My ongoing internal battle with WHY?

Well I did it. Yep, I sucked it up and went to my first Alzheimer’s Support Group (ASG) meeting. A little background info: There is this really nice assisted living center near our home and I pass it each and every day on my way to/from work. Every so often I will see their purple colored sign out front advertising the ASG on Thursday at 7:30pm. I always think to myself each time I see it that I should go sometime… just once to see what it is all about… anonymously of course… maybe a fake name would be my disguise…
Anyhoo, I had long discussion earlier this week with one of our extended family members regarding the last few weeks with my grandmother and she told me I should go to one of those meetings (she brought it up- not me) and I told about that purple sign… yada, yada, yada…I finally made the decision this past Tuesday night to go for it. Now you can imagine how I have analyzed this experience for the 48 hours before the meeting and my imagination can be a really scary sometimes! Needless to say, I had pretty much concocted this idea in my mind that this meeting was going to be like an AA meeting… you know the story- I show up…there are 20+ other people there… we take turns going up to the podium to tell about ourselves… it is my turn… I stumble to the front… my voice is shaky and my palms are sweating and my heart it beating 100 mph… I manage to choke out, “ my name is Kelly, I am 33, and I am an Alzheimer’s caregiver.” And the 20+ people just stare at me as I attempt to tearfully summarize me and my story. And then I sit through all of their stories. With this scenario running over and over in my mind, I was all worked up even before I left the house last night! Well…. Let’s just say that my anxieties were nothing more than anxieties… There were only 3 people there and one was the group leader. They had a platter of very inviting oatmeal and raisin cookies greeting us at the door. We sat around a conference table and had an hour or so long chat about ourselves and our situations. They offered some opinions and insight in response to my line of questions. I guess the best thing that I took from this hour was having the opportunity to talk to someone who a) does not know me b) does not know my grandmother and c) has not heard my daily gripes for the past 6 months. I admit that having a fresh set of ears was nice to talk to and see what their thoughts were. I haven’t decided if I will go back next month yet or not… maybe I will or maybe not…