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.