Monday, July 29, 2013

Me, lately...

 Philosophy is my  life.  I live it, I think it, I sleep it and breath it.   Everything can be philosophical,  it's just the way my brain works.  I talk about it constantly,  and I write about it.  But what I think people don't always see that I live it too.  I am a conflicted human being on many levels a lessonsf it comes from having the mind of an anarchist with a  Zen (i try)  demeanor forced to live among "civilized" primates that walk upright.  (that's a little sarcasm)   I've got a constant battle going in within about one moral issue or another.   I'm faced with an ethical dilemma,  and I'm writing about it so as to figure it out, I don't exactly desire input.  I  don't wish to sound crass but that's just how I am.  I usually know when I need to ask for other ideas,  and do.

My mother,  suffers from severe mental illness,  bipolar disorder,  but she's also an alcoholic/pill abuser who doesn't take her meds right.   I've dealt with it my whole life.   There were stretched of good times followed by the darkest depressions you can imagine.  I suffered through all of it with her by choice,  because I always felt a responsibility to her.   She's the only person who ever really understood me,  and I her.  .  More friends than mother and son.   Because of her illness she has  had all kinds of ups and downs in life.   Her illness started to progress rapidly.   Now if any of you know anyone that's bipolar,  they are difficult people to live with,  almost impossible.   And this isn't a stereotype,  it's the truth.   Especially one who doesn't take their meds right.   About 6  years ago I offered for her to live with me so she had no financial worries,  my only request,  that she take her meds right and she try to do something that makes her happy.   She was cool a while and then she started her abusing medicine and drinking binges,  and I gave her one warning while sober.... "if this happens again I will have to ask you to leave.  I won't have my son see everything I saw growing up."   She didn't even try and I asked her to go.   She has bounced around from relative to relative over the last six years and ended up in Wisconsin,  living alone.   That's the worst thing for someone like her,  trust me. You know,  in between her leaving my house and now I have tried to offer solutions and help and I don't blame myself for any of it.   We all make decisions,  and while she is mentally ill she had her own choices to make about taking meds and seeing other methods of relief.  I am a lot like my mother abd I suppose this is why I am so adamant about staying on top of where my thinking goes.   When I say I'm walking on the verge of insanity, I kid not.  I  mean it literally.   If I let that madness take hold and do what it wants,  I'm fucked.   I've been there, I know.   And so I do have my own experience in battling my dark side and managing to do it pretty well for the most part.    

But because of this gap between her and I now we've lost touch,  and she literally is no longer the person she was.   All traces of HER are now gone.   I've grieved and learn to let go of the old her and had to learn to set boundaries so as not to enable her to walk on me.   Its been difficult learning lessons in morality.   Which continues. She's been drinking non stop for months now and nobody knew.   Alcohol withdrawals are probably the most life threatening of any drug.   It will kill you.... and it almost did her.   Now my sister tells me we should have her put away somewhere that she's not a threat to herself and people will monitor her meds,  for life.  I don't agree with it.   That's not living life.    I don't agree with locking anything or anyone up for my  own comfort,  because essentially that's what it is.   To make my sister feel better.   I'm open enough to know that not everyone will deal with things the same as I,  and I accept it,  but I want to tell you how I would feel if I were her.   If I had lived her life and were where she is now I would rather die than live my life in a room being forced to take meds I don't want to take.   To me,  life ends when you're locked up like that,  with someone watching over you waiting,  waiting for someone to come and they never will.   So, I am conflicted.  I love my mother,  but I know her suffering and it fucking sucks to think that my logic would be to give her what she wants because I want her pain to end.   Now,  that poses a deep ethical question,  probably many of them,  actually.   But the truth is, I would feel the same for myself or anyone else in this scenario,  and I'm reasonable enough to not change my mind just because it is my mother.   This woman was beautifully creative as a painter and writer, and all of that is but a mere memory to nobody but me.   My sister's don't know her like I do,  they never understood her,  and they don't understand that this would not be what she wanted.   She wouldn't want to live that way.   She survived this time and I need to make sure she knows that she changed me in ways unimaginable,  and I'm sorry I can't do anything to save her,  only wish she could be free of misery.   And this is the first time I've cried about it,  and emotions aside I still feel the same.   There are other health issues at this point that make it so even if she were taking meds her brain is too far gone,  there's not much left there.   It's sad,  but that's life and one can do nothing but  watch it happen at this point.   We've tried to get her help over and over and she refuses,  and I suppose it go to the point where I had to cut her off because it was affecting my family.

 I'm certainly not going to argue with my sister over it.   It's hard to say "just let her drink herself to death "  and  that's not exactly what I want either  if you know me by now you understand,   but I do wonder why it's so easy to say,  put her in a place where someone will force her to live a life she doesn't want.  I don't know.  My mother has impacted my life greatly and I'll do anything I can within my limits.  I can't make her want anything.

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