Reasons for Optimism? Unconditional Acceptance.
Be like the rock that the waves keep crashing over. It stands unmoved and the raging of the sea falls still around it. - Marcus Aurelius (121-180 AD), Meditations
Hello. Have been away from this site since November 2022.
Thanks for coming back; or, perhaps for visiting the first time.
Would like to offer observations for how to cope during difficult times as have been struggling (and took down this site) for two reasons:
1. Dementia is an ongoing struggle with people who cannot afford treatment (or, who remain unaware about the possibilities).
2. Therefore, any advice am offering seems pointless at best except for those with the resources to proceed.
Right now, a wise therapist is offering unconditional acceptance (like Aurelius) as a way to cope with life in 2024.
Right now, a wise therapist is offering unconditional acceptance or UA (like Aurelius) as a way to cope with life in 2024. For anyone paying attention, this political year in the US will determine whether we want to embrace compassion or chaos. In reality, we will always see both overlapping at the same time which is why embracing UA may help.
Think about your own life for a moment. What are you unable to accept and how do you mentally disturb (ruminate) about it like an ongoing cud one cannot swallow?
How well is own mental disturbance serving moo?
By the way, this cow may not be disturbed at all. Am observing disturbance in this sweet face which further disturbs oneself. So, what to do?
At present, I do not know if I even accept unconditional acceptance for dementia or any other matter. Right now, one of our cats has abdominal cancer and we have a $50 bottle of chemo to try and save her life starting Monday once we get some additional advice from the vet about this medication in relation to the others she is taking right now. Am sad and happy at the same time. Grateful for her possible cure and stoic that she may die anyway. By the way, sadness is bundled into stoicism which simply means accepting what is.
Here's the challenge: If we accept what IS then doesn't this mean not trying treatment (for example)? People before us died from cancer and dementia...without fail. How are we special?
Answer: Change. Life improves and gets worse simultaneously and all the time. However, we don't have to pretend that treatments don't exist. Likewise, no treatment remains the worldwide reality for most including pets: You get cancer - you die. You get dementia - you die. Both after much suffering for the individual and their loved ones. Why do some benefit and others do not?
Answer: Randomness. Personally, I neither believe in cosmic punishment nor freewill (sorry, Rush). Also, am eager to read Robert Sapolsky's newest book on the latter. To paraphrase the concept: We each seem to be the culmination of our genes and environment, which is random, rather than anything over which we have any innate or conscious control (freewill).
I guess Forrest Gump was right: We're all just feathers floating on a breeze. Perhaps we knew this all along considering death is the living condition.
All this makes me quite optimistic (and depressed) all at the same time. This is why I am grateful to the Buffyverse for inspiring this blog thanks to Spike, a vampire, who once said to Buffy, a vampire slayer:
"You have to go on living. So one of us is living."
I will continue writing this blog even if no one is listening. It is enough to exist. Thank you for being here.