ALZHEIMER'S CAREGIVER ISOLATION

It sneaks up on you. In my case it started because I didn’t want my wife to be embarrassed. I was protecting her.  When she could no longer respond to her emails I would type her reply, and she would click “send”. I would cover for her on phone calls from family and friends, and I started signing birthday and holiday cards for her (one dear friend told me later that she noticed this and knew something must be wrong).

Molly was an incredible communicator – she called, wrote, emailed every day of her life. As the disease took this lifelong passion away from her she became increasingly frustrated, and started to get angry when I was on the phone or at my computer answering emails. It got to the point where I had to close my business, and quit communicating with friends. 

When she couldn’t be left alone I quit meeting friends for lunch or a coffee break. One day I realized I was very much alone. Isolated! My approach was absolutely the wrong thing to do. Informing family and friends early would have been much better for both of us. We would have had much needed support and understanding. But I didn’t do it that way and I ended up in a very bad place. I needed to let my extended family and friends in, but didn’t know how.  

What did I do? I’ll tell you in my up next blog.

John Gray