Sorting myself out.

I've been in a bit of a flumix with myself, and I can't pinpoint why, but lots of little niggles have been getting at me. The main reason is that "other hubby" appears to be putting in more of a show and I don't like him. That sounds awful. I love my husband, but I don't like the "the other" one, and that to me makes me awful.

I'm having to switch off a bit more than normal, and then that makes me feel not me - although I don't feel like me anymore or if I do it's not often. I'm listening to the insults again, but it hasn't gotten anywhere near the horrid, horrid things that had his Dr and nurse worried about him at the start, but then I'm worrying if that side is coming back, and I remember just how awful that was and don't want that side coming back. I sound awful saying this, but I can cope with the forgetfullness and the confusion - that is a walk in the park compared to the suggestions of "jump on your head to watch your eyeballs pop", "throw you out so you can live under the bridge and parade the girls infront of you so that they can see you can die of pneumonia like the whore you are" or telling littley "I hope you get run over by a car, and I wouldn't give you a funeral, I'd just throw your body down the garden and watch you rot". That is what I find hard to deal with and I'm desperately hoping that this side isn't coming back again. The meds for it almost killed him. Not literally, but he was sat in the corner of the room like he wasn't there. He could barely move because it was like walking through setting concrete, and to keep us sane means to have him not here - albeit it there was silence.

His reminder from DVLA arrived yesterday and the forms to fill in are confusing. He has Dementia. They know this. It is asked "do you suffer from severe memory loss?" and "do you suffer from confusion?". How do you answer this. I would say "yes" but the medication helps with this. He would say "no" because the medication helps with this. His nurse has already mentioned it to the lady that came out to do practical tests with him to see if he should bother going up to do his driving test when they stopped him from driving last time (I can't remember the name of what she does, and it will come to me once I've pressed "publish".) So that lady is going to be coming out, and his nurse is concerned about his driving. I have days where I'm concerned about his driving and then there are days where I'm not, but with the crabbit side coming out I remember the irrational rage that would be there at the beginning. How would they know about this if you haven't mentioned my concerns?" will be the response from hubby.

I'm constantly being told, again, about my size. How fat I am, how lazy I am etc, etc. Yet last night when he was on the phone to my brother (still not speaking to him) he was tellling him how much weight I'd lost and was doing it in a proud way. Everyone says that he doesn't slag me off to them (which is not what he says because nobody likes me - he has to defend me to everyone, they merely tolerate me and they resent that, only doing it for his sake), and that he is lovely about me and worries about me and tells them how much I do for him and around the house and how I'm tired and this that and the other - but I don't see that. I just get the niggly nasty comments, and that in itself is exhausting. Keeping my mouth shut is even harder.

I must admit on the "cooker night" I didn't hold my tongue. I was sooo cross with him. I wasn't cross with him for being drunk and the other one getting broken because I think that he's had so much taken off him that to say he couldn't go for a drink with his friends would have been wrong, and he doesn't drink often - maybe a can or two occasionally, and he's a young man, and I've never said no before so I'm not going to start now, but I was cross with the way he went on with the new (to us - again) cooker because it was his temper that caused the issues. I tried to explain to him calmly and he wouldn't listen. He got himself higher and higher and just couldn't listen to me. I wasn't making sense to him. Yes I called him "stupid" which is a word I hate and I feel awful having called him that because he is far from stupid, he's anything but. When he gets to the point of how he was there is no talking to him, and that frustrates me, which just frustrates him even more. He was telling me what to do, but it wasn't making any sense and I didn't understand what he wanted and this annoyed him further. We got there in the end though and he "came down" as fast as he went up, but I do recall telling him if he wasn't careful that he would find himself in the oven (such is the size of this thing). 

The problem is he can't say "no". If someone askes him to go and cut their grass he'll go. All of these little things are adding up and whilst he's not doing anything in the house (other than the cooker debarcle) he's doing things elsewhere - not for money, just to be kind. His mother told me that "you should tell him to say no to them, you know he won't say no". My response was "maybe the people asking should have the savvy to stop asking him - it's not like they don't know what's wrong with him". That went down well... she hadn't thought of it from that side of the fence.

I'm also fed up of housework. I just feel like it's all I ever do, that and worry about money. I'm bored. I don't get to use my brain anymore, and whilst I'm not a genius, I'm far from stupid and the jobs I have had have reflected this. I don't have the car at the house because he's always here there and everywhere, and that makes me feel lost. I can go for a walk, which I do, but I can't be bothered with bumping into people. I'm self reclusing myself or that's how I feel. My mother came up yesterday with my sister and whilst my sister and I had a laugh and a half, I was feeling myself get more and more niggled with my mum. Why? No reason at all. She fiddled in my cooker when I asked her not to. I'd spent half an hour that morning cleaning it down with soapy water so I could get the finger prints off it and there she was making finger prints that would have CSI run out of dusting powder. I needed to go and get some deoderant for hubby so she insisted on taking her car. I usually walk it, but yesterday I had the car at the house and yes, it's only five mins in the car but it was ten mins in the car where I would have been on my own. She doesn't understand (I don't think) how I can be up and down, and just because I'm silent doesn't mean I'm in a bad mood or angry, it just means I'm not making a noise. She takes this personally and yesterday I tried to explain it to her. I simply said that I thought that "the wall" was approaching. She asked what "the wall" was. I just said it was something that I hit from time to time. "Why?" was her response. (Bloody "cue"uestions - further niggled.) "It happens when I feel sad mum" was my answer. I don't think I could have simplified it further. "Oh" was her answer to that and bless her she said "and there's nothing I can do to help". "No. There's nothing anyone can do to help". I don't mean to be cruel saying that, but there isn't. If someone had a magic fairy wand that could remove Dementia from my husband, then yes. They could help. But they don't. So they can't. I just need a couple of days being completely selfish and wallowing in my mind before I can dust myself down and come back all singing all dancing, but people don't like the down me. They like the all singing, all dancing me that's loud and funny and life and soul, but that's a hard act to put on all the time, and I selfishly opt out of it for a few days every now and again.

I'm tired most of the time, but I don't think it's physical tiredness - although last night I was asleep before I hit the pillow with the amount of things I did (shiny, shiny house - I did restrain myself from putting extra polish on his chair, because whilst the thought of him sliding off it amused me, it would have been me picking him up off the floor afterwards lol), I think it's all the thinking that I do. I think that awell as using the "wing it" method, I should also employ the "don't think so much" method. Today I did something naughty, and I don't know if I feel any better for it or not. What was the naughty thing that I did? I went back to bed at 8am for an hour. Gosh. I remember when doing something naughty was going to work on an early shift having not been to bed because I'd been out partying. Oh Dementia - how times have changed.