I Like the Way You Work It. No Dignity.

Everything is testing my patience today. For one thing the two dogs are restless and I just want them to settle down for the night, but that’s not my main issue. That’s just a minor inconvenience at the moment. They’ll eventually calm down. The main problem I’m having is family related. I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned it before, but my grandmother has dementia. I’ve been helping my mother take care of her for the past five years. My grandfather had it as well, but he passed three years ago (or maybe it was two years ago. I can’t remember.)

The rest of my family lives in their own little world of denial and seem to think that she’s going to get better. There’s no cure for dementia. It gradually gets worse until the person’s brain pretty much just withers away and they die. No one but my mom, my sister, and I see this for some reason.

At one point it was mentioned by one of my mom’s sisters that I do more to help with my grandmother and that triggered an “Excuse the merry fuck out of me!” response considering I do more to take care of the old bat than my aunt had ever done. I am someone who constantly says how much I do not want children and stand quite firm when it comes to that. I don’t want to take care of a child, much less a 90-year-old woman who acts like a child. If you don’t believe me then spend an afternoon with the woman and see. She pouts, throws tantrums, can’t wipe her ass (and I’m sure as fuck not going to wipe it for her. I leave that for my mom and aunts.)

I’m dealing with my own mental illness and on my particularly bad days it takes all I have to crawl out of bed. I do what I can because my mom asks me to do it and I want to help my mom since she’s done so much for me all these years. I know my mom doesn’t fully understand my mental illness, but that’s my fault for not really opening up about it like I should. She does understand a bit of it, though. She has also informed her sisters about it and that I’m not capable of taking care of someone else with a mental illness like dementia.

It seems like a game of catch when it comes to my grandmother, just tossing her around from one family member to the other. In all honesty, I wish they’d just put her in a home. That may sound cruel to some of you out there reading this, but I think it’d be the best thing for her. She can get constant care. My mom and one of her sisters both work full-time jobs, which is why I’ve stepped in over the past five years to help out. My mom’s other sister is retired and who the fuck knows why she doesn’t just take her? She’s too worried about it cutting into her vacations she takes with her husband, I suppose.

I’ve been stressed ever since my grandmother returned and I’ve been avoiding her in order to avoid a fight. I used to never swear around her, but there was a time a few months back where she was fighting me as far as taking her medication and I had to yell at her, “Take your fucking pills!” Do I sound like the kind of person suited for this fucking job? I didn’t think so, either.

I don’t know why living into old age is something people strive for. If you’re going to lose your mind then you might as well take yourself out because it’s not pretty. Fuck dying with dignity. There’s no such thing.