July Update

At the end of April, some time after the launch of my oracle card deck, a series of synchronicities and weird shit lined up that would culminate, one month later, in the transfer of my mum from our home to a nursing home. It was not something we had planned for, but circumstances forced us. At one point, the police were in our house, where we were begging them to take her away. I helped them put her into handcuffs, the “climax” after a exhausting several-day struggle. It was a few days before Mother’s Day.

My mother’s Alzheimer’s had degenerated into psychotic and violent episodes at any time, a few times a day both during daylight hours and after. For a week before her arrest, we couldn’t even sleep, the disturbances she caused at night were so bad, so loud, so eerie. Having experienced before the extreme exhaustion that came from hyperthyroidism and motherhood, this threat to life and sanity could not be allowed for months this time. It was brought to a head after a week, when she tried to kill the dog, and then fought with us, for preventing her.

I tried to write blog entries about this earlier, but with so many details so fresh and still so startling, those long entries languished in drafts. There was also the aftermath–dealing with psychiatrists, doctors and hospital visits, healers, and  cleansing the house after the episode. After putting her in the nursing home, there was also the getting lost in happier pastimes and opportunities that opened up when she was gone from the house. I sound cold, but I’d just rather have two parties separate and thriving rather than trapped in an unhealthy downward spiral for the sake of appearances or obligation.

So hell yes, Alzheimer’s sucks. I’ve read of all the alternative cures. I know about the supernatural/spiritual causes. But sometimes shit happens, and holding on to misplaced hope and sentimentality just buries the pain deeper, where it festers. My priorities at the time of restraining my mother physically, of calling the police, and looking for nursing homes all came from the need to: (1) protect those who were still well, (2) to minimise my mother’s damage, and (3) find the solutions for the cost of the nursing home later. Health–physical, mental, emotional, spiritual–had to come first. The responsibility I’d taken on, for the energetic guardianship of the house, had been challenged by her developing psychosis, and now, the burden eased.

Rather than wallow in guilt, I chose to enjoy and treasure it, and honour the hard road that had been taken to this result, something I hadn’t even wished for, or dared to, because of my previous determination to keep all these “family challenges” within the home. In the end though, we couldn’t handle it ourselves, and I released that.

Life went back to a new blessed normalcy. I’ve been enjoying it, and the long overcoming of my fear of cameras over at Youtube, and looking around at what else scares me, that I need to try next. Now to get to it.