As sure as the sun rises, each one of us who rise also, is as unique as the day. Our personalities develop over time. We start with basic personality traits and we build on those as the years pass and we experience what life throws at us.
My spouse was an athlete. He played football, basketball, and baseball in high school. In Football he played both sides of the ball. He was a full back, and backup quarterback on offense; on defense he played linebacker going wherever the ball went. In baseball he hit .500 his senior year earning a scholarship he never quite made the grades for.
As an adult, he found expression for his intensely competitive nature in the martial arts. From his early 20’s through his early 50’s he competed in the ring in weekend tournaments all around the southeast. He was ranked in the top 10 in karate magazine for his weight division for several years in the late 70’s and early 80’s. He was confident in himself. He had charisma, people would stop what they were doing to watch him compete. People sought him out, they wanted to know him and be known by him.
He was almost narcissistically selfish. He was the center of his universe and was the epitome of the bad boy with the big soft heart. He lived his life the way he wanted to and if you wanted to be a part of it, great…if not, so be it. There were times I was in awe of his ability to make his own path. The only expectations he met were his own. He was comfortable in a crowd or by himself. He knew who he was and made no excuses. I admired his ability to seemingly bend life to fit him. He was fearless. He was dynamic. He moved with the unconscious grace and swagger of a man confident in his ability prevail.
This disease takes no prisoners. It is no respecter of persons great or small. It devours the soul and hollows out the personality. Little, by little it strips a person bare and leaves behind a facsimile of a loved one.
During our marriage we were comfortable doing many things together; but we were also comfortable forging our own spaces. There were things I enjoyed that he did not and vice versa. We had a live and let live approach that suited two strong personalities with definite but different ideas on what exactly a good life looked like.
The changes in his personality over the last two years as this disease has progressed have been traumatic for me. He has gone from being fiercely independent to almost total dependence. He has gone from being fearless to being afraid of staying by himself. He could get along with most anyone and I rarely heard him insult or belittle another. He always had a soft spot for young people. Now there are 3 maybe 4 people including myself he is comfortable with. He insults family and strangers young or old with no filter in place. The woman who helps me most aside from my mother he calls butthole. Anyone overweight is subject to derision. He cannot stand to be around his children’s half siblings and has been banned from extended family gatherings due to his extremely disagreeable behavior. He has become totally dependent on me for the most basic decisions. Should he feed the cat? What should he eat? Should he watch this or that on tv? The man I married has moved on. This man in his body is a frightened needy stranger.
He is paranoid someone is going to steal his stuff. He worries the doors aren’t locked. We had to get a camera for the yard to convince him people were not out there just waiting to get his stuff. He wants to know where I am all the time. It’s like being stalked by the caricature of someone you held dear. We can’t have conversations anymore. He can’t relate to anything. He doesn’t know what day it is. He has no idea what we are going to do day to day. He can’t keep track of my work schedule. He can’t keep up with money, medicine, bathing…I try to be patient and kind, but I do not always succeed.
The funny thing is there are things he would not do with me before that seem to be his favorite things to do now. We have taken up camping. He loves it! Back in the day he refused to go or even consider it. He watches programs with me he wouldn’t have before. I have to constantly remind myself this isn’t about me. I am merely the supporting actress in this great tragedy. I am trying to make sense of this, but there is no sense in it at all. The total change in his personality has been and continues to be a struggle for me.
MrsSmithsLifeUnexpected 