Caregiver Notes: Feelings, Nothing More Than Feelings...

I wish feelings were as simple as "Nothing More Than Feelings".  If that were the case I could go through everything without freaking out.  I have a diagnosis of Schizoaffective Disorder and I'm not sure if it has anything to do with the extremes of my feelings - the way feelings make me feel so much, so extreme, so intense that I feel those feelings physically.  Sometimes feelings can make me physically sick, usually just mentally sick where I begin my bizarre thinking.  Apparnetly it's time to get back into therapy.  I wonder what caregivers without a mental disorder do with their feelings?

Here's a list of feelings I experience during any given day while acting as my mother's caregiver:

• Morning: Getting out of bed is usually mellow, all I want to do is find my cup of coffee and my pack of Camel lights.  Once I've had coffee and two cigarettes I'm good to go.  I am generally have an optimistic outlook for the day. 
• Usually by the time I get to pouring Mom's meds for the morning batch and putting together her breakfast, voices have started in on me saying things that make me angry and feeling guilty.   The anger is towards the people whose voices I hear - the guilt is from things they say that are unfounded yet I still let them lay the guilt trip on me.  
• After giving Mom her cereal and yogurt and green tea, I retire to my room to use the computer or crochet by myself or get myself ready for the day.  Still angry and getting more angry if voices still plague me, I start talking back or sometimes yelling at "them" (the voices).  I feel even more guilty (this time it has a foundation) because I'm leaving Mom sitting in her chair in front of the television by herself.  Even though I'm in the house and am doing something to take care of myself for a change, I feel I shouldn't be letting her sit there alone.  Voices make that guilt trip so enormous I tend to explode at them, yelling obscenities at them, trying to get them to shut up.
• After I have my morning alone time (although I'm really not alone if the voices are there with me, right?) I join Mom and see how she's doing.  This usually brightens my mood, makes me feel like the me who promised to take care of her years and years ago.  That Me was able bodied, much more able minded, and highly functional.  Today I am highly functional for someone with my diagnosis but my mind is worse off for the wear.  So is my spirit. 
• When I sit with Mom (which is just about all we can do) I look at her and wish I didn't have to be taking care of her.  Not that I don't want to, mind you, but because she's in the era of her life when she needs taking care of.  I long for the mother I had less than ten years ago who took care of me when I needed taking care of, who took care of my children when they were young and I wasn't able to be a Mom to them, and who could listen to me, and hear me without yelling at her.  It's very difficult seeing her body weaken and her mind sometimes go places I don't understand except that I know from my nurse's training that dementia ought to be expected at this age due to lack of oxygen to the brain.  She is very lucid almost all of the time.  There are brief, infrequent moments when Mom is obviously confused and not reality oriented.  These moments pass quickly (thank the good Lord) and Mom is back - as close to being "back" as she can be for a woman of 84 with all her medical issues.  Looking at Mom and thinking about all of these things makes feelings of dread of the inevitable future, sadness for her loss of enjoyment for living, and fear of what is to become of me and my kids once she is gone.  When she goes to Heaven, I loose the one and only true friend I've had all my life and I also loose my home which belongs to my mother and will be sold after her death according to my siblings.  That puts me on the street, basically.  This home has been in our family for fifty years and I've lived here most of my fifty years.  I love this house almost as much as I love my mother.  It has so many memories attached to it, I can't imagine not having this house to come to when all is not well in my life.  I really am scared about what I'm going to do and more than that I'm scared of what my life without my mother to lean on will be like.  It's simply a living nightmare in my mind that I feel so strongly in my heart and soul that I get physically sick.  It's not fear of the unknown, it's grief for loss that hasn't happened yet.
• Toward the end of the day I am blessed to find my heart full of gratitude that Mom is still here and I am able to do what little needs to be done for her.  When not blessed with a grateful heart it is because I am frustrated by voices that tell me she doesn't want me taking care of her.  Even though I know "they" are lying I still fall into the snare where they occupy my mind so heavily they succeed in destroying any confidence I had in anything I do, mostly what I do for Mom.  I feel inadequate, angry at them, guilty, sorry for my mother, and unwanted by anyone.  I let them do this to me even though I know they aren't real and what they say is usually a lie.
• At bedtime I'm emotionally and mentally  exhausted from dealing with voices and trying to keep myself from acting out in front of my mother.  Usually I am crying with the covers over my head and trying to get them to be quiet so I can go to sleep.  Putting on a front for others - anyone with whom I come in contact - so no one will know what is going on inside me, is draining.  Pretending all day to be happy and not showing my family and others how much I want God to take me Home, is a real trick.  I've learned to pretend like this throughout my lifetime, since my Dad died.  I was eleven when he died and I found out people just want to hear "Fine thank you" when they say "Hi How are you?" at a very young age.  No one really wants to know how you are, I tell myself.  They don't know how to deal with it or what to say if you told them the truth.  
• Sometimes at bedtime I can't go to bed, I'm not in the least bit tired because I had a great day - very few voices that were very quiet and not bothersome.  I am so excited to have relief from them I want to keep it that way and am afraid if I go to sleep it'll end the silence somehow and the voices will be there in the morning again....  And they usually are and so my day goes along as always with all the mixed up, confusing and frustrating feelings as well as the pain in my back I've had since I was diagnosed with degenerative arthritis at the age of 22.  That in itself is very depressing, to be in pain all the time like I am.  As bad as the pain can get, and as much as it keeps me from doing things I used to love to do, I'd much rather have the pain in my spine than the voices in my head.  At least the pain is something people can understand, relate to, empathize with, and not be judgmental of.  People don't question pain because they know it's real.  People can't get a grasp on something like voices that they can't see, feel, or touch.  Matters of the mind are a more delicate subject that people don't understand so they avoid it at all cost.  Back pain can be relieved with pain medication.  Muscles and bones can be treated, exercised, and repaired.  Everyone has bones and muscles.  Not everyone has a chemical imbalance in their brain.  Not everyone has the capacity to understand mental disorders - most people don't want to. 

Okay.  I got off on a tangent but it all had to be said I guess.  

The last bulleted paragraph should probably have been an entire separate post and I could go on and on about that subject but, like I said, that's for another post. 

So what to do with all those feelings and more?  You tell me.  I really don't know and it's making me nuts.