Losing the physical self

I wonder if the people that make the best carers are ones that are emotionally needy. Having someone making them feel like they are needed can be a tremendous boost to their lives. I don’t want to appear horrible because a good care giver is a phenomenal person and to give yourself up to help another is surely one of the best things you can do with your life. Unfortunately I am a selfish sod who sees freedom as one of the most important parts of my life (Anita also) and I don’t like being told what to do by anybody, even if it comes from external forces. I have purposely cultivated a lack of responsibility throughout my life only to be given some, like it or not.

I feel like I am becoming more and more de-sensitised to life that goes on around me. This is now what I call my robotic life, reacting less and feeling nothing. I think part of it comes from seeing Anita taken apart piece by piece in the hospital physically, and at home, mentally. I guess what I am felling is fairly natural. I must have buried my real self deeper and I am going through the motions of life in a much more detached way. Often that’s the best way, because the times that I feel are the hardest for me are usually performing domestic tasks. They are not that hard physically but it’s a mental thing. If you are weakened by this, or show signs of struggle, or become nasty to the one you are caring for, then you are making it miles more difficult for them and they don’t deserve that. I occasionally find myself getting very wound up and frustrated when carrying out the most basic of tasks. You feel most fed up when doing stuff that makes life a drudgery. You can easily find yourself becoming listless and it’s very easy to do absolutely nothing. You end up sitting in silence because you just can’t do the things you need to. It’s a new phenomenon for me because I have always been very driven and liked everything nice and tidy. Maybe I have realised it doesn’t matter that much anymore but at times it does, for example Anita keeping up her exercises.

The support you can get from support carers is essential. Any initial discomfort of having strangers in your life is soon outweighed by just how difficult it is when they don’t turn up. Let me pay homage to Anita’s carers. Yes there has been many occasions recently when they haven’t turned up, particularly for domestic help. It can be very difficult when this happens but without them at all life wouldn’t be worth living.

When you partner becomes disabled, to a large extent you can lose your mental and emotional prop in life. Physically you end up with everything to do yourself, and no matter how hard you try not to let it, at times this can make you angry. Every time you lose control like this it feels like you destroy a little bit of yourself and are failing in your life.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 4th, 2005 at 10:20 pm and is filed under Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.