Early dementia

 My mother hasn't laughed in over two years. She hasn't smiled in over two years unless she's posing for a photograph, when she manages to fake it for 30 seconds. My mother has depression and anxiety and she is being kept medicated below normal so she doesn't keep peaking and troughing like a yoyo. The peaks and troughs were horrendous but now she just functions. She doesn't have any character. It's like she's been lobotomised somewhat. Able to talk and read and walk and do yoga but void of any personality. Any personality that I recognise as being my mother. I miss her so much. She is not the person that brought me up, full of excitement for life. She is an empty shell. My father is on antidepressants to deal with it. I don't know how he does it. Day after day with my non-mother. He must not recognise his wife in there. The amazing wife who wanted to travel and discover and live life to the full. He must be in so much despair a lot of the time because it's as if 80% of her is dead.
I get angry a lot of the time. Simple things she is incapable of doing. Simple things. I gave her my old iPhone and spent hours teaching her how to use it. Simple things like emailing. Yet she picks it up once a week and refuses to try. I really needed the money from selling it but she begged me to give it to her. She promised she would practise every day. Send emails. Every time I return home I find it covered in dust. She hasn't picked it up for weeks. She therefore forgets what I have shown her. And begs me again to show her. I have no will left. I get impatient then angry then I shout and then I cry. She makes me into a monster. I hate myself. I try to be calm and patient but she pushes and pushes until I explode. Then I cry and hate myself once more.
I hate who I become when I'm with her. I resent her for not wanting to be better. I shout at her because I'm so frustrated. I can't bear to be around her. But I miss her and love her and don't like this person my mother has become. I don't like the stranger. I don't like her. It's as if a hideous stepford alien being has put on my mother's skin. I don't like what's inside. This anxious frail uninterested dull person. Where has my mother gone? Where can I find her? I cannot bear to think of her not being in my life anymore.

Single with Rheumatoid Arthritis

On Friday 11th August 2017, I was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis. I was getting pain and swelling in my wrists and fingers and couldn't figure out what it was. I thought maybe I had torn ligaments in my wrist after doing a fairly strenuous pilates class. I laughed it off thinking I had once again injured myself by doing something a bit silly but after a few days, when I cried out trying to lift the kettle, I began to get more concerned. I took myself off to A&E where they sent me for an x-ray and told me that I hadn't sprained my wrist or torn anything but there was definite swelling and heat in my wrist and I should probably go back and see my GP.

My GP did blood tests and said the results indicated my rheumatoid factor was very high. I didn't know what that meant. She gave me an immediate referral to a Rheumatoid specialist in Winchester and 2 weeks later, I sat in her office and cried and cried as she told me how this illness was now with me for life. There was no cure. It was something that could be managed but I should be prepared for my life to change and I would have to begin making major adjustments.

People say you go through 5 stages of grief when you are told something that is so significant as to change your life forever: Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

I think I am still in denial. I have only told a handful of people about the diagnosis because I thought I would get better. I thought as soon as I started the drugs, then things would improve and I could carry on as before. But it is becoming very clear that RA is not something that can be fixed. It can take months or years before the RA is controlled. It is so debilitating that my own Doctor has told me that I simply cannot keep going at the same pace and I must stop working. Stop working? I can't stop working. I am a freelance designer and if I don't work I don't get paid so how can I survive without working? Slowing down was not an option I thought. I will be fine. The doctor is just being cautious.

I think they missed out one of the stages of grief... panic. Because 6 weeks in to this illness I am crossing over from denial to panic as the reality sets in. I have only worked one day in over 10 days because I have never in my life felt so dreadful. Utter exhaustion that is so overwhelming I can hardly string a sentence together or stand up for more than 10 minutes. Dizziness and nausea, headaches and earaches, an ache so deep that it feels as if it's in my blood. Pain and swelling in my hands and wrists and fingers, stopping me from holding a pencil or a mouse or anything that I have to use for work. 

I wake up every single morning and hope that today I will feel better, that the drugs are beginning to work, that every single little tweak I have made in my diet and life is improving my health day by day and that today will be the day I can get up and go to work. But every morning I am being beaten by this illness. And now I am beginning to panic. I'm panicking because I am not earning any money and if I don't earn any money, I am in big trouble. I have no back up plan, or secret savings. I have no wealthy parents or husband or friends that can help me out. I have no one and have never felt so alone as I do now. To live with an illness on your own is one of the toughest things I have ever experienced. 

I have told my sister. She simply replied in a text: God, it sucks getting old doesn't it? She has no idea what I am going through and has no intention of finding out. She doesn't care enough to find out. I can't be bothered to educate her and so I don't. It would do no good. She has always been an incredibly selfish person and her way of compensating is by saying she has problems too. I sent her a text saying I had only worked 2 days in 2 weeks and I never heard back. She only lives in the next village and has never once offered to help me or to come and visit. I literally don't understand her. If I found out she was ill I would be there as often as I could. I would be at her side as much as possible to offer comfort and support. Yet she doesn't ring or come by.

I have told my parents but I have not told them how debilitating this illness is or how much time I am taking off work. I can't worry them because my mother suffers from depression and anxiety and it would simply tip them over the edge. I am therefore still in denial aren't I? otherwise I would be telling people. The thing is, the ones I have told just tell me it sucks. They don't really get what this is doing to me. They think I will recover that I will simply get better in a week or two. My doctor is the only one I am honest with, and in return she scares the shit out of me by telling me to stop working, stop driving, stop writing. She tells me to claim insurance but stupidly my insurance policy only pays out if you've been ill for 3 months already. If I took 3 months off work in order to claim insurance then I would be so ill from stress of having no money and not working. 

I've worked out that in order to survive, basic survival, without any money for anything extra, I need to work at least 2 days a week. That sounds crazily minimal but it would just be enough to cover mortgage and bills and petrol and food. I could survive on 2 days, it's wether I can physically manage two days right now. Seems impossible. It's taking me an age to write this because its actually really hard to type with my right hand and also to make sense of words and to actually use my brain power without feeling deflated. I had to cancel 3 days work this week because I just couldn't get out of bed. I don't sleep well, I'm in pain and so I don't wake up feeling in the slightest refreshed. I feel at my worst first thing in the morning. Utterly depressed and useless. I cannot see a light at the end of the tunnel. 

I reach out to anyone to help and advise and support but I get nothing back from my friends or family. This illness is not known about, especially with someone so young, so I don't think they realise how bad it is. The only support I'm getting is from volunteers and charities, from my doctors and nurses who can see how ill I am. No one else. Maybe they think I'm exaggerating or am work shy. I don't know. But this is the toughest thing I have ever had to deal with on my own. Being single. It sucks almost all of the time, but now it sucks more than ever. No one to give me a cuddle when I ache. No one to bring me a cup of tea or go shopping for me. No one to look to for me and say kind things. Someone to believe me. Someone to love me.

Could it be dementia?

My mother has suffered from anxiety and depression for the last few years but now I'm almost positive that we have to add early onset dementia to the list.
She has begun to do and say things which don't seem to be symptoms of her anxiety or depression. Here are some of them:
She struggles to find the correct word for something and will use other words to describe it, for example, a toaster might be a bread cooker.
She has begun sneaking around the house, trying to find fault with things that I do. Last night, for example, I asked her to fill the kettle for me and switch it on so I could fill two hot water bottles. She did and then went upstairs. I am staying in the spare room which happens to be on the ground floor, so I went into the kitchen and realised the kettle wasn't full so topped it up with water and switched it on again. My mother rushes in to the kitchen and in the most passive aggressive way ever, looks at the kettle and says, "Oh that's strange, I'm sure I didn't fill it all the way to the top. Hmm how odd that I don't remember that. Unless you filled it up. Did you fill it up?" I tell her I did fill it up and then return to the spare room and wait for it to boil.mI then hear her in a very loud stage whisper, tell my father that I'm going to break the kettle, that it should never be filled up and that she needs to empty it immediately otherwise it will ruin the kitchen. This is a prime example of her completely overreacting but then talking about me behind my back. She then creeps downstairs (although I hear everything because the house is so old and everything creaks) and she goes into the kitchen and pours out some of the water. I catch her doing it and say, "Oh I'm sorry, was it too full mummy?", and instead of saying, "Yes darling," she stands there and lies. She says she was popping in to the kitchen to get a biscuit out of the cupboard. I asked her where the biscuit is and she says that she doesn't need it now.
I am living in a mad house and I don't mean that weirdly. But every single hour of the day is like the above example. She talks in riddles and lies to my face. She creeps around finding fault with everything I do and totally overreacts if something is not how she wants it. She cannot have a normal conversation because she lies about everything.
Just this second I asked to come to her yoga class and she tells me it's full. She can't possibly know it's full but instead of saying, actually I would rather go and do yoga on my own, which she obviously means, she just lies. It's not as if it's the kind of lie to protect my feelings because most of the lies are so nonsensical. They don't make sense.
So now, as well as the depression and the anxiety I have to deal with this strange behaviour. It is totally forgivable as long as she gets it checked out. But of course my parents are both in complete denial and refuse to believe there is anything wrong. I can't take it.