(Image from here.)
Among the heartbreaking things one is completely unprepared for as a child that I've discovered happens with sad regularity in adulthood is the way your mind can betray you. Memory fails, unfounded beliefs harden, curiosity wanes, &, in the worst cases, your brain chemistry changes in a way that can quite severely alter your life.
& which is you? Let's say you discover you're a schizophrenic at the age of 25. Are you the you you're supposed to be or has that changed? Was 24-year-old you the real you & you get to spend the rest of your life a shadow of who you used to be, with medication trying its damnedest to get you as close to that as possible?
My mother had late-onset Alzheimer's in her last few years &, like many, many others have with their loved ones, I watched her fade. Some aspects of her dimmed while some just disappeared. It's not just hallucinations, or delusions, or memory loss - she spent less time on the phone with me, she seemed to have less to say, or to have lost all patience for conversation. Her mind closing up shop as it were.
Maybe I won't talk much about this on this week's show but it's something I think about a lot. About how much of me will be left as I near the end (assuming I die in my elder years & not sooner). About whether or not I will notice. But the topic of "mania" - as a condition, not in the sense of a "craze" - makes me think about my brain. I wonder what it's got planned for me.
& which is you? Let's say you discover you're a schizophrenic at the age of 25. Are you the you you're supposed to be or has that changed? Was 24-year-old you the real you & you get to spend the rest of your life a shadow of who you used to be, with medication trying its damnedest to get you as close to that as possible?
My mother had late-onset Alzheimer's in her last few years &, like many, many others have with their loved ones, I watched her fade. Some aspects of her dimmed while some just disappeared. It's not just hallucinations, or delusions, or memory loss - she spent less time on the phone with me, she seemed to have less to say, or to have lost all patience for conversation. Her mind closing up shop as it were.
Maybe I won't talk much about this on this week's show but it's something I think about a lot. About how much of me will be left as I near the end (assuming I die in my elder years & not sooner). About whether or not I will notice. But the topic of "mania" - as a condition, not in the sense of a "craze" - makes me think about my brain. I wonder what it's got planned for me.
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