TheBanyanTree: Dementia and Horror

[dale.m.parish at gmail.com]

Monique rote:
> I am fascinated with how brains work, or don’t. I’d love to talk about it, but
> there’s no one to talk to. Andrew deals with enough, and he listens, but I don’t
> want to drown him in existential thoughts. So this medium will have to do. No
> one wakes up one day to find dementia has moved all the way in, taking up all
> the space. It comes slowly, a slip of the mind here or there, enough so you can
> tell yourself is normal, we all forget where we put our keys last, right?

Yes.  I have a brother who is type 2 bi-polar, and who is slipping into dementia, but he's always been a pathological liar, and we really don't know when he talks if he's continuing to lie and not remember the lies or if he really doesn't remember that he's told us the same story a dozen times.  He appears to have fair short term memory, and mostly good long-term memory, but when he continues to repeat a story from the not-too-distant past, we just don't know.  It's interesting how the brain gets triggered on some things to play in continuous loop like an eight track, and the next day, start over as if it's a cassette and play only side two until tomorrow.  

Daddy had Parkinson's.  It's tough.  Want to send you a big hug. 
Hang in there.
Dale