The past decade has been rough.
When my stepdad died of cancer, my family and I became homeless. I didn't even have my first job yet, and not for lack of trying. Finally, after a years-long job hunt, I started to get jobs...and lost them when I started having seizures.
The doctors told me that the seizures were caused by my PTSD. I'd been desperate for treatment my entire life, so I let them begin medicating me. I'd seen how much happier my partner and several of my best friends were on meds...but when I took them, I just slept through five years of my life, all the while financially desperate not to become homeless again.
I've been so desperate to survive the present moment, for so long, that I can barely remember who we all were before this. The years with my stepdad were the eye of the storm, the stability between decades-long bouts of trauma, and it feels like it's just...gone.
My mom's been developing dementia the last few years. I'm not able to take care of myself and my seizures because I'm busy taking care of her, and it makes me feel like I'm her age. Like we're getting old and losing our faculties together. Have I just forgotten my past because I'm stressed, or is my memory disappearing as fast as my mom's is?