All I want to do is get drunk.
I'm not talking a few drinks down the pub, I'm talking mind-numbingly, liver-damagingly fucked.
I want to take drugs I haven't taken in years: I wanna get E'd up and feel happy again.
Living on my own has made me realise how little I dealt with the split from my girlfriend. God I miss her. I was listening to a Neil Young song (depressingly and self-indulgently) "Oh Lonesome Me" last night, and there was a lyric that made me cry. Something about an ex going out, having fun and charming people. I know she's not doing that though; she's as miserable as I am, and that makes it worse.
Regarding Alzheimer's: I have a terrible memory. I have a significant family history, on both sides, of dementia. I am so worried about living to fulfil this prophecy this that I just don't care about my own health anymore. I'm smoking more cigarettes than I ever have, and drinking to make myself ill.
My Grandad smoked 20 a day for about 60 years. He died of stomach cancer, directly related to smoking. The onset was quick, and although he was in pain through his final months, he died with dignity. My Grandma quit when her husband died, and we watched as she degenerated, much like my mum is doing now, into a mental wreck who had to be cared for in a home. ("Home" is kind of a euphemism though - it was more like a waiting room for the crazy train to deathsville. Like the ward in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest".) She took years to die, years that caused my family pain as this woman who looked like Grandma battled with a world that had long since stopped making any sense to her.
I want Grandad's death. I want it quick and easy and with all my mental faculties intact. I no longer want children. I want no one to grieve.
Life is disappointing, it's unfair and heartbreaking, and I want to die.
Tuesday, 29 July 2008
Monday, 28 July 2008
Mum, I'm leaving you.
The look on my mum's face as I left her house was heartbreaking. She knew why I'd left, in her own way, and the smiles through sadness she gave me were worse than any tears.
I'd moved in with mum in January 08, and lasted just over six months.
She's been recently diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's disease, and for all my good intentions in looking after her I ended up thinking of myself.
It's a funny thing watching your parents get ill: my dad's been suffering from Parkinson's disease for a few years now (they're divorced), and everything he's ever loved in life (which is cars) is slipping away from him as his body becomes a prison for him to live in... But that's another post.
My siblings and I first noticed there was something wrong with mum last year. She's lived on her own for about 10 years on and off, but since the death of her mother it almost seems like she needed to take on her mantle; to become Grandma. She's always been skittish, but we noticed things were going wrong rather quickly. Her spelling started to fail her, her world became smaller as she forgot how to get to places, she confused her cat with one that had died years ago, she repeated herself with increasing regularity, and numerous other little things that tell you something is amiss.
So, I moved home with the intention of spending two years there. Firstly, to save up for a house, and second, to keep an eye on mum. We didn't know then that she had a medical condition.
As I spent more time with her, it became quickly apparent that things were much worse than I'd thought. Conversation quickly descended into madness as she was unable to maintain the thread, and dinner times became something I grew to dread, as they were the times I couldn't escape to do work or play Xbox. I hate myself for this. I know it's the disease, not her, but God, it still looks like mum. It sounds like her. Ask her something about our childhood and she can generally recall it in vivid detail. Ask what she just had for dinner however, and she's flummoxed.
That's it. Six months was all I could give her. Oh, we're getting social workers to check in on her in the day (the DVLA took her licence away after diagnosis), and we've organised a rota between us kids to see her every night. I could even give an excuse about breaking up with my [unsupportive] girlfriend and, as a 28 year old man, cutting loose from the apron strings. About how I need a place to keep myself sane.
But that's all they are, excuses. She cared for me for 15 years of my life, loved me for all of it, and all I could muster was six poxy months.
The worst thing? I feel relieved.
I'd moved in with mum in January 08, and lasted just over six months.
She's been recently diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's disease, and for all my good intentions in looking after her I ended up thinking of myself.
It's a funny thing watching your parents get ill: my dad's been suffering from Parkinson's disease for a few years now (they're divorced), and everything he's ever loved in life (which is cars) is slipping away from him as his body becomes a prison for him to live in... But that's another post.
My siblings and I first noticed there was something wrong with mum last year. She's lived on her own for about 10 years on and off, but since the death of her mother it almost seems like she needed to take on her mantle; to become Grandma. She's always been skittish, but we noticed things were going wrong rather quickly. Her spelling started to fail her, her world became smaller as she forgot how to get to places, she confused her cat with one that had died years ago, she repeated herself with increasing regularity, and numerous other little things that tell you something is amiss.
So, I moved home with the intention of spending two years there. Firstly, to save up for a house, and second, to keep an eye on mum. We didn't know then that she had a medical condition.
As I spent more time with her, it became quickly apparent that things were much worse than I'd thought. Conversation quickly descended into madness as she was unable to maintain the thread, and dinner times became something I grew to dread, as they were the times I couldn't escape to do work or play Xbox. I hate myself for this. I know it's the disease, not her, but God, it still looks like mum. It sounds like her. Ask her something about our childhood and she can generally recall it in vivid detail. Ask what she just had for dinner however, and she's flummoxed.
That's it. Six months was all I could give her. Oh, we're getting social workers to check in on her in the day (the DVLA took her licence away after diagnosis), and we've organised a rota between us kids to see her every night. I could even give an excuse about breaking up with my [unsupportive] girlfriend and, as a 28 year old man, cutting loose from the apron strings. About how I need a place to keep myself sane.
But that's all they are, excuses. She cared for me for 15 years of my life, loved me for all of it, and all I could muster was six poxy months.
The worst thing? I feel relieved.
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