The Grief and Loss of Reciprocity
I met with a man this morning who recently placed his wife into a specialized dementia care facility. The last two visits with him have centered around his unhappiness with the care she has been receiving. It is important to know that they have been married for 62 years and he loves her dearly.
He asked me if he was being un reasonable about his complaints and made several attempts to talk about other resident problems. Once he was directed gently back to the subject of his wife he asked if perhaps maybe, his expectations were to high. We spent some time processing his feelings about the level of care he provided verses the level of care they could provide. What we discovered was that an important ingredient was missing, Love. You see, no one could ever provide the kind of care that he could provide because he loved her so much and this transition was breaking his heart. He needed to see her daily yet he knew that his visits would not be remembered by the next day. It was also extremely painful for him to leave her especially these past two days because she would start crying and no matter what he did or said, he could not make her stop.
We talked about the area of the brain known as the Hippocampus. This area is one of the first areas of the brain to be affected by dementia and has several functions including indirectly affecting emotion regulation. As the disease progresses, it is becoming increasingly difficult for her to control her emotions. Studies also show that people who have this disease are aware that they are losing control of lifelong functions. This creates anxiety, fear, depression and most importantly, a sense of helplessness and hopelessness.
When I asked him what it was that led to her crying he said that he had told her about something his own doctor had shared with him. Since this man has a history of prostate cancer which can often lead to some incontinence issues, his doctor recommended he have some minor surgery to remedy his problem however, this included an overnight stay in the hospital. When he shared this with his wife, she became upset and began to cry for several reasons. One is that she was having trouble controlling her emotions and just could not seem to fully process what was expected to be a fairly routine procedure. The other reason I suspect is that she was totally helpless in her ability to be there for the man she has been married to for 62 years.
This led us into the realm of grief and the concept of reciprocity. You see, he and his wife have always shared everything with one another. She has a history of breast cancer and he has a history of prostate cancer. They have raised a beautiful family together. Everything about them has always been about them not just him or her. When he was worried about something he could always go to her and some how things were better. When she had problems, he was always their. because of this dreadful disease, he no longer has the reciprocal relationship he once had with his wife and he is grieving the loss.
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