Tailspin

[Amadahy]

Hi, all,

There have been days when I would have sworn on a stack of Bibles I would be relieved when Nmom passes away.  Maybe I will.  We do not know how we will respond, sometimes, to these things.

However, yesterday, when her facility phoned to say she had needed a nitroglycerine tablet, but was okay after, I really went into a tailspin: dissociation, rapid heartbeat, panic, fear, breathlessness ... you all -- sadly -- know.  It felt more like an emotional flashback than in-the-moment. It was overwhelming and surprising.  I then went to visit and she was doing well: good color, awake, confused, but content. When I got home, I went right to sleep (a nap as it was late afternoon) and when I awakened I was still exhausted and dissociated and spent the rest of the evening sitting quietly on my porch.  DH was very loving and comforting and checked on me periodically, but understood I just needed quiet time to try to return to baseline.

I'm sharing to try to understand.  Even GC sis who laments mom's decline was like, "Oh, she had a bad spell, huh?"  and was calm about it all.  I feel my reaction was yet another layer of "stuff" and I just keep wondering how much more one can work through.  I'd appreciate any insight from you wise fellow travelers on this journey.  Thanks and love.  xoxo

[SunnyMeadow]

When I was going through my parent's combined decline I was an emotional wreck. It consumed all my time, even when I'd try to unwind while watching tv at night. Awful stuff. Little things would set me off too, lost 4-5 lbs in a week, unfocused, anxious etc.

Hearing that your mom needed a nitro tablet is upsetting. There's a reason she needed it so it's no wonder it caused you to have anxiety. That call, that day simply could have been your limit. Hearing the phone ring would cause me to become shaky and anxious, I began to hate when it would ring.

love and understanding

[Cat of the Canals]

You likely spent years being conditioned that you were responsible for your mom in some way. That it was on you to "fix" things. It can be triggering enough to feel that pull on the smaller, day-to-day emotional things ("I'm bored and you never visit!" etc.) so imagine what kind of internal reaction is triggered when it's a big, potentially life-and-death thing. All the internal alarm bells go off, with a voice blaring over the loud speaker: DO SOMETHING, AMADAHY!!!!

I also think there's a difference between knowing that you will be at peace with her death in the long run and the actual minutiae of dealing with the decline and eventual passing in real time.

It sounds like you're doing a good job taking care of yourself and allowing some time to process. Keep it up.

[practical]

Here is my take, as long as M was alive I reacted to her health news, it affected me even while being NC. When she died, it was a release. With F now, with whom I'm VVVLC and have no responsibilities anymore, I do care that he isn't doing well physically, that he is declining, because I simply wish him no harm, no pain. I think part of your reaction is being a normal person, with normal feelings. You care for your M at some level, so it is upsetting when she isn't doing well. The psychological reaction with dissociation and so on is due to the abuse, and I have pretty much come to accept that certain things will trigger me. There are a lot of things that don't trigger me anymore, that I can observe and let go, others still do act as triggers. Maybe try to accept that you have scars that when they get touched, they will hurt, they will even send you back to the original injury. These are such deep scars  I don't know whether you ever fractured a bone or tore a tendon. If so, you'll know that even after surgery, after what is deemed perfect healing, it isn't the same. There might be times it hurts because of some movement you made or you put too much of a strain on it and you will always see the scar, the skin there will always be different, more tender, thinner. Think about it another way too, they are scars now, they are no longer open wounds that bleed into every second of your life and that is all due to the work you have done yourself for yourself. Please don't despair, you have come so far, and you have done amazing work. Seeing a parent in decline is hard in the best of circumstances when it comes with so much hurt, so many conflicting feelings, it is even harder.

I'm really happy you took a nap, some quiet time and took care of yourself. Keep doing so, it will get better, you are doing everything to make it so.

[Sneezy]

I think the way you felt makes perfect sense.  As Cat points out, we are the "fixers."  And so you feel like you need to fix your mom, to make her ok, both physically and emotionally.  At some level, I know I still want to fix my mom, and I really want to fix our relationship.  I want us to have the relationship that we never had and that I know (logically, at least, although maybe not emotionally), that we will never have.  Like you, I think I will be relieved when my mom passes.  It will be a weight lifting off of me to have all that negativity out of my life.  But, at the same time, it will mean that my chance to fix things, to make them what I wish they were, will be forever gone.  And that may be a bigger emotional tailspin than I'm expecting.

[foobarred]

When NDad was dying of cancer, I alternated between "I'll move heaven and earth to save you!" and "I hope he dies soon because otherwise I'm going to kill him!"  With pretty much nothing in between.  I lived on two hours of sleep a night for weeks, and lost 1/4 of my hair from the stress.

I agree that it's partly from the "fixer" component that they beat into us.  But I think it also reflects the dynamics of the individual  relationship.  In health Dad and I had a raging love-hate thing going on (I was his GC), so I guess it makes sense that in sickness the same dynamic would apply.  When he died I was both devastated and relieved, and I have continued to miss him / be glad he's dead for years.

As to how many layers there are - I'm afraid I'm an onion.  I have peeled and peeled, and there's always more layers to go.  In some areas I can see significant changes; in others I'm the exact damn same as I was when I was 17.

Still worth it, though.  The Truth is always worth it.

[1footouttadefog]

I think that in some cases where a difficult person was not well or in the end stage, there were moments where I was sort of forced to confront tue reality that they were indeed near the end.  I think at these times the emoti ok nalntrauma I felt was a sort step wise processing or both grief and emotions related to the complexity of the relationship and the fact it would not be resolved and or tidied up before they passed.  I do think that for me in all these cases when they finally passed I was more at peace than I would have been otherwise had I not had some preprocessing during  that time.