Wallowing

I've been a right mardy mare the past couple of days. (Have you missed me?... lol). When I get like this I find it hard to write things down and I think it's because when I've written it, it's true. Everyone is saying how well hubby's doing, and yes - he's soooo much better than he used to be. I mean I haven't had things thrown at me recently, I haven't been pushed (accidentally he said) against a wall recently, I haven't been spat at recently, I haven't been told that "I want to jump on your skull just so I can watch your eyeballs pop out of your skull" recently, or "told that I'm going to have to live in a cardboard box and live under the bridge where he will parade our girls infront of me so that they can watch me die of pneumonia and be told what a whore I am" recently or had my house keys taken off me and belongings put into bags so I can be thrown out recently. Thank God.

Yet I see small niggles that others overlook. Make excuses for. Don't notice. People aren't stupid, they must see it, so why do they do it. It doesn't help anyone. It doesn't help me because it makes me feel like I'm seeing things that aren't there, makes me feel like I'm second guessing myself because everyone else is ignoring them. I understand why they do it, but who does it help? Certainly not me.

I've noticed the words getting jumbled, back to front, the wrong word used etc. I've also noticed the moods. I spent twenty minutes in the sports shop the other day (God bless middley for telling me her shorts didn't fit, one day before the school camp...) listening to "I'm sick of you having a face like a slapped arse" or "you look like your sucking on lemons" or " you're so fucking miserable" etc, etc. and what did his mum do? Laugh. Yes, probably an embarrassed laugh, but nothing compared to the embarrassment of being followed around the shop being insulted. "No-one will have heard" was the reply from her. Of course they f***ing did. He always raises his voice when he's cross. It's like Tourettes. When he has the thought he has to say it, and heaven forbid you try to stop him mid rant because he'll just go back to the beginning and start it from scratch, so I guess I should be glad I kept my mouth shut and be grateful it only lasted twenty minutes.

Yesterday it was the "you're so fat" - it's true, nothing made up there, I am big, fat, overweight (any other words you want to substitute fat with) but dear God, do I need to be reminded - the mirror does that for me. He prodded the bits he thought were fatter than normal. Comments on what I'm eating (same as him but smaller portions believe it or not), and just is generally mean about it. I've always been big - well, that's a lie, I used to be slim, but he didn't like that because other men noticed me and he didn't appreciate that. I will be honest, I'm trying to lose weight, I want to be about 3stone lighter, but for me, not for anyone else, and it's a constant battle. I've lost one stone so far, but it seems redundant with more to go. I'm the funny one, the one who makes people laugh. Women are happy with me nattering to their husband's because they'd never fancy me, and men are happy to natter to me because their wife's would never think that they could fancy me, how could they? have you seen the size of her kind of thing? - does that make sense? So my weight is a minefield in itself.

I get wrong for not doing enough, I get wrong for being lazy. "How can you be tired? You don't do anything?" is a regular comment in our house. I never stop. I worry and stress all the time, and I think that's what was wrong with me yesterday. I was so ill last night - I can't remember the last time I felt like that. I now have longer hair (because he doesn't like it any shorter - never mind what I like) and OMG, what a palaver that is, head over the toilet throwing up like a good'un trying to hold hair out of the way, whilst the girls are going "mum.... I need the toilet..." even that was stressful lol.

I'm meandering - I do that when I've got lots wittling around my head. All I'm trying to say is that he isn't as good as family are suggesting. Until he has his tablets he's awful and then it's like a light switch, it's miraculous. Yet he's losing the power (for want of a better word) to control his little temper tantrums. Littley cried this morning because she said "daddy is forgetting our names more now" - she's eight, she's noticed.

I think the house is like a ticking time bomb. We can all remember (with the exception of hubby) the moods pre meds. The being followed round the house, the not being allowed on the phone incase you're talking about him, the standing in front of you blocking your way because he has something to say and you're not getting away until he's said it, the intimidation, the horrid things he said to the girls, the horrid things he said to me, and whilst it is his illness and not him that's doing it, it's still hard trying to disassociate him from the illness. The blank expression in his eyes when he's ranting at you.

It's awful, and I'm a horrid person for saying this, but I can cope with the memory side of this bloody illness, it's the mood swings of Dementia that I struggle with. It's robbing him, and us, of the lovely gentle giant, funny, kind, give you the shirt of his own back man that we love unconditionally. We're at the start of this illness, how we're going to cope as and when it gets worse is a frightening thought. Although, saying that, I seem to work better on adrenaline when things are going wrong than I do when we've plateaued, hence why I think I've hit "the wall" this past couple of days, but I can see the plateau dropping off view in the not to distant horizon.

Ah well, rant over xx