It’s hard for me to write this and I don’t quite know how to put my thoughts into words.
My mother, who is 93, has Dementia and I feel I’m going into it also.
I’m now 70 and have always, as long as I can remember, had bad anxiety and depression. It runs in our family and I’ve heard about it since I was a child. How my great grandmother tried to hang herself with a clothesline. At the time they called it “bad nerves”. However, I’m forgetting things I want to say and forgetting things I knew just a few minutes ago. I even use wrong words now and then when I know what I’m going to say. I also have a tremor which is inherited and it’s called a “benign tremor”, “genetic tremor” or “essential tremor”. They’re all the same thing. I’ve been dealing with that bigtime since I was in my forties. I apparently had it when I was a child because the other kids would remark that I was shaking but I didn’t notice it then.
I take meds for the anxiety & depression but it seems they aren’t doing much good anymore since I’ve taken them for so long. Also, the only cure for the tremor is deep brain surgery and I’m not sure my insurance would cover that.
I see a therapist once a month or sometimes twice a month. It depends on how I’m feeling. She has put her price down for me to $10.00 a visit. I go to CURVES and the owner (understanding my predicament with my money) has helped me with the cost there too. I’m not proud of this but since my husband passed 3 years ago and the insurance was small I’ve had to pay for a lot of emergencies at my home. So I’m wondering if what I feel is plain stress or if I’m genetically inclined toward Dementia and Altzheimers.
I’m sorry to have written such a long piece but I just had to have some ladies to talk to, and everyone on this site seems so kind and caring so I thought maybe I’d get some good feedback.
Thanks so much.