BEDM Day 2: The things of which you’re most afraid

My honest response is this. Always THIS. 

It’s a lazy, unimaginative, clichéd response, but (if you care to read) it cuts quite deep. I recognise it as quite pathological, if I’m honest about the depth of stress I can experience and the way it has developed and changed, despite my efforts to combat it.

So I’m not going to talk about that again. The situation has not changed. The progress I have made there is, realistically, as much progress as can be made without expensive and lengthy therapy which will yield uncertain reward. And for a relatively minor complaint that occurs so infrequently.

There is not a lot else I fear. I’m not scared of dying. Every other blog post I read is about social situations and talking in company; social phobias are apparently way popular in the blogging world – but I love it all. I like meeting new people and talking crap. I’m not worried about flying, heights, drowning or ending up the hapless victim of violent crime. Illness holds no fear for me and I’m unmoved at the prospect of dying alone in poverty.

But I am scared of going gaga.

I have no plans to lead a long and miserable life. I joke about not living into old age, but the truth is, I would far sooner die at 40 than go mental at 63. There is, as far as I know, no great history in my family of dementia, though my nanny on my father’s side lost the plot slightly in the last couple of years of her life; though she was 88, and a bit of lapsing in and out of conversations and forgetting who people were on occasion seems fair enough to me.  

Especially given how utterly forgettable some of her visitors were.  

But the thought of losing my wits, not being able to take care of myself, not knowing all the things I’ve spent so long trying to know, not being able to remember?

It really scares me.

I often recall a poster from the wall of my doctor’s surgery when I was growing up. Black and white photo; older, but not elderly couple; large black border; big white caption:

MY HUSBAND CAN’T REMEMBER WHO I AM.

Small print: He can’t remember my name, he can’t remember our children, he can’t remember blahdy-blah-Alzheimer’s-etc-etc.

It really scared me. And then you hear all those awful stories about people with dementia who can’t remember that their spouse has died. I remember a case-study we undertook at uni. A woman who didn’t remember her husband was dead, and her carers had to tell her every day why he hadn’t visited, and every day it destroyed her. EVERY DAY, OVER AND OVER AGAIN.

We discussed the ethics of staff misleading her. Telling her that he would be in to visit later, as she didn’t remember after a while anyway, and how the thought of his eventual arrival was a source of comfort and contentment for her. Was it okay to lie to protect her? To relieve her constant state of grieving?

I don’t know. I’d probably lie. But I’m damn sure I’d sooner jump of a bridge than endure that.

The thought of being confused and vulnerable and not knowing?  Compounded perhaps by not even being aware that you’re so vulnerable and confused; not aware of your condition?

That’s what I’m really afraid of.