Phew, made it through. As I exhale on my 8 hour trip back to Hawaii.
My face is grayer, I have a headache and my skin is dry and peeling.
I feel like I’ve been through the wringer and yet it was just the holidays.
My body is yelling at me, get back to your sauerkraut and homemade kombucha, your local farmer and organic meat. Get back to the salt water, sun, warmth and active life style.
I spent my holidays tending to a sick kid, and the onset of cognitive decline for my mother.
…picking up used plastic bags and projects begun and unfinished. My fearful anticipation of a new project beginning, a meal, opening a package, making coffee, Christmas decor, I await the remains… chaos and disorder.
She’s tired, she starts and doesn’t finish.
How does she survive in this chaos I ask?
My mind is spinning as I’m sifting through the random elements on the kitchen counter, screw driver, laundry soap, forks, documents, paperwork, chargers, food, dirty dishes, cookie ingredients, water bottles and supplements.
I spend hours attempting to reorganize and then it all reappears a few hours later.
I imagine this must be the mirror of the mind.
(ok the image is not really my mom's house... but I was going for impact.)
My mentally handicapped sister, now 29, is worried. She now lives full time with my mother after years of a catastrophic series of state funded group homes with unqualified and abusive staff.
I see new scratches on my mom’s car, the wheel covers are all bent up, what happened? I wonder at the safety of driving. There really is not another option.
Surrender.
My sister is afraid. She’s seen her fall, seen the ambulance, seen the bruises.
She’s afraid her mom will get taken away and never come back.
My mom attempts to resolve combining medications, leading to new bouts of hallucinations… she finally realizes, maybe that’s part of the problem.
She stops one of the meds, the hallucinations slowly diminish, but the mental decline is present and shamelessly pushing its way forward.
I study hours on end, Alzheimers books, podcasts, I get advice from healers…
In my family, no-one listened to me. I was the outcast, the weird duckling, the hippie, the non-Christian, the one that left, the one that criticizes. The one no-one really knows what to ask.
Somatic therapist? Huh?
I’ve been a pain in the ass for years, appalled by the 50 bottles of sauces in the fridge, the chemical body care products, the toxic scented candles, the processed food, the consumerism, the lack of environmental awareness… I’ve definitely been that one no-one wants to listen to.
Basically I sound like “your life is a mess, what you eat, consume and lifestyle is going to kill you.”
That tended to be my approach.
Not to mention neglecting to heal past trauma and relying on meds and allopathic doctors to troubleshoot everything.
But, the doctors were always right, because they had the letters after their names. What Carly said didn’t matter. Part of me says “I’ll show you” when I’m 80 still doing hand stands…
But at that point it won’t even matter anymore, she will already be long dead by then.
Our first encounter this time started with a fight as I attempted to convey some desperately needed protocols to reverse the cognitive decline. Her comment, “if what you know worked, then we wouldn’t have all these Alzheimer’s victims in the world.”
I got pissed. “I’m sick and tired of never being listened to! Fine, don’t listen to me. You want to die in a memory care home and have your child taken away to a group home because you can’t take care of her… go for it!”
Or something of that nature.
Ok. I admit, not the best practice of NVC (non violent communication).
I went in her room later to apologize. She says, “you know what upsets me most? The fact that you didn’t even ask how I’m doing in all this.”
Ouch. She’s right. I saw a serious urgent problem and my mind went to fixing it, skipping over the people involved and the impact it might have on them.
I didn’t even know how she was handling this. The other day, she forgot that she had already dropped my sister off at the bus and was desperately searching for her in the neighborhood and crying, “I lost my daughter!”.
I voiced “I’m sorry mom, it must be really scary to be going through all this. I’m sorry for not asking how you are doing and just trying to impose solutions. How are you doing?”
This calmed it down…. She acquiesced, she wasn’t doing well at all, that situation was so scary, and because of her falls, she has a constant shooting pain down her arm.
My internal body in the next days was writhing. I’d refrain from commenting on every food item purchased containing chemicals and pesticides, my thoughts on the reverse osmosis water void of minerals.
I began to work on a protocol to reduce or at least slow down the cognitive decline and onset of Alzheimers.
After advice from holistic healers, books and wholistic doctors, I had to devise a document.
How can I just watch this happen?
I needed to convey what I had learned without constantly nagging.
How do I get them to actually hear me!?
I felt like I was going to court. My case had to be clear, concise and fact based.
I included multiple links to documented research validating the importance of each item I proposed.
I found articles on sunlight, circadien rhythm and hormonal impact, how artificial lighting disrupts sleep, the effects of toxic chemicals in most cleaning supplies and body care products, pesticide count in organic vs. non-organic, benefits of krill oil, ketones, MCT oil, D3+K2, zinc, lion’s mane, neurotropic and nootropic supplements etc… along with a ketogenic diet.
I included methods for inducing more relaxation, better sleep, more oxygen intake, better neural synapsis, enhanced hormonal balance, etc…
My job was to make it simple, bite size and easily actionable.
What I knew is that if I could take out my criticism and just offer research based material along with a click and purchase option I might be able to help her.
It felt like a life and death challenge. My sister would get taken to a terrible state funded group home, my mother would end up in a center forgetting our names.
I can’t let this happen.
My brother and 2nd sister also remain on the side of the typical American diet, alternative wholistic medicine is basically like speaking Chinese.
My dad agrees with supplements and exercise, but he compensates with a ton of junk food.
I felt like the lone warrior up against a troupe of disbelievers.
The pressure mounted. I felt it in my shoulders. I am overwhelmed.
I flew my son all the way out from France for xmas to Arizona and he’s sick. My dad has COVID, my sisters kids are sick, her ex has COVID.
Even the dog has some new random lump under his arm. Every time I come somebody is not well. I try not to rub in the “I never get sick” card or the “stop eating that foods with no nutrients” line.
Or “if your immune system was healthier you wouldn’t have contracted COVID, etc..”
I am part of an intention group that meets online weekly. We convene together to meditate, manifest and send intentions to a desired outcome for 1 of us at a time.
I brought my dilemma to the group. “Our intention for Carly Ko is to create and transmit a care protocol for her mom that is easily, immediately and consistently actionable and gives Carly peace of mind.”
That’s right, this wasn’t actually about my problematic family.
I needed to know that the people I loved were ok.
I felt helpless and needed to feel like I could contribute in some way.
I needed the reassurance that I had done my part by offering them the tools I had.
I needed peace of mind.
It was about me.
The day after our intention circle, my mother surprisingly asked me to explain the protocol. I spoke to my brother and he said “go for it, buy whatever is needed, I’ll pay for it.”
I printed out my protocol, sat down with my mother and for some reason, I felt lighter.
I had put all my years of studying mental, physical and emotional health into this little document.
Take it or leave it. I release the control of the outcome.
As I let go of the control and humbled my need to be right or to be the savior, my shoulders softened.
I created, I offered and I let go.
We sat down and in an hour we had ordered everything. We agreed to a 2 month trial, she’s on board and wants to learn more. There isn’t anyone to fight.
I take time to do a somatic art session with my mentally handicapped sister. I ask her to draw a picture. At first, she draws my mom on a hospital bed being taken away and she’s a stick figure crying in the corner.
I say to her, “sounds like you were really afraid, are you worried mom will be taken away?” Yeah, she nods, tears welling in her eyes.
I can’t fix this. It’s just about holding space for what she experiences. I ask her to draw anything else that helps her in this situation. She draws her plants, her other family members, the ocean, her dog.
I ask her to draw a picture of our mom in a different way. She draws my mom standing arms spread apart, and she draws another figure of herself in gold. “Who’s that?” I ask. “That’s happy me”, she says.
We hold this paradox of the fear, struggle inevitable loss of life and all we hold as dear, and yet amongst this reality, we are wired to come back into homeostasis and I am always in awe at the capacity for resilience, connection and even pockets of joy.
I am on this plane, exhausted, awaiting my beloved dip in the ocean. I have been the critical, pain in the ass family member most of my life, and I’m sick and tired of that narrative.
I’d like to think of myself as someone who cares, and even with the love I hold, my strategy hasn’t necessarily worked for those I love.
Will my protocol work? Will she stick to it? I don’t know.
It’s my invitation to hop off my high horse of knowing and just hold the truth on my heart. I really care and I just want you to be well…