How do our brains work?
When we're stressed, what are the main things that go first?
Memory. Your memory is dramatically affected by stress. Stress kills brain cells, specifically through the release of too much cortisol, especially over long periods of time, or chronic stress.
I've been trying to resolve several confusing messes that I've made in the last six months, one having to do with this website. I have no memory or recollection of several decisions and actions I've taken. This coming from someone who helps run two software companies. What else have I missed or misperceived in life?
The other biggie is that too much cortisol affects how your blood sugar is managed. Blood sugar. Diabetes. Memory. Dementia.
My mom.
My mom over and over again cannot understand why she has dementia or diabetes. There isn't a family history, which is true, although my grandmother did have dementia.
I look at her two sisters and am perplexed as well. One went off to California and made a life for herself as an ESL educator at a junior college. She has had a vibrant life of travel, picked up some musical hobbies, made close friends and learned foreign languages. She divorced in her 30's and never remarried though dated men on and off for decades.
While she might be the happiest of them all, her isolation I know now affects her. She has also not escaped the inevitable health issues related probably to stress and genetics.
The other went the opposite direction. She moved to a farm outside of Portland and married a laywer. They raised dogs together and had a gentleman's farm. It was idyllic although she was just like her parents; angry, demanding, bitter, harsh. She yelled a lot. She was big. They got divorced.
Since then, she began a long, slow slide into obesity and eventually, into being unable to care for herself. She lost the farm and was moved into a retirement home, then assisted living, now nursing care. She is completely dependent on others caring for her. Her memory is sketchy, she's depressed, she's alone.
So there. The brain takes a hit as do other parts of our body when we let stress go on too long. There it is, Mom.
And that is the great sadness but also the great revelation.
My Mom has never felt free to have stress, to call it that, and to stand up for herself. She let herself stay stressed for years, for decades. She called it all kinds of things and used theology to numb herself to the abuse that was happening.
Now, she has dementia and diabetes when she used to climb mountains.
I have had to decide what can I do to help when the future for her is largely set. I have boundaries and then I love as much as I am able.
I am fiercely pursuing my own health and making changes. The odds are not in my favor, at least on her side of the family.
Fortunately, I'm strong and I'm not them. They are not me. I will succeed and in many ways, I already have.