LOSING OUR MIND

An exteme beauty but far more than that: an intelligent, highly educated woman who loved music, theater and dance and loved to rent a half-block long limousine to carry friends with her to such events, C had always been a lone wolf. In an era when daughters of wealthy men were expected to train to be bright and decorative, C became a lawyer but practiced under the strong tutorship of a brilliant senior male lawyer, remaining his acolyte until his death. She represented liberal causes and fought their legal battles. C also worried over her mother’s decline into Alzheimer’s dementia. Then, always pursued by an avenging angel, she herself began a slow decline into fronto-temporal dementia. FTD a scourge more sinister than Alheimer’s.

And here I sit contemplating my sudden absence of known names and familiar words that menace my verbal confidence, unable to retrieve a name I was about to utter in a conversational tidbit about that person, even as I knew the context and could even visualize their face. I have unintentionally and inadvertently substituted my grandson’s upcoming program for a completely different one from a year ago and, in inquiring about it, was met by the embarrassed and blank look of his ill-ease. I am forever rushing to another room in an urgent errand that, in stepping into that room, I no longer can recall why I had come there. In my late teens I was a teaching assistant to my mentor, a professor of mathematical philosophy, and now when I retrieve my old university papers, I stare at their pages like facing impenetrable hieroglyphics. Is it FTD or AD coming on? Am I losing it?

FTD is relatively fast, harder to recognize, and ends badly. Nothing to wish on anyone, though people, including many psychiatrists and psychologists, are declaring that Donald Trump may now be riding that speeding train. His obvious FTD symptoms appear to include:

·       Increasingly inappropriate social behavior.

·       Loss of empathy and other interpersonal skills.

·       Lack of judgment.

·       Loss of inhibition.

·       No longer knowing word meanings.

·       Increasing trouble using and understanding written and spoken language. 

·       Making mistakes in sentence building.

·       Executive dysfunction: unable to plan or organize

Paired with his lifelong personality profile, diagnosed as malignant narcissism, the Donald Trump of today poses before us like a combined modern-day Caligula /Nero, wreaking havoc on our nation and the world.

By contrast, Joe Biden, lacking a personality disorder, only began showing signs typical of Alzheimer’s dementia:

·      Shore-term memory loss

·      Word-finding difficulty

·      Mild disorientation

Trump’s inherent grandiosity has him now burning through more and more flagrant self-demeaning and publicly dangerous behaviors. Much of his past posturing, which won him MAGA adoration, is now slipping into ridiculously silly and dangerous miscalculations of public policy, global confrontations, and interpersonal disasters. And still the Republican congress continues to grip onto his fraying coattails.

As I contemplate my own failings, I worry for the man who is the face of the USA and for the people who have inherited the 250 year-old USA. Is it now a matter of win or lose?

Folks, just sayin’…