Finding Peace Within Constant Chaos: What Alzheimer’s Caregiving Really Looks Like Behind Closed Doors

Blocking, Boundaries, and the Myth of the “Toxic” Caregiver

Finding Peace Within Constant Chaos: What Alzheimer’s Caregiving Really Looks Like Behind Closed Doors

Three Weeks

Dearest Dazey, and the fucking clueless,

Some stories get uglier in private. Some people get kinder in public than they ever were behind closed doors. And in memory care, the person holding the line is almost always the one they call cruel. Unhinged. Controlling. Mean.

Three weeks.

That is how long it took for the deadbolt to rattle again.

Three weeks of silence. Three weeks of peace so thin it hardly deserved the name. Three weeks before, she wanted an “other” put back into her phone like nothing had happened, like all hell had not just come stomping through the house in the shape of a phone call and a bruised-up string of texts.

That is the thing about memory loss. It does not just steal dates and names. Sometimes it steals the scorch marks too.

She cannot tell you what the fight was about. She cannot say who lit the match. She cannot remember where the first wrong turn happened. She says it was not her. Maybe it was not. Maybe it was everybody. Maybe it was the same old wound wearing a fresh shirt.

But the texts remain.

The texts always remember.

She was wound tight and ready for war. The other person was fucking clueless. And to be fair to the fucking clueless, this time it looked like they were trying to back away from the fire. It did not matter. Some fights do not end because one person gets wise. Some fights end only after they have burned through everything in reach.

“Stop,” they wrote.
“I’ll block you until you back down.”

That is the cleaned-up version. I paraphrase to protect the stupid.

So she blocked them too. This time, the contact was removed from the devices altogether. Again, she could not fully grasp the simple fact that if someone is not on the list, they are not in contact.

I am long past pretending every disaster deserves a gentle cleanup. I no longer erase every thread by hand. I do not sweep the circus tent after the clowns set it on fire. If they want access to her, they can sit with the consequences of how they show up. If they want access to me, it is too late.

Everyone gets to ride this out now.

Period. The end.

The Part Nobody Wants to Say Out Loud

I warned. I begged. I explained. I shared. Then I vanished.

That is the rhythm now.

I do the work. I calm her down. I let it be.

I have become icy in places where warmth used to live. Detached in places where panic used to run the show. Immune to chatter. Uninterested in theater. Void on purpose.

Feelings are wildly overrated when you are dealing with narcissists, assholes, and people who would rather protect their version of themselves than face what they are actually doing to someone with memory loss.

And there are always those people.

The ones who should know better.
The ones who only know one side.
The ones with their heads buried deep in the proverbial sand.
The ones accusing me of the exact behavior they model.

Bitter. Unhappy. Entitled. Loud.

They are truly fucking clueless about memory care.

Three Weeks, Then Three Days

It took three weeks before a different “other” texted over a phone number to help make the reconnect happen.

Three more days passed before she asked for it back.

Then came the random, unanswered text containing a single exclamation point.

Then her answer:

“Hi”

And just like that, we were all dragged right back to the newest plateau of short-term memory, where the most recent chaos slides out of view, and I quietly pull the receipts aside for safekeeping.

Videos. Texts. Emails. Notes.

A whole archive of dysfunction and grief.

And inside all of it, one plain fact:

She is not that interested anymore.
She barely cares whether they call.

What Memory Care Actually Breaks

One of the cruelest parts of memory care is watching the collapse of relationships she once held close and sacred.

These were not casual people to her. These were people she trusted, carried, loved, defended, excused, and folded into the center of her life. She never imagined it would come to this.

But it has.

And contrary to popular gossip, I do not control that.

Her and them — they own the facts of the relationship.

I manage the unimaginable part.

That is different.

Controlled chaos is not the same thing as controlling a person.

Managing the fallout means listening through repetitive loops that last minutes and feel like hours. It means talking about the same pain again and again until her mind finds a place to set it down. It means medication when needed — not to erase truth, but to dull the sharpest edges of fear, anger, and hurt.

It means living inside a brain where long-term memory can stay crystal clear while the present moment dissolves in real time.

That is the mind-bender.

Years ago: sharp.
Right now: fog.

And sometimes the rule becomes:

If I do not remember it, then it did not happen.

Rumors, Small Towns, and People With Nerve

Then there is always some random person from the past saying, “I hear she isn’t doing well.”

And I say, “Where did you hear that?”

And they say, “I’m connected to people. They tell me things.”

Of course they do.

This town is small. Talk is cheap. Gossip travels faster than truth and lands in the oddest corners.

What throws people off is that I no longer chase it.

I do not push. I do not perform outrage on command. I do not care enough.

That silence makes people deeply uncomfortable.

Once, I told them to get my name out of their mouths.

The reply?

“You have a public blog about us, so fuck off.”

Baby, I do not have your name here. If you feel exposed, that's yours. I do not have your relationships here. If you feel recognized, that is a you problem.

That is not a public problem.

And it sure as hell is not mine.

What I Have Actually Controlled

I have maintained a quiet, rearranged existence for her benefit.

That part is true.

I protect routine.
I protect the schedule.
I protect the conditions she asks for when she is clear enough to know what helps.

I have controlled the quality of life.

Not the life itself.

There is a difference, and it matters.

I manage her stress as best I can. God knows I would do the same for myself if it were remotely possible.

But this work is not neat. It is not pretty. It is not something people understand from the outside while swapping stories over coffee and pretending concern is the same thing as care.

Stand on It

Maybe I will hit purgatory when I die.

Maybe the tally of choices will shove me through the pearly gates. Maybe it will drop me straight into the fire.

But after enough years of this particular hell on earth, here is what I know:

I will stand by every choice I made for her quality of life.

I will defend those choices for as long as we are blessed to still have her here.

— Dazey
The unhinged brilliant caregiver

Author’s Note from Dazey

If this sounds harsh, good.

Caregiving does not stay soft when the stakes get high. Alzheimer’s strips away polish fast. What remains is instinct, repetition, protection, and the hard decisions nobody wants to claim out loud.

You do not have to like the boundary to benefit from it.
You do not have to understand the structure for it to keep someone safe.
And you definitely do not get to call a caregiver “toxic” for refusing to let chaos have full access to a vulnerable person.

Some of us are not mean.
Some of us are just done negotiating with dysfunction.

Dazey’s Hot Tips

1. “Controlling” and “protective” are not the same thing.
If a caregiver is preserving routine, lowering stress, and limiting chaos, that is not cruelty. That is care.

2. Texts are receipts.
When memory shifts, written patterns matter. Save what needs saving.

3. Not every reconnect is a good idea.
Wanting someone back on the phone for five minutes does not erase three weeks of damage.

4. You do not have to attend every emotional emergency.
Some drama survives just fine without your participation.

5. Small-town gossip is not evidence.
“People are saying” is not a source. It is a warning label.

6. Boundaries often make the right people mad.
That does not mean the boundary is wrong.

7. Caregiving will change your personality in public-facing ways.
Sometimes “cold” is just what survival looks like after too much chaos.