Oh my, yes. Mom's main obsession is cleaning. Decades ago, way before the Parkinson's, mom's mother-in-law called her "little miss cleanliness." Mom always wanted to make sure everything was spotless. As you can imagine, things are not spotless anymore. As I told her doctor, everything is CLEAN--it's just not "perfect" the way it was when she was well. She isn't obsessed with cleaning all the time, but when the meds kick in too much, every counter in the kitchen (plus the stove top and refrigerator doors AND the microwave door) are covered in soapy dish water. I try not to go ballistic, but it's just a big mess I have to clean up when she thinks she's making things better. Today she found the toilet bowl cleaner under the bathroom sink and covered the toilet seat, the seat fasteners, and (more appropriately) the toilet bowel in blue bleach gel. The last time she did that I quit putting the toilet bowl cleaner in the bathroom, but the caregiver during the day must have put a bottle under the sink.
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In addition to the cleaning, she "sends me in circles" for hot tea, hot chocolate, a cup of ice, a cup of water, a cup of water with ice, her eye glasses, her kleenex box, an ice pack for her back, a popsicle, some ice cream...and then the tea is cold. Can I heat it up for her? And it starts over again. Usually I can get her to stop in the middle of that somewhere, or just tell her I'm going outside and stay out there for 20-30 minutes until her obsessions die down.
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It's a fine line between having a normal angry reaction and struggling to find that empathy to carry on caregiving. I give myself the grace of being human and angry from time to time. Sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesn't.
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