Mom and R.D. Laing

[criada]

I spent the evening practicing Spanish on Duolingo, and discussing it with my Mom. She's a whiz when it comes to grammar, and despite her frequently saying it's been 40 years, she remembers an awful lot. I appear to have hit upon a subject that bypasses most of the irrational pathways in Mom's head. (and I'm crap at grammar, so I learn stuff from

Comments

[sawigajig]

My manic episode in 2010 was so severe, it was also considered a temporary schizophrenia. My parents were afraid I'd never recover from it.
And from that, I've had a small taste of what your mom goes through on a daily basis. And you and R.D. Laing are right, there is a semblance of logic underneath all the madness. But, few have the patience to really listen and the discerning imagination to really understand.

Your final thought reminds me of something you said to me years ago of Sisyphus giving up on pushing the boulder (the ego) up the hill. And any good mental health worker should know that the emphasis should be on helping a person being as sustainably functional as they can rather than "fixing".

[mcjulie]

I really felt that with my grandfather's late in life dementia -- that he was trying to express a real thought that was coming out scrambled, and you had to sort of decode it to see where he was coming from. But you could decode it.