Thank you seesaw, especially for your specific strategy. I'ce been looking at coffee brewers. (I currently don't have one; just drink instant and not often.) I bought Starbucks doubleshot coffee drink.

I even bought pseudoephedrine tablets to take in the morning to see if they might help wake me up. I know that's kind of pathetic.


This has been a day of awful inertia. My bf is getting annoyed that I'm not tidying up. The place isn't bad, but there are piles of messy paperwork on the dining table. He particularly gets upset at paper clutter. He starts by saying, "We need to get this place straightened up." That's kind of cute because he can't help at all, but wishes he could. If I bring in a stack of mail, he offers to open all the envelopes, and I let him. But now he has escalated to muttering to himself when he goes by the table, "Look at this effin place."

I want to tell him that I am becoming very depressed. That would be futile. He never had any compassion for depression. Now, with the demention, I can't hold a conversation of any length with him about anything. Even if I break down crying in front of him, which I mostly avoid, he just acts completely confused about what's going on with me . . . and he is confused. That's a lot of why I am depressed. He has enough dementia to where there is no real possibility of discussion about anything at all.

Now I am choking back sobs. There is no one I can talk with about any of this, except posting here. Right now he is getting lonely, sitting in the living room by himself. All day, he watches TV. I'm in the bedroom now for a change of scenery. (It's a small apartment.) Soon he'll call and ask what I'm doing. He's like a child and even sweet like a child. But he has no ability to say anything encouraging to me.

I could go to the laundromat just to get out of the house for a while. He could be alone for a few hours. Or I could go to the store. I should do the dishes and straighten up that table. I'ld feel better, if I did it.

Three years ago, or so, I went to the psych clinic. A counselor there told me I should consider doing less and being less involved with him. I guess that's about all anyone ever thinks of saying. I see their point.

Neither of us has any family for thousands of miles. There is nobody to visit or to stay with him for me, except who we get through Medicaid or who I hire with VA money. Then I wonder where am I supposed to go. At my apartment there is no food because I got sick of throwing it out spoilt. The cable TV is disconnected, along with my Internet service. My apartment feels creepy to me now when I go there . . . like a ghost house, where there is no life. Living in a place gives it life.

I thought of getting a small dog, for company, but when I recently spent hours and hours at the Emergency Room - 3 times since Christmas - I thought how a new dog would have been a problem. Eleven years ago I had a dog. She would wait patiently in the car, when I would be at the hospital for one reason, or another. As long as it wasn't too hot for her. She was good sized and athletic. I wasn't afraid to leave all the windows open a few inches. But you can't do that with a small dog because people steal them. I can't get another bigger dog.

It seems unfair that I am conscientious about all his needs, which are consuming, but he gets to be oblivious to my emotional problems. A little while ago, I went out to give him his nighttime medications, and I told him that I feel very depressed. Just now, 30 minutes later, I hear him chuckling at the comedy movie he's watching. He is in a world all his own, unaffected by my issues.

Also, he'll only go to bed later for a short while. Then he'll go back to his chair in the livingroom and sleep most of the night there. He says he just can't sleep for long lying down. Seeing him sleep in that chair all night also creeps me out.

Years ago, when the relationship was so poor that we stopped living together, I didn't foresee this happening - - - that I would end up being a permanent guest in his home, which is not my home. If this were our home, I would feel more content here. But it's not. I'm here living out of a few bags. In life you have to crap or get off the pot. I tried to have it both ways. I tried to get out of an unhappy relationship, but hold on to it too. Because miserable as it was at times, it had given me the most happiness I'ld ever known. So I wouldn't really stay, and I wouldn't really go. For that I am now getting punished. What I did was unwise. I am a foolish person. I live a foolish life.