TheBanyanTree: Dementia and Horror

[Pam James]

I think we're lucky to be readers of this medium!  I am at times mystified,
horrified, full of wonder, and sometimes just plain scared - but I am
always entertained in some way by your words, and I read every single one
of them!  Please don't stop!

On Mon, Oct 26, 2020 at 8:05 PM Monique Colve <monique.colver at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Recently we watched The Haunting of Bly Manor, this year’s follow up to
> the Haunting of Hill House. I loved it, and then cried, but just for a few
> minutes, then I moved on with my life.
>
> The dementia is not here, but I feel it creeping up on me, like an itch in
> your throat that presages a really bad cold, or Covid, but you don’t know
> which, and you’re not even sure if it’s just paranoia. Memories are
> fleeting, but mostly the short term ones, because that’s how it works. Some
> times, often, I’m sure I’m missing something but I can’t figure out if I am
> or not, much less what it is.
>
> In Bly Manor, loss and memory are tied together with death, and in death
> memories slip away along with the self, and the face disappears until it’s
> nothing more than a blank slate. Sometimes people don’t know they’re dead.
> I don’t expect to have memories when I’m dead, but it’s the dementia that
> concerns me.
>
> I don’t need to be reassured, nor reminded that “everyone forgets things,
> I’m just normal,” nor that I’ll be entertaining for the rest of society.
> Hangings used to be entertainment too. I am very content and happy these
> days for the most part, with the occasional down moment, but in general I’m
> glad to be me here now. Considering Parkinson’s presents with depression
> and anxiety, this is pretty damn good.
>
> 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?
>
> But it keeps coming until entire days can disappear, slipping away slowly
> like the tide going out, but the tide stops coming back until there’s no
> movement, just calm water. Every so often the tree will be a blip on the
> surface, and the scene becomes clear, then it’s gone again.
>
> Or so I imagine. How would I know?
>
> When I use THC/CBD for my anxiety (it can calm me for a week) I can feel
> the dementia right below the surface, and though I can’t remember things
> from one minute to the next, I find it both amusing and fascinating. Are
> the synapses exploding like fireworks, gone forever? Feels like it.
>
> Bly Manor reminded me I just may slip away and not notice the point where
> I go from here to there, everything that makes me me turned into a blank
> facade. Or I may not. Losing the self is the terrifying part, because I
> intend to see this Parkinson’s thing through to the end, but the dementia
> may get me first.
>
> Or not. I don’t know. I’ll just keep track as I go, and see what happens.
>
> I’m up for an adventure.
>
>
> Monique
> Sent from my iPad
>
>
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