Posted 9/27/2012 11:09 PM (GMT 0)
I'm a new member; I started with the Depression Forum with a Subject of Depression in the 60s. I was "looking for a tribe." As I kept posting, I realized that I have material to post on half a dozen of the forums, but one thing that is constantly with me and my depression is my sister who has been in an assisted living facility for 2 years with Alzheimer's. My sister is 16 years older than I, but for the last 25 years she was my best friend and confidante. She was widowed at 50; I, after a brief marriage at 19, have remained single my whole life. We told each other Everything.
Her descent into Alz. was awful for us both. She began to distrust me and eventually became convinced (with the connivance of her gentleman companion) that I was after her money. Her two sons were in denial, and I believe hoped that I would take care of everything. I might have been able to, but just as she was losing trust in me, I contracted cancer and couldn't drive the 300 miles to help care for her. (Oh, I'd arranged home health care, but there's no substitute for being in the same town.) Finally, after she married her gentleman companion and he began to mistreat her, one of her sons came out of his denial and took her to a home in the state where he lives 1000 miles away from me.
It's what had to be done. At first I felt guilty that I couldn't take care of her, but since I never fully recovered my health--the cancer was v. minor, but I kept getting hit with health problems--I realize I couldn't have managed.
It's 5:00 in the evening; I have a headache from being on-line, my wrists hurt from scraping on the laptop and I'm tired. But it's that awful time of day when I'm, as they used to say in books "at sixes and sevens." There's nothing but me and the depression, that lead overcoat that doesn't have buttons. In an hour there's a tv program I watch that will lull me to sleep around 8:00. That means I'll wake up at 2:00 A.M., but bad as that is, it beats the awfulness of the late afternoon.
Yes, this is another tale of woe. And I haven't even gotten to my sister and her difficulty in adjusting. I want to read and comment on other posts, but I guess this is how one has to begin, pour it all out. I've poured it out in my journal; I guess I want to try this Forum and see if it helps at all. The physicality of typing seems to help somewhat. I'm at my wits' end; I have tried almost everything that one is supposed to and I still feel awful. I have to follow the guidelines for posting so I won't say anymore.