There is always a reason

Yesterday was difficult.  I knew it was going to be difficult when Ash came downstairs first thing and apologised for something he thought he'd done which was nowhere in my memory at all.  I managed to reassure him and then went off on my 'hunting and gathering' exercise leaving him to walk the dog, clean the fire out, get the coal in and all those other morning jobs he does.  Came home at lunch time to find him in great spirits but with a sore knee so he decided not to come out with me to walk the dog. Lovely walk in the peace and quiet of the countryside but then back home to Ash in a vile mood, snapping at me when I said I was going to make a cup of tea, snapping at me when I commented on the quiz show he was watching, snapping and snapping no matter what I said or did and my heart sank.  I also however examined what I'd said and what I'd done to see why he was behaving in this way and for the first time I couldn't think of a single thing I could have done differently and I couldn't come up with a single reason for the way he was behaving which was to be frank just horrible.  If I can understand the reason you see I can rationalise it and that makes it easier to accept but yesterday afternoon it seemed to be just a fact which meant there would be no way of avoiding the situation recurring and that was a bit of a downer.  So that was my thinking until yesterday evening when I went onto Twitter and saw something from @theDAWNmethod which said 'As caregivers, we must strive to understand our companions’ point of view. They face constant threats to their self-worth. It is demoralizing to never be in charge and to always be less able—particularly after a lifetime of competence and independence' and suddenly it all made sense. Ash had mentioned the shopping trip several times over the week, he'd checked what I'd put on the list and gone through the cupboards to add the things I missed and, when I thought about it, that was almost the last thing he'd been in charge of before dementia really kicked in. He used to draw up the list, buy the groceries, create the menus, cook the meals etc etc. This input has reduced and reduced over the past 2 years and pushing the trolley round while holding the list and crossing things off as they were added to the pile was almost all that remained of that responsibility and now even that has been taken away from him. He wasn't being difficult it was just that once again his self esteem had taken a body blow and he was reacting to that. You see, there is always a reason if you look hard enough.

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