Not looking left, not looking right

Ah sweet memory of times gone by!

Ah ....

I was reminded not so long ago of one of the (for me) most distressing
symptoms of clinical depression - short term memory loss.

Now it seems that lots of things will actually trigger short term
memory loss. Last month it was pronounced a definite symptom of
alcohol abuse combined with HIV for example. How some of these
conclusions are reached, however, sounds pretty dubious sometimes to
me. What did they do to find this out? Ask people with HIV to remember
when their last drink was?

Anyway, memory loss is annoying at best and destroying at worst. Thw
why's and wherefore's of memory loss are mostly irrelevant unless one
tries to avoid the unavoidable.
Whether it be substance abuse, pills or old age the results differ
only in degree.

My Grandmother died with premature dementia, a sword of Damocles that
has swung above my Mother"s head for years. And my own for that
matter. Every time I can't remember someone"s name I tend to panic -
"is this the beginning of the end?"

My first partner here in the Netherlands, Herman, was deeply demented
in the end when the Doctor finally put him out of his misery.

One can't explain the anguish, the pain and sometimes sheer terror of
living with someone who is suffering dementia. Herman was, in the last
6 months of his life, completely and utterly unreasonable in his
demands for everyone around him. At war with life, his life and
definitely his own death, he would threaten, sulk and glare to get his
own way. As the song says "Quips with a sting, jokes with a sneer, and
the lies ill-concealed and the wounds never healed".

Just like my poor Grandmother, Herman turned into an unreasonable
patient. His weapon of choice was the wheelchair. He loved to be
wheeled around town so that he could be gawked at by others. It gave
him the perfect excuse to be nasty to all he met whilst playing the
poor defenceless invalid.
Then they turn into Godzilla. They both moved into a period where they
stayed at home and continued their ranting from their armchairs.
Impossible to please they would delight in torturing their
(previously) loved ones, deriding them for their lack of caring.
And the last phase? The worst of all. The silence. The face that says
nothing, the eyes that betray nothing, the loved one that is no longer.

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