Far too often I am confronted with a decision.

I can either sit in my car a little longer and wonder what hand I have been dealt with my moms diagnosis. Or I can take a deep breath, step out of my car, and move forward with my day, my week, my month.

These seem like small decisions to make when written here - but you know how hard it is to “move forward” after you visit your parent with dementia. After you see them in the hospital or in memory care.

I’ll admit I have sat in my car and yelled before. Questioning why and what right does the world have and feeling sorry for myself.

You know what that does to the soul though? What that does to you?

It incapacitates you from moving forward in life. From taking steps that will give you more life to live after dementia has taken so much away.

I struggle with this as well.

​
Because grief, and guilt, and confusion, and anger all stick there ugly heads up and want control.

​
A good analogy for these emotions is the Hydra - the mythical greek creature that has 3 heads. In myth, if you cut one head off, two more grow back. It can’t be killed in the traditional fashion, just life these negative emotions related to dementia and caregiving.

On the other side is the rational you, the person who is thinking “I need to take care of myself, I need to try and eat better, I need to try and sleep more”

But the hydra is strong, and when you slash at it with this rational side of you, it feels like you’ve won… until it grows another ugly head.

Thats the “I need to take time to take care of me.” then the guilt rises because you chose to go to the gym instead of the nursing home.

So you skip the gym the next week. You may not even go to the nursing home instead but it feels like the guilt has faded because you aren’t taking care of you.

To beat these emotions, to beat the hydra, we need a 3rd party at play and it already lives inside of you - that third party is PASSION. And I don’t mean passion for cooking or motivation, I mean an angry passion.

One that knows what they are doing is the right move, one that is angry at the disease in a way that makes you want to beat it, not wallow in what it has done to you and your family.

Aren’t you angry? Don’t you want to fight back and beat it? I know I am.

But we can’t beat it if we sit in our car, think about how unlucky we are, and don’t take the steps forward.

If we approach life, if we attack dementia where we can with this angry passion the Hydra is kept in its cave. It doesn’t want to come out, because it doesn’t have control.

It will try and stick its head out now and then and you will feel it, but instead of slashing at it and letting it grow you beat it back with a bat, methodically not allowing it to grow stronger, and you push it back in the cave.

We can’t get rid of the hydra, but we can control it.

Especially if that angry passion sits on the same shoulder as our rational self.

Where is your angry passion? How can you tap into it today?

Don’t let the hydra win.

Much love,

Tyler

​
Try my favorite brain health supplement for 20% off: Conserve​
Share this newsletter with your friends: here.

PS
My goal is to bring awareness and agency to you, to the world, about what is possible when preventing dementia and protecting your brain. I hope that shines through in all my content!