TheBanyanTree: Dementia and Horror

[Monique Colve]

Thank you Pammie!

Monique
Sent from my iPad

> On Oct 27, 2020, at 4:39 AM, Pam James <pamjamesagain at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 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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> 
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