Knowing My Mom was a Welcome Thing

My mother was the oldest of 3 kids. She was only 63 when she died due to Heart problems, Diabetes, Depression along with Dimentia. She graduated from High School and Business college but due to some stressors in her life was never able to do much with her degree as well. She married my real dad in 1963, had me in 1964, and then my Sister in 1967 before divorcing in 68 or 69. Unfortunately she was the type that could not handle being single and met and married my stepdad in 1970. I think personally this was the reason my mom's health continued to go down hill from here. She has 3 more children from this marriage, but it was a marriage of convenience and even while being severely abused as well as us 5 kids she continued to stay thinking this was for the Best.

When we finally got her to leave him in 1986 you would have thought that things would improve from here. I am not sure why they never did, but looking back it could have been due to Low self esteem, but I think due to also having Mental illness problems some of it could have been early onset of dimentia as well. She never wanted to take responsibility for anything, and often wanted to blame everyone else for everything as well. She often gave away things never making any sense and then wondered what was really going on in life as well. She always made up stories never letting on to how bad she really felt, or what was going on and even tried to cover up for things later in her life many times.

In the early 2000's when we talked her into moving to Montana to live closer to my sister so my sister could be there to help her out, we thought it would be for the Best and the thing that would help my Mom snap out of her deep fog and life, and find ways to improve herself as well. But she often only wanted someone else to take care of her and wait on her hand and foot refusing to want to do anything for herself. She really started resorting back to like a little child many times for sure, and it was so hard to see and very frustrating as well. We tried to get her into a Retirement type setting where she actually was doing good for quite a while and got to put her Crafts and talents to work for a while as well. But then she started forgetting more and more stuff, and fell ill due to not taking care of herself so often that they had to move her to a Nursing home permanently. It got to the point that you never knew what to expect when you tried to talk to her, and whether she would remember you or want to talk to you as well. She even tried to kill herself about 4 months prior to her death and it was all because even though she had lost touch with reality felt she would be better off dead.

Truly it was a Sad thing having to watch her go from a normal woman and Mom being able to care for herself, and be willing to help out offering advice and help to her kids, to one who quit carring and unable to remember anything to where you never knew what to expect. Unfortunately most of the time everyone never took her serious, and never knew what to do. I guess they thought dimentia and Alzheimers only happens when you get older, but I think overall somehow her story needs to be one to show doctors that these are problems that can occur with any age, so offering them hope or having better available drugs out there would be a Bonus for sure. So if you can relate with this story, and have someone in your life acting like this as well, I would say do not ignore it. Try and find help no matter where you have to go and help people see that this is for real for sure. It may not always be easy, but somehow someday I hope that there will be more of an offered hope and someday this can be more of a thing in the past as well.

~~TINA~~