Insanity is heriditary

[muckefuck]

bunj and e. are back from STL with the Thanksgiving Report. Fortunately, it seems that all went as well as can be expected. On the downside, however, it's been confirmed that--as we feared--the battiness of both my natural parents is on the increase. All three of my grandparents who lived past 50 developed some sort of dementia (Alzheimer's on my Dad's side, Parkinson's on my mom's, plus whatever it is Grandma is suffering from right now) so I've long been figuring that my parents' descent is equally inevitable. Of course, that's long term. Still, one can't help wondering upon hearing of Dad's increasingly feeble attempts at conversation or Mom's swelling chances of appearing on the American remake of How clean is your house? whether this is simply another lacuna which can be shored up with proper doses of sophisticated medication and positive feedback or if we've begun the slow subsidence into the sea of madness that awaits us all.

I'll see for myself soon enough since I've manage to squeeze out a whole week of time off to spend with them all over Christmas. My plan is, on the one hand, to do what I can to help get Mom through the holiday with any work done on reducing the Matterhorn of clutter in her condo being strictly a bonus and, on the other, to suss out everyone's expectations from Dad's planned retirement next spring so that I can begin subtly suggesting adjustments. I think Dad is deluding himself into blaming work for all his stress load when really he's the kind of personality who will be stressed no matter what the external demands on him, my older brother Kramer is deluding himself into thinking that they'll spend more and better time together even though there's no magical fix for the difficulties Dad has always had dealing with him ever since his ill-conceived attempt to fix him, and my stepmom is deluding herself--well, I'm not sure how at this point since I talk to her so little these days but I presume that will make itself obvious in good time.

Thank god my sister is a rock and her sons are cute as kittens. Note to self: Stay with them, even if it does mean less sleep. As we all know, insomnia is easier to recover from than SAN loss.

Comments

[mollpeartree.livejournal.com]

Dad's increasingly feeble attempts at conversation

This couldn't be a hearing loss problem instead of a senility thing, could it? I only ask because the last time princeofcairo's mom visited, it turned out she had evidently suddenly gone half-deaf in under six months or so. I had a few disconcerting conversations with her before I realized that the reason I had to keep repeating and re-explaining things was that she couldn't actually hear me a lot of the time.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

His wife is an audiologist. Sadly, that doesn't quite eliminate this possibility, but I think it probably removes it from the short list.