Question: What is the correct course of action when dealing with a family member/close friend who loses their mind?
I bring this up because I know we all have that one relative who goes off the deep end and our families deal with it in one way or another. So what is the right way? Keep them at home and waste away a non-insane person’s life in trying to take care of them? Or should we ship ’em off to an institution where they can be heavily medicated and kept away from the rest of society, only to be forgotten until they die of pneumonia or old age? This kind of situation is a messy one that always has painful consequences.
I, myself, have a second or third cousin who has been clinically insane for most of my conscious life. I hardly have any memories of her when she was at her prime. I have stories from my family of how much she loved family get-together’s and how incredibly generous she was- and I will say that I do have very faint memories of receiving and enjoying holiday-themed boxes full of gifts and treats- but that all ended before I was aware of what had been lost.
She is now, as of less than a week ago, gone from this world. Although it’s debatable as to when she mentally vacated the earthly plane, her physical departure is now official. I won’t pretend to accept your words of sympathy or condolence because, honestly, I don’t deserve them. I haven’t shed a single tear for her because I didn’t really know her. I never saw her after she went to the mental hospital in a city I can’t even remember. I never sent her a card or made an effort to check up on her. I’ve been told that she forgot everybody she knew and couldn’t really speak coherently, but what if somewhere deep inside she did remember? What if underneath the hideousness of Alzheimer’s and dementia, she really did know that her family had deserted her? And then I tell myself that she probably wouldn’t want us to see her in that condition and I am comforted- momentarily, until I then remember that I never even tried to figure it out! And now the first tears come forth in the realization that I, that we as a family, didn’t do enough and there’s no way to fix it. There’s nothing else to do. Why do lessons like this ALWAYS come too late?
Her birthday was coming up this very next week.
I don’t even know what her age would have been.
