Has anyone ever had a family member suffer from stroke? If so, would you mind telling me what is was like for you, the good and the bad? I need to hear someone else feel the same way I do, so I don't think I'm a selfish cow.

Well, I think my grandpa had a stroke, but I don't remember how I reacted.

Feeling saddened when something serious happens to someone you're emotionally attached to is not uncommon at all. It's actually expected. A stroke is serious. Serious things affect emotions. And thus, your emotions are being affected. That's resonable, right? There's no reason to not think you should be shelfish. Perhaps, just be ready for anything and try to not let it get to creep up on you and bug you by continuing to focus on other things instead.

Well, my mother-in-law had a stroke, and the good thing is...she didn't die.

The bad thing was to see how it affected her/not us. How suddenly she had to have help with everthing, how her looks had changed, and how we were 'still' the same. Of course it inconvenienced us, we had to do more for her, spend more time with her, and try to make her life as pleasurable as possible. It's really hard at first, but we began to realize that tending to her was a small price to pay. It could have been us, but it wasn't.

She's now in a nursing home and it's still a small price to pay to visit her almost everyday, still do things for her and try to make her days as happy as possible.

Just think, the next person that have a stroke might be me or you. What would we expect our family to do? How would we expect them to feel? Whatever we'd expect, or want, let's give that to them.

My mother-in-law had one, too, but now I can't stand her. Complete opposite of what happened. She went batty. My boyfriend is bipolar, and she would make him crazy, and then scream that he needed to go on medication, but ever since leaving her, he's been so much better. I just don't know how to explain to her why we left the way we did, because she feels that is completely wrong because she's disabled, and I'd tell her why, so everything could be better, but I don't know if she would sensibly comprehend it because she didn't sensbily comprehend anything else that happened in the last couple of months, which is what led us to leave. We didn't really have a choice. Now everyone looks at me and my boyfriend like we're stupid, selfish teenagers, when we did it for her.

Nah, I wouldn't say that's completely selfish. Some people just have a harder time at tolerating others. If you tried your best at tolerating her and you really couldn't take it, don't feel bad at not wanting to be close to her during a serious time. If you could've tolerated it in smaller amounts or have been more lenient or maybe just give her some time, maybe it would've been better to not go as far as to completely leave her. As long as she's managing on her own though, I think it's fine. Send her wishes, call her, show her you do care if you do. If she was mostly just bothersome to your boyfriend though, than she may not be as intolerable as she seems. Your boyfriend, being bipolar, might just be a lot more sensitive and that might really be all there is to the intolerance. Don't make her out to be some evil lady, but don't make yourself like her and feel something strongly emotionally for her.

Carmen

I do think you guys were selfish, but the thing is, there's nothing wrong with being selfish when you have to be. Sometimes you really do have to put yourself first.

My grandmother has Alzheimers disease and clinical depression. She had to have electroshock therapy for the depression, and since then she's been a completely different person. She's negative, rude, and says the exact opposite of what a "normal" person would say. For example, my husband is in the military. She says "I hope he doesn't get sent to Iraq because they'd use him for target practice". Well, yes, they probably would, but when you're talking to your crying granddaughter who is afraid her husband is going to be sent to die, that's not the right thing to say. Or "you'd better lose weight, or your husband will leave you for one of the single females on your base". She has also given me a complete history of her and my grandfather's sex life, etc...you get the idea.

Well, I had to stop calling her. Now I talk to her about once a month, and only for a few minutes at a time. I get off the phone before she has a chance to launch into a tirade.

I feel like the worst granddaugter in the world, but in all honesty I just couldn't handle hearing it from her! I had to be selfish, for myself and for my family. It was not fair to me to have to take the abuse she was giving me, for no reason other than guilt.

Anyway, my point is that I think if you guys did what you needed to do to be happy and healthy, who cares what other people think? I for one am proud of you.

quote:

---

Originally posted by MommyTimesTwo:
I do think you guys were selfish, but the thing is, there's nothing wrong with being selfish when you have to be.

---

Exactly!

Ok, let me give you guys a better story. I don't mind people thinking I'm selfish, so that's not why I'm doing this.
Susan*, is by nature a meticulous, anal, person. She's a clean freak.
She moved down to Florida last year with her son, my boyfriend.
She had a stroke about 6 months later. I moved in about 4 months after her stroke because my parents were moving, and I was going to college. I don't have a car, so I stayed so I'd could be with my boyfriend and have transportation to school, cos my parents agreed they weren't prepared to take me to all my classes, etc.
Strokes affect your brain. She recovered wonderfully from the stroke. All it did to her in the first place was paralyze her left arm and left leg. I know "All it did" sounds bad, but regularly, stroke victims suffer paralysis and loss of feeling on the complete half of their body. She could feel everything, she just couldn't move her arm and leg.
We didn't think the stroke had affected her brain, because she seemed the same, besides some depression and frustration because of her physical situation. Soon, we started to notice that she was acting WEIRD. She would get pissed off about things that either didn't happen, weren't relevant to anything, etc. Half the stuff that was coming out of her mouth didn't make any sense.
My boyfriend already was pissed off, he lost his faith in God because of what happened to her, because just the year before one of her eyes hemorraged, so she has bad eyesight, and is a diabetic. He was also stressed out from taking care of her all the time.
"It's your responsibility"--yeah, he's 18. He's just old enough to take care of himself, not his 50-year-old mother. His bipolar times came back, because of what she would say that wouldn't make any sense, and it would just boggle his mind, cos he's a very sensible guy. When I was living with them, I was extremely depressed because I had left my family, and she was horrible to me. My boyfriend was also working 13-14 hours a day. I had insomnia. I slept when she was awake and stayed up while she slept, and then bitched and said I was lazy, when really, I just wanted to sleep away everything.
The deal was, that when I moved in, I would help her out and keep the house clean, and she was planning on moving up north with relatives who could better take care of her. Then me and
Wade were going to stay in the house and pay the mortgage with a tenant, and stay and go to college. We'd be helping her out because she would have a house gaining value, her son would be going to college and hypothetically "moving out", but she'd still be taking care of him because it was her house, and she'd get better with someone who has the time to take care of her, the patience and the maturity. Well, she just up and changed her mind, for whatever reason. I think it's the stroke, so me and Wade were planning on leaving in a couple of months, cos we couldn't take it anymore. One of the hFL hurricanes came, she went nuts because it was life-threatening, and she HAD to leave right then, without waiting for us to hurricane-prepare the house. So she evacuated by her self, bitching that she was disabled (she said that like 20 time a day) and went and told everyone we did her wrong, when she just wouldn't wait. We had to deal with crap like that everyday. EVERYDAY, but no one believes us because we're teenagers and "we exaggerate, we're immature, we don't know what we're talking about".
She basically kicked me out of the house after a fight, my parents told me to come live with them, and Wade readily came too. We did that as a kick in her ass.
She said "Wade, I don't expect you to quit your job and quit school to take care of me, but...I still need you take care of me!"
"Jen, you haven't helped me out at all! I'm disabled, and you don't help me!...........(When she found out we were moving out, she said...Do you know hard it is going to be for me without you here?"
Well, no crap, lady. We helped her all the time, and she wasn't getting any better because we weren't helping her enough. She wasn't going to get any better.
So basically, after all this, she's extremely hurt.
I'd like to tell her why we did what we did, cos she still doesn't understand, but I don't know if she'd understand because she's nuts now. I'm not saying nuts as in really crazy, but she's just not with it anymore. She's moving up north now, after being without us for a month, and I am so happy because she will be so much better. Sometimes doing what is "right" (having your son take care of you, because he's supposedly obligated), isn't always right for everyone. She hates me now, her whole family does. She thinks that I'm manipulative, and that my boyfriend makes his decisions based on sex (well, I'm just that good ) and blah blah.
We did this all cos we care about her, and I don't know what to freaking do anymore. I'm looked down on because I'm moved in, "broke the family apart", and made her son not like her.
I moved in. That was it.
Shes going to be here in a week, and I don't know what to say to her.Things need to get cleaned up, cos me and my boyfriend could be together for a while. She's my pseudo-mother-in-law. Argh.

Questions about anything that doesn't make any sense?

Yeah, that makes sense I think. His family having such a negative perception about you wihtout really seeing it from your perspective seems like the worst. Reminds me of Meet the Parents. Work on keeping up anything positive in their perspective and just try your best to show them the side they aren't seeing. You're with your parents and all. Things don't seem too horrible. Work hard in college, get a good job and then you'll probably be able to show them that you two are responsible. Erm...good luck then.

What you guys are going through is (unfortuntely) pretty common. The other family members, who aren't there 24/7 with the person, look down on the caregivers for not being able to handle it. Though notice they don't jump in to take over

So what, what they think? You guys had to do what you had to do.

As for what to tell her, there is really no way to say the truth without hurting her. The only thing I could possibly suggest would be to say something to the effect of "We love you, but we just can't be there all the time. We will be there as much as we can, but someone else is going to have to stay with you."

Some counseling might also help the three of you. She really seems to be in denial and displacing her anger about her illness on you guys. If you guys just helped more, she could get better. If you just cleaned the house more, she could get better. Well the fact is that she's not going to get better. Maybe a counselor could help her understand that and help her work through the emotions. I can't begin to imagine how she must feel.

Counseling can also help you and your boyfriend, especially your boyfriend. He must be feeling a lot of guilt--I mean, that is his mom.

And I feel I must say this, and please understand that I am saying with solely from caring and not trying to hurt you but...get used to being the evil girlfriend. As far as his family is going to be concerned, you're going to remain the sole reason why she isn't getting better and why her son isn't taking care of her. There's no way you're going to shake that--they have to blame someone, and you're the stranger.

Trust me, I've been there. Until about a year ago, my mother in law HATED me because I "made" my husband join the military. Never mind that I was against him joining, never mind that he had planned to join after high school even before he met me, never mind that most of his cousins are in the military, never mind that he made the decision totally on his own...it's MY fault for "forcing" him to join and taking him and her grandchildren away, and if he has to go to Iraq and is killed, that will be my fault too. She finally 'gets' that it was not my choice, but she still feels that if not for being married and having kids, he would not have joined. That's probably just the way it's going to be. It's easier to be angry with an interloper than your child.

Any long term illness is a horror story. Those who are healthy have to sit or stand about putting on a happy face while the one with the illness lingers on forever, suffering their agonies and inhumanities at the hands of what ever illness.

If you love them you want the best for them, you want it (the illness) to go away. Unfortunately there is nothing you can do to make it go away so you attempt to make the person as comfortable and demonstrate endless love - even though there are limitation to what shocks the human heart and mind can take.

Care givers, even professional ones, suffer from the shock and the empathy and the knowledge that medical science is stymied and that there is nothing one can do except attempt to give the person comfort and assurances and something approaching humanity and dignity as the illness or disease works hard to strip away that humanity and dignity. There is a moment when it dawns on the caregiver or loved one that they are absolutely powerless in the situation.

At that moment the individual has to come to grips with it. Most put on a happy face and pretend (for the sake of those around them) that every will be ok. ALL end up having dark thoughts, wishing for an end (even death), hating the person for getting sick (how could they do that?), etc.

This is part of the process of dealing with issues: Shock, denial, anger and acceptance. Depending on the person this can all take place in the span of an hour, for others it can take years and years and years... You get the point.

I think (My opinion here) that many of us get to the anger part and stay there a while. It is the last part before acceptance where we can "pretend" to still be in control of the situation. Acceptance means we have to give up control - that is very hard for most people to do. Part of the acceptance means that one has to give up and let what ever comes to come.

Anger (which is most likely the cause of your "selfish" feelings) provides one with "something to do" which all humans want or need to do "something" when faced with a situation where there is nothing they can do.

All this means that you are normal, that you are acting and reacting within the bounds of human emotions which are natural given the situation. All of us have our dark thoughts, many of us are just very good at putting on a smile and acting like we are taking the "bad news" well. That acting becomes easier the more you do it, the feelings are always there with each new situation.

David