Valerie 18/03/12
 
I’ve got my parents up staying with me again. It has been nice from the point of view that I have been able to spend Mother’s Day with my mum, but difficult as I’m still feeling low and, selfish as it sounds, it is just so exhausting being nice all the time. However, we’ve all managed not to fall out so far! Dad, with his dementia, is increasingly confused and completely reliant on mum. He follows her all the time. She copes remarkably well and with a lot of patience although I know she gets very stressed and fed up. As she says, at least when they are here I can share the burden a bit and also that she gets some adult conversation. I think that’s meant to be from me!
 
I have been back to my psychologist. It was a relief to tell her about the new flashbacks, but I got really weepy as I’m just so fed up with myself. We talked things through and I said that I was afraid that there was more of this flashback to come out as I feel that there was something else that happened but I just couldn’t remember. I wanted to know if I should really try to remember or was it ok to just leave things the way they are. After thought she thought that we should try some EMDR* to see if that brought anything up. We are to do this next week. I am a bit nervous as we have used it before and I have had some intense thoughts, but at least it is happening in a safe place and with someone.
 
I feel a bit better now that I am doing fewer days at work. It is only for a trial period, but can be extended if I feel that it is making a difference. I just feel better knowing that I’m only going to be working a maximum of four days before getting some time off, and it gives me some more time to do the things that I enjoy.
 
I took Merry , my cocker spaniel, to the beach this morning. It was a lovely day and she was running about chasing her ball. She then ran into the sea for a swim, so obviously she feels that summer is coming. I’ve wanted to get out into the garden to start doing things there. The trouble is that I start to feel stressed as time goes on and the weeds are popping through really quickly if I’ve not been able to be out doing things. I have managed to cut the grass and do some weeding this weekend – it’s a good excuse to get some selfish ‘me’ time when my parents are here.
 
I’m away to start cooking an evening meal for us all. I still feel really full from lunch. No wonder I’s so overweight!
 
*Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) is a form of psychotherapy that was developed to resolve the development of trauma-related disorders caused by exposure to distressing events such as rape or military combat. According to Shapiro's theory, when a traumatic or distressing experience occurs, it may overwhelm usual cognitive and neurological coping mechanisms. The memory and associated stimuli of the event are inadequately processed, and are dysfunctionally stored in an isolated memory network The goal of EMDR therapy is to process these distressing memories, reducing their lingering influence and allowing clients to develop more adaptive coping mechanisms.
 
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