thing about the professionals that's a bit negative, what I've found out has been by a process of gradual finding out, talking to other people, listen, hearing something, reading something, being told something. And I feel that there should be a sort of a checklist held by and I'm not sure whether it should be the GP, the psychiatrist, the CPN, the Social Worker that should run you through all these things. I mean practical things, things like Power of Attorney, I was told that, I already knew it, it was already too late. Things like you get a reduction on your Council Tax. Things like you have, you can have a disabled badge sticker for your car.

Sort of things that you find out by talking to other people who are in the same situation, 'Oh did you know about such and such?' 'no', 'oh well yes'. I mean two people at the Alzheimer's Society Carers' meeting didn't know about the Council Tax and City Council didn't know about the Council Tax, and they had letters backwards and forwards saying 'no you're not eligible,' 'yes we are,' 'no we're not,' 'well we know somebody at our group who's got it,' 'well then that's wrong they'll have to pay it back again'. And then when it came down to it [town] City Council was wrong. The person who dealt with it, and this chap got so many hundreds of pounds back in back pay.

The county council were fine, I just wrote to them and said were we eligible. They sent me forms they sent the doctor forms, filled in and we got the reduction. But I can't remember how I got to know about it. And then somebody else told me about the disabled sticker, just a friend of mine and I do think there should be a checklist somewhere of all these things that you should, that you are eligible for or you should be thinking of because you don't know from one day to the next what you should be thinking of or who you can go to.

And if you're somebody who's very retiring and very shy and not one who's willing to get on the phone and find out you just sink. Well you must do. That's what worries me, is these people who don't like to make a fuss, don't like to make waves, don't have much confidence, spend all their days looking after their partner or whatever and fall through the net. And don't get very much help or support because people don't realise they need it.

I think I said in my last interview when you asked me what advice I would have for the professionals if you, if you find somebody coping too well, be rather suspicious. Because probably underneath they're not coping all that well at all, or not as well as they like to make out.