I have spent a little over 4 months living with a person who was experiencing a very active mental health decline and it reminds me to attend to my own needs. Only now, after it is no longer a daily issue to be wrestled with, can I even begin to unpack what I witnessed.

This was not the garden variety seasonal depression we all get around here, it was something I’ve never been a party to, and it was unsettling. Dementia is close to describing it, but I have none of the qualifications to say for sure that is what it was.

In any matter, it ended abruptly. It is a relief to be free of it, but now I can begin to feel compassion for the person so afflicted. The truth is, in the heat of it, I just wanted to be done dealing with it, because I am not trained to, and it wasn’t my responsibility. Without this time and distance from the person, I’m not sure I’d have ever found anything approaching compassion, just all of the scorn in the world.

It was a lot and it will probably take as many months to be free of all of the feelings but I’ve started to try and let them all go.