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\u201cSurrender does not equate to defeat. It’s about releasing the facade of mastery.\u201d ~Judith Orloff<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Observing my mother decline in memory while I was also losing mine felt like a harsh glimpse into what awaited me\u2014until I realized that my narrative was shaped more by stress than by genetic fate.<\/p>\n It was 3:47 a.m.\u2014once again. I had been awake since 2:13, and prior to that, I had perhaps rested for ten minutes.<\/p>\n This had been my ritual for years: waking shortly after drifting off, checking the time, and lying there in frustration.<\/p>\n Wake again, check the clock, reflect on the previous day, and strategize for tomorrow.<\/p>\n Yet tonight felt distinct. Lying in darkness, a thought seized me with dread: What if I never sleep again? Sleep is crucial for cognitive health, and I might end up suffering from dementia.<\/p>\n My mom dealt with dementia in her early seventies. Here I was at fifty, in perimenopause, struggling with sleep, and already misplacing words and names I used every single day.<\/p>\n The insomnia wasn\u2019t sudden; it crept in gradually. It began with interrupted sleep from caring for a newborn and then transitioned into trouble falling asleep during perimenopause.<\/p>\n Stress hormones propelled my days spent in a bustling clinic while raising my family. By the time night came, I was entirely hyperactive.<\/p>\n By the time I hit fifty, I was surviving on twenty minutes of restless sleep each night. I’d lost the memory of what it feels like to be truly rested.<\/strong><\/p>\n I attempted dietary changes and natural sleep aids. I consulted sleep experts and tested different medications. Cognitive behavioral therapy and hormone replacement therapy offered some minor relief.<\/p>\n As time went on, I struggled to recognize my neighbors\u2019 faces. Sometimes I would have difficulty recalling my family’s names, and my focus was slipping during critical presentations.<\/p>\n With insomnia and anxiety about my memory decline, I found myself snapping at my partner and experiencing bouts of anger. I couldn\u2019t see a path forward.<\/p>\n And then came the diagnosis: my mother had dementia.<\/p>\n We had been apart for nearly twenty years. I learned of her illness through a phone call from a worried neighbor on the opposite coast.<\/p>\n Mom was forgetting, and I was terrified that the same fate awaited me.<\/p>\n Control was not a choice; it was a legacy handed down to me.<\/p>\n As a child, being around my mother felt like tiptoeing on fragile shells. She was a single parent, and her mental health was so unstable that she exerted control over everything and everyone just to navigate her day.<\/p>\n I discovered that when emotions ran high or circumstances felt overwhelming, control could<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cSurrender does not equate to defeat. It’s about releasing the facade of mastery.\u201d ~Judith Orloff Observing my mother decline […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9665408,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"Default","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9665407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritualjourneydigest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9665407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritualjourneydigest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritualjourneydigest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritualjourneydigest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritualjourneydigest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9665407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spiritualjourneydigest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9665407\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritualjourneydigest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9665408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritualjourneydigest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9665407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritualjourneydigest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9665407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritualjourneydigest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9665407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}