How does the mind work? The mind is very complex and a very interesting choice of study. We know that the left side of your brain controls the right side and vice versa. It is known that we retain the most information that we will learn in our entire life around the age of two thru five. The mind can retain photographic memories and put them in a file somewhere deep in the brain, so that as we grow older we may choose to remember or not. Yes the brain can also hide many things that have occurred in our lives and that we choose not to remember.
While growing up our memory retains most of the good and happy times in our lives, such as parties, friends, places, and good friends. We remember the bad memories but don't talk about them by choice. As adults we remember and cherish our memories of child birth, our childrens accomplishments, and even the sad and unhappy events. Sometimes our minds choose to forget sad hurtful events, but this is by choice. When the mind starts to skip and wander forcing us to think of some memory and we can't is when the problems start.
Doctors used to say that when you reached your golden years or become a senior citizen we tend to become forgetful and lose our concentration so we are senile. This has changed and now it is called Dementia.
Dementia is a disease that eats up the brain cells and you lose all or most of your short term memory depending at what stage of the disease your in. Yet the long term memory is there and many things from the past can be remembered vividly. As your brain cells deteriorate your moods also change and a person can even become violent. At this point it is wise to put the person in a special home where they can be taken care of by professionals. My mothers doctor explained that the only way to get some kind of idea as to how this disease works the mind is to picture a window screen and look at all the tiny little holes it has. She went on to say that as the screen gets older the holes open up or tear and get bigger and bigger. The outcome is that we finally need to get a new screen because there is nothing there to protect us from whatever. Unfortunately that is what happens to the brain cells, they start to shrink until the brain itself is so small there is no memory left. We cannot buy a new mind or get a brain transplant so eventually when all memory is gone it is then called Alzheimers and the person we knew is no longer there.
My mother has this disease called Dementia and it has been very sad and painful watching the many changes she has gone thru. She hardly has any short term memory, yet because of the long term memory she is able to tell me things from her past that happened in detail. I have had many interesting conversations with her about the past and all that transpired. She tells me stories about people that I have never met or knew. In these conversations with her I have realized what a pampered child and young adult she was before she married. The suffering she endured after she got married and to what extremes she went thru to keep her secrets buried inside her head. Now because of the Dementia she speaks out and doesn't care who knows or hears what she is saying.
As I sit here writing this crying for the mom I knew who is gone mentally, she is in the hospital after a big set back. The doctors are trying to help us find a home that will accept her and to speed up the Med-ical qualification. They are aware of the danger she is to herself now and for us to not be able to watch her 24 hrs a day. I pray that God take her and end her misery, this may be wrong to ask for, but she is suffering so much. She has pnemunia and an infection, is having hallucinations and all the negative side of this disease is coming out. My only regret is that my mother never knew the Lord as her personal savior as I do. She was a good woman all her life and I know the Lord is merciful......Thy Will Be Done..........
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