Degradation of Self.

A week ago, my Grandmother passed away. Her funeral was yesterday. Just as with my grandfather's funeral 14 months ago, I fucking hated it. I hated the pastor who didn't know my grandmother, I hated the slutty Vegas-hooker outfit my aunt wore, I hated my dad's stupid orange mullet and his new girlfriend, who's fucking younger than I am. But almost all of this was driven by my hatred of how my grandmother's last year on Earth went.

My grandmother, Gertrude Isabelle Yost, had Alzeheimer's. Stage 6, which is the second to worst stage, had her striking her nurses, screaming at my dad to kill her, and unaware of her surroundings. She had become an echo of her former self. I can't think of too many things worse than the thought of losing my mind. It's one of the most terrifying things I can imagine.

As the funeral got closer, I couldn't bare the idea of sitting still, of not doing something. If I sat there, I would find myself dwelling on it. I found myself using the probability of moving as an excuse to do stuff like pack and wander the house, grabbing any and all of my stuff that has made it's way into the dark corners of my roommate's house. I couldn't just SIT THERE. Sitting there wasn't an option.

"Will I forget who Cal is?"
"Will I just sit there, staring at a wall while shitting myself?"
"Will I want to live anymore?"

I found that I could think about it, but not talk about it. The second I started bringing it up to Cal, I could feel myself tearing up. I feel bad, because I wanted to tell her what I was feeling, but couldn't get the words out. At least until after the funeral. But now that that's gone and passed, I can breathe a bit easier, though I am still pretty freaked out about the amount of mental illness that happens in my family.

This was my dad's mom that had just passed, but my mom's grandma also had Alzheimer's, having once told me that she saw my mom the week before, in jail. This was before she tried to stomp on the non-existent snakes coming from the floor.

My aunt's bi-polar, my mom suffers from depression (though, like most people with mental illness, feel ashamed and deny it), and I have cousins that are teenagers and medicated for severe mood-swings.

I KNOW that there is no sure-shot way to tell if these things will happen to me, but I know that there are things I can do to help minimize the chances of my mind going to shit. So, I play shit-tons of puzzle games, I write, I debate, I learn everything I can. Anything I can do to keep my neurons firing. I'm sure it comes off as me being easily distracted, which is also true to a point, and a know-it-all, but I can't help it.

THIS SHIT FREAKS ME OUT. More than losing a limb or a sense (though losing the sense of hearing/sight freaks me out pretty good, too.) or having to use a wheelchair or any kind of physical disability.

What I saw was a woman who, in describing her love for my grandfather not even a year and a half ago, might as well have been me describing how I feel about Cal, lose that love. That loss was devastating to her, and I can't imagine the turmoil that the loss of her cognitive abilities added to that. It makes me both angry and sad that even with the massive improvements in science and technology, we can't figure this shit out.