On Incipient Dementia

I am going to depart from science on this one and tell you about my intuition and instincts.  As I grow older, and I cannot get a whole lot older,  I see memory loss among my friends.  It is often considered a sign simply of old age but maybe there is something else.

We have to go back a long way in our lives to see the brainstem imprints but are often there but are surmounted by defenses and busy work and ignorance and denial.  But there is no denying an imprint; it is locked-in and deeply embedded exerting its influence deep in the subconscious without our knowing it ("à notre insu").  But what seems to me is that it rises as a resonant wave, not as a specific memory (unless there is full access), and floods the cortex imperceptibly.  It goes on with the flooding, pervading memory cells which barely register the influence but register it does.  As the decades roll by and we are also flooded with other traumas, divorce, deaths, loss of job, etc., so that the input is compounded until some neural cells give way and memory falters.  Then we scramble to find solutions: vitamins,  exercises, special learning and memory classes, and so on.  But the causes need to reach back to the dinosaur brain which does not offer up its secrets carelessly.

Now, the second aspect of this compounding is any long-term anesthesia (over 3 hours) where the brain is shut down for protracted periods. I have seen enough of this to see memory problems lasting months and years. If there is any way to avoid this please do. There is a spinal or other options that avoid cortical brain cell suppression.  Perhaps there is no alternative in special cases, but this is a warning sign.  We are shutting off the function of a key organ, the brain, and we need to do that with caution.

Oh yes!  Did I leave out something critical?  Yes I did?  A lifetime of drinking, smoking and drugging all of which suppress aspects of cortical function.  Now we add  this to the mix and we can’t miss; memory deficit and incipient dementia.  But let’s call it what it is: a lifetime of fooling around with the brain, especially alcohol, and expecting the brain system to go on working just right.  Nope.  It won’t and it can’t. It suffers but it cannot scream. The person will do that when we comes to our therapy.

OH my!  Did I leave out something else? Yes I did.  Any suicide attempt compromises limbic/feeling function and cortical efficiency. Shutting down the brain again. And what does a lifetime of taking tranquilizers do? Shut down oxygen supplies and eventually damage nerve cells; I mean, how much can they take?  And don’t forget, the pain that is wafting up is from archaic traumas often involves oxygen deprivation.  A mother smoking, for example.  Ayayay.  How can we win? We can’t.

So we now have a mélange of factors; a constant input of activation from stored pain deep in the brain, plus a repressive input from anesthesia, together with compounding from various adult adversities.  Put them all together they don’t spell MOTHER, they spell brain dysfunction.  Let us not always look for immediate causes (proximal) to long-terms aggravations but consider history, first, last and always.