Marsia's Diary

Thanks everyone! We had a long talk, which I am hoping didn't screw too much with J's work deadlines, and he gets it that he has to do some things with me so I feel like we are a couple. So that helped immensely, and I do think I will fix up his bike when I feel all better.

My mom is so mad at me. I explained that she simply can't do jury duty with a spotty memory, and she thinks I am calling her names, and got so upset and told me basically that I am acting like a tantruming child. I think she is in major denial about her health and is angry and it transfers to me. She is also convinced that she isn't taking high blood pressure medicine even though I got the doctor to tell her directly. So she is now telling me that my memory is horrible, so how could I question hers. Sigh.

Too much drama. I am happy I am volunteering for a field trip tomorrow. J will bring my mom to physical therapy and maybe I can avoid her until she calms down. But I just couldn't pretend that her memory is good enough to sentence someone to jail or set them free based on what she does or doesn't remember about their trial. Ugh! Old people are so hard to deal with. If I could afford an old people's home, I am to the point where I would start looking at those. LaMa you are amazing doing what you are doing!!!
 
Cate, I like what you wrote about our husbands - fits mine to a tee - and everything you wrote is so helpful! Yeah, the improv group isn't my cup of tea at all, but they are really important to J, so I'll make more effort and not hide so much! This weekend we planned for me to see an art show I really want to go to in San Francisco and J and K will do their own thing, and then we'll meet up for an improv show afterward. The improv in SF is actually really good and I like going to that, so that will be an actual day of doing things I like together and apart.

I calmly wrote to my mom about how she used to be ok talking about her memory not being what it was, and explained that I didn't think that was name calling. I also cut and pasted in big letters a WebMD explanation of her medicine being for high blood pressure, but I am not sure she acknowledged that. Oh, well, having her not mad is the most important thing. Miraculously, she wrote me a little "sorry" back, so that's a big relief.

And thanks, Petal, for reminding me that taking care of myself is what I tell everyone else to do and then feel guilty when I do it! I relaxed a bunch after reading that, so thanks!
 
Marsia said:
My mom is so mad at me. I explained that she simply can't do jury duty with a spotty memory, and she thinks I am calling her names, and got so upset and told me basically that I am acting like a tantruming child. I think she is in major denial about her health and is angry and it transfers to me. She is also convinced that she isn't taking high blood pressure medicine even though I got the doctor to tell her directly. So she is now telling me that my memory is horrible, so how could I question hers.
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Sounds like a normal day at the office to me. It´s usually not denial, just... not being able to remember the fact that you´re forgetting things. Based on her own memories and observations she´s being rational and you´re acting weird and trying to convince her her mind is going - that´d make anyone too paranoid to really look at the paperwork, especially if it´s coming from the person you don´t quite trust in that moment. A thing that sometimes works is to focus on the feeling behind the words. She´s hung up on jury duty? Let her tell you what it means to her, how wonderful it can be to do your part for a functioning justice system - or maybe how she´s afraid your justice system is failing people left and right. That kind of thing often helps people to calm down and then a little while later she might be able to engage in a talk about you can´t be even a little bit forgetful if you´re going to be responsible for someone´s future. Direct confrontation is rarely useful, unless you´re willing to shout her down and scare her into submission. Which I wouldn´t call working. I know you mean well and you really want to help but caring for people with memory loss can be hard, especially if you are emotionally invested in them. All the hugs and kudos for all your hard work.
 
We compromise all the time & I feel it is much more even these days. Like our diets, relationships need constant work & adjustments. Your planned day in SF sounds really good. We went to the art exhibition this morning. It was strange because there was not one painting that either of us loved. Not one. How unusual. We each voted for the public choice painting & each of us voted independently for one that we liked the most out of all of them & it was the same one. Later on, we agreed we wouldn't actually want it hanging on our walls.
 
Thanks so much for this LaMa! I think I got frustrated because in general in life my mom tends to go into straight up denial about health related things, and thinks she doesn't really have to stop buying huge frosted birthday cakes and eating them in 2 sittings and things like that, so I lost my patience with her about her memory loss. I don't like that I have to take care of her now because she refused to take care of herself ever since I can remember. She was a chain smoker when I was little and then switched to eating massive amounts of sugar and white flour after that - she has a lot of anxiety, and she copes by bad eating and hoarding. So I go into fear mode that she is going to live for years and years (most of my relatives live very long lives) in a state of bad health and I will spend the next 10 years taking care of her instead of having a life. But this is all just conjecture, and I have to just be patient with what is happening. You are right.

Hi Cate, I think you are right. I had given up on J and I doing anything I like to do because J is always so busy he hardly sleeps. But if I don't say what I want to do, he fills up his free time with improv and going out with friends without me, so I have to get him to make plans with me. I realized we do this with simply having enough time to talk to each other, too. I try to talk with him, and he is under a stressful deadline, and tells me he is crazy busy, then the next time I go past him, he is joking and laughing on the phone with an improv person or a friend, and I feel left out of his life. So I need to schedule time to talk to him, because otherwise all his time will fill up and I don't get to spend anything but time talking about family emergencies and stressful stuff with him, which makes him want to avoid me.

I went on a field trip yesterday and talked to the nice teachers a bit, but was still so tired, I didn't really connect with them, though I really wanted to. 12 year old boys are exhausting in large groups. I am pretty pooped from making sure our group of 29 kids all stayed together in a museum that is open to the public and at the beach for a beach clean up where there were some homeless people camped on the beach. But the docents in the marine lab were so interesting. I learned all this amazing stuff about whale and shark communication and about our area being a marine sanctuary and all the successes with that. It was great talking with people so into their careers.

I have been eating stuff that isn't low carb lately because I need to get out of this loop where I am having a low grade cold and have no energy and wear myself out doing normal things. So I ate a lot of blueberries yesterday and ate 3 big meals and made myself a big bowl of roasted red pepper soup for the vitamin C. I probably have to do this a few days, though this makes me gain a little weight. I am going to meditate all week and get happy again, because I am sort of stressed and a little run down.
 
Marsia said:
I learned all this amazing stuff about whale and shark communication and about our area being a marine sanctuary and all the successes with that. It was great talking with people so into their careers.
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That sounds like a lot of fun!
Marsia said:
I don't like that I have to take care of her now
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You don´t HAVE to. You could decide to let her destroy herself. She´s a grown-up and made that decision before losing her memory. You are CHOOSING to take care of her. Which is admirable but also a shit-ton of work.
 
Thanks M2M and LaMa! You are right, I am choosing, and I also came to the conclusion that even if I cajole her into exercise, cook every meal for her, clean her house, and get her to de-stress, she is still going to have memory loss, and she is going to fight me tooth and nail about everything I try to do to help. So I got out of cooking meals for her now that she doesn't have vertigo and am just driving her places where there is bad traffic. She is going to try driving to nearby places when the traffic is ok and see if she can do it again. That is much better because taking someone who it takes oodles and oodles of time to get to the car and buckled each time means shopping takes hours and is painfully slow and takes up a good part of the day. Then the doctor, pharmacist, and/or physical therapist take half days, and a lot of my week is gone doing old people stuff.

I ate a ton today, and it is making me feel better. For breakfast I had 2 scrambled eggs with parmesan and a bowl of roasted red pepper soup. For lunch/dinner meal I had a bowl of sour kraut, a chicken leg and thigh, and a big portion of greens. I'll have a bowl of berries and yogurt for dessert later and that is my food for the day. But I feel about 50% better even after going out grocery shopping.
 
I'm glad you are feeling a bit better, Marsia. You have been running yourself ragged & something had to give. Your mother will lean on you & resent it the more you do for her. If she is going to get cranky with you (& you with her) & resent what you say it sounds like you might both be better off if you let her do more for herself. I had to learn to do that with my MIL. Her daughters could not cope with her, but I did what suited me & was able to help her out, but without it consuming my life.
It is so important that J learns that your relationship is as valuable as anything & anybody else. Communication is everything. Every relationship needs time & care to nurture it. Keep that Vitamin C up, hon & take good care of yourself, xoxo
 
cate said:
Your mother will lean on you & resent it the more you do for her. If she is going to get cranky with you (& you with her) & resent what you say it sounds like you might both be better off if you let her do more for herself. I had to learn to do that with my MIL. Her daughters could not cope with her, but I did what suited me & was able to help her out, but without it consuming my life.
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Cate, why is that that the more I do for her, the fussier and nastier she gets? I really don't understand that at all. It's a long standing problem that I always forget is going to happen sooner or later, because I really can't see how getting help from someone makes her feel entitled to be rude and nasty if I don't read her mind and do exactly what she had envisioned. It truly baffles me. Also how did you not get roped into doing too much?!

Thanks for the advice about J. I feel a little like he points out my frustration towards him as how I am not a perfect partner either, and justifies his inattention to the relationship in that way. He can be just like a lawyer defending himself where I no longer know how to explain anything to him because when we are through talking he makes it seem like I am the one who is difficult. Drives me crazy. I think I need to go off on my own and feel better and spend a few months doing things I like alone or just with my daughter and then I can tackle our relationship from a place of not needing anything from him, but just inviting him to do stuff with me. Part of this is that he is extremely overtired and gets like this during those periods. Unfortunately there are a lot of these periods in recent years. A large part of that is our house sucking up every last penny, and all the taxes here being so high and us having so many expenses. I sometimes wish I had kept my little 400 square foot trailer I lived in and put it on some cheap land. But it probably was too old to tow anyway.
 
Hi Marsia
Sorry about the relationship problems with your mum and J . Sometimes reading about him makes me feel I’m reading about my own husband . So no real advice except To say don’t let it hold you back. Sounds like you are going good though . I think old people can get crankier and fussier in old age and her health problems don’t help . All I will say is you will never regret all you do for her when the day comes that she is no longer day and I am saying that from personal experience.
Your scrambled eggs sounds lovely .
Hope you have a great weekend .
 
Marsia said:
Cate, why is that that the more I do for her, the fussier and nastier she gets? I really don't understand that at all. It's a long standing problem that I always forget is going to happen sooner or later, because I really can't see how getting help from someone makes her feel entitled to be rude and nasty if I don't read her mind and do exactly what she had envisioned. It truly baffles me. Also how did you not get roped into doing too much?!
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Because she thinks she can get away with it & that you will keep taking it. If you flare up with her it probably adds some drama to her life. Whenever my MIL went too far or seemed to be taking me for granted I stepped back from her & didn't contact her for a few days at least. She would always be much nicer to me afterwards. A long time ago we sat down opposite one another in her home & thrashed it out as things had got so bad between us. We both well & truly had our say. It wasn't nasty but we were very honest with one another. I said we both love G & I am not going anywhere & we need to learn to get along. We both ended up in tears, but it did make a difference.
I think we all want to feel independent even if it isn't really possible. I used to ask my MIL before I did anything in her house. I used to try to not make it obvious that I was helping her or keeping an eye on her so that she still felt independent. She was a very strong, feisty woman & her daughters are very similar & used to really flare up with her and she reacted against that. In the end, we became quite close. She rang me one day to say that she didn't know what she would do without me & that she really loved me & wanted me to know that. That was huge for her.
I'm not sure that I am helping you at all. All relationships are different. Ours was once horrible, but I think it was the talk that made the difference. We both established some firm boundaries.
Taking some timeout for yourself & doing the things that you love doing seems to me to be the best option for you. Once your Mum realises that you are not her verbal punching bag & J realises that you have your own interests & perhaps he should be more interested in yours & you then life could change for the better. Meanwhile, you would still be doing the things that you like to do. Life is to be enjoyed.
Sending you a great big hug, xoxo
 
Thank you so much Petal and Cate!!!!! Your replies helped so so much! Petal, it helps immensely to know that you have similar struggles with your husband and that you can still feel all the love for him and still figure out ways of working it out. I know life and relationships aren't meant to be easy, but I also feel like I am talking and the words bounce off J and he never hears them at times. But funny thing, he acted like he didn't understand me about needing to do things together, but yesterday he went with me to San Francisco and got me a membership to a wonderful museum where I spent the day up to my eyeballs in wonderful art. He had the worst day though. He tipped his water all over everything, a work emergency came up so he couldn't do anything in the city, and on the way home my daughter who is staying with her friends to do a school project lost all 20 something videos for the project that they filmed for a week due to potential data loss in the cloud, so he was on the phone all the way home with tech support - they did figure it out, but we had to email her the files for about an hour or so, chopping some videos in half so they weren't too big to email. I think the universe is telling him not to pack his workload absolutely full and then expect things to go smoothly. I need to talk to him about getting himself some down time for not just a day or two, but some serious down time. And I am going to do lots of things for me in the near future, because he is obviously horribly overextended, and I need a change of routine so badly.

Cate, thank you immensely. What you wrote perfectly fits my situation. I don't think my mom will ever respect me though. Her mom never stopped picking on her and I don't think she sees her behavior as problematic, no matter how much I try to convince her to treat me well so we can have a nice relationship. She just sees me as overly sensitive and herself as very expressive - she doesn't see a problem with yelling or with expressing very negative emotions loudly. So I just need to keep stepping back and doing minimal stuff for her, and sometimes doing nice things when she is not in that critical picky mood. When I was very little, I saw an image of a slot machine, and it reminded me of my mom - once in a while all the images lined up and were the same, and that was like when my real mom came out again. You just had to wait for her to come around again. So that was when I was maybe 4 years old, so I don't think she is going to change her relationship with me after 50 years. Really she can be a nice person for more time than the occasional lemons all lining up in a slot machine. I didn't know that was a rare thing at age 4, so saw it as an apt metaphor at the time. When she is nice, she is so positive and interesting. It's really a shame the other parts of her personality are so dominant.

You are both right about doing more things for myself. The museum visit was just amazing. I nearly cried with happiness reading all these beautiful quotes from favorite artists and seeing some of the late Monet's and how he was so dedicated to his beloved garden and his painting. He wrote about how tremendously hard painting is - to the point it hurts, but how rewarding and how he knew he had to do it. The early Monet's and pictures of his paintings don't do his work justice. You can see the amazing soul of the person in the colors and wild brush strokes of his later work just before he started to go blind. It's like you made a beautiful new friend seeing his work.
 
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Marsia that’s a huge post and again your husband sounds way too similar to mine . I think you give me too much credit with dealing with him as there are days I could happily pack up and walk away but I’m aware that it’s not all easy for him and I do find supposrtive mode works better . But I do things for me constantly and I’m aware I need To do even more especially now as my youngest is nearly an adult and quite frankly I feel utterly drained at times at being pulled from pillar to post ( ok just had a study session so I’m bit tired lol ) but you know what I mean . Nice that J bought you a museum pass . How lovely .
Think you are finding ways now to deal with your mum . Good for you .
 
I'm so glad you had such a good day in SF. I love "hearing" you talk about the things you are passionate about. I think doing more of your own thing so that you are enjoying your life is a good decision. Talking to J about him finding more downtime is a good idea. I would hate to be living his life. Maintaining your sanity by stepping back from your Mum & her drama is also a very good idea. As a Mum, a mother & a wife you have to really take time to be yourself as well. It is not easy, but we don't want to lose ourselves worrying about everyone else at our own expense xoxo
 
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Thanks so much Cate and Petal! Petal, I really feel for you, and I have days where I wonder why J and I are together, but he is slowly changing and this gives me hope. I hope when you and your husband don't have to work so hard at supporting your kids he will be able to be there for you and for your relationship. It's good we are both persistent and keep asking for what we want! And I am inspired by you to do things for myself and live the life I want regardless of what my partner is doing!!

Cate, I hope you keep doing what you are passionate about, too! It seems like golfing at least once a week is so good for you and you enjoy it, too! I love hearing when you talk about dancing and enjoying music with friends. A friend posted a pictogram image of the word for music in Chinese, and that pictogram is the base of the Chinese symbol for medicine. Here's to more art, music, golfing, walking, running, and dancing medicine in our lives!!

My mom drives me crazy, but I think she is the impetus for a lot of spiritual growth in me, as well. If I understood myself better, she probably wouldn't throw me off so much! So I think people like that who push your buttons can cause all sorts of good in you if you use the experience to mature and grow. I don't always - sometimes I just complain and feel frustrated, but I am learning to use this as a way to mature more and more.

Yesterday I went to a modern museum in San Francisco where they remodeled and added a lot more floors. I really enjoy the old collection of art by an old curator who collected a lot of the more mystical or more earthy art of some of the modernists and beyond, but the current curator is into conceptual minimalist art that I find boring. So I hung out with the lovely collection of Paul Klee's - he's one of my favorite artists in the world, and there was a magical figurative Jackson Pollock and immense Anselm Kiefer's - he does epic almost Greek tragedy type themes in earthy colors with so much texture they are really immense oil painting wall reliefs. There were beautiful haunting classical buildings painted by him with sad, melancholic atmospheres - they looked like when you are in a poetic mood and it is dusk and everything is still and glowing in the last light of the day. I haven't been to this museum in years and see that my taste in art is still the same - I still love the same paintings, but in a different, deeper way, like I can see how they were painted now and admire them all the more, and can see the artist's personality and inspirations more, so they have extra layers of richness!

J has been more like he used to be when we were first in relationship the last few days. He is really trying! He held the car door open for me and bought me a bubbly water at intermission in the improv musical we went to. He usually gets things for him and my daughter and doesn't ask me if I want anything, I just discover later that they went and got things for snacks without me. So that was a major thing! He also is doing things like I forgot my book at the car, and there was a lot of time before the show started, so he walked back and got it for me. I think something clicked and he finally understood that I felt unsupported. It's a minor miracle!!
 
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