My heart goes out to you, and to the family of Robin Williams and all those who have to watch themselves or their loved one lose their cognitive function.
We tend to equate our personhood with our brain, and our identity with the things that are functions of brain activity, but we are so much more than our brain chemistry. We are children whom God loves dearly, regardless of the condition of our brains.
When Michael Savage says that liberalism is a brain disorder, I think that is true. I think there are a lot of people who truly can’t help the way they think. I have friends I love too much to argue with; they will probably never be able to reason things through, and I don’t think it is a conscious choice on their part. Part of it is the sources they give credibility to, but that’s probably partly dictated by their inability to reason.
It doesn’t change their value in God’s eyes, and it doesn’t change my love for them. It means I accept them where they are at, just as they accept me where I’m at.
So much of what Mrs. Williams wrote in her article is familiar to me. My husband’s brain is deteriorating and my 16-year-old daughter is facing a lot of symptoms as well, off and on like Mrs. Williams describes. We know from test results that they both have too much heavy metal (including lead and arsenic) in their bodies, and the exposure was apparently not environmental. Symptoms set on 6 weeks after I was threatened on my blog, that my husband would have to lose his job if I continued to research Loretta Fuddy’s alleged death.
It’s one thing to say that a 52-year-old man’s dementia is from an Alzheimers process (based on amyloid beta levels that would also be high in the presence of body lead levels at the very least 4 times higher than what Mayo says will cause brain damage) but it’s another thing altogether for a 16-year-old to have symptoms. But what doctor is going to check a 16-year-old for amyloid-beta levels? The medical community can’t/won’t do anything about the effects of past poisoning so the testing that would help us know where we stand is not available to us.
My heart also goes out to the families in Michigan whose water was contaminated with lead; they are in for a world of hurt, and the medical community has no way to help them.
I’m glad you’re at a place of relative peace now. Bipolar disorder is a terrible thing.
Robin Williams knew something was not right. He could feel the loss of his brain function. My husband is spared that part; he doesn’t see the deterioration, and I try my best to keep him from having to see it.
I don’t know if it’s stress or if I’ve also been poisoned since I can’t afford to be tested, but I can feel the loss of my brain function so I relate to what Mrs. Williams described for Robin.
It’s a whole different level of dying to self, to not be possessive of your own brain function but to say that the ability to remember, analyze, verbalize, etc is simply a gift of God that you’ve either been given or not. It’s OK if I don’t have all the abilities I used to have. My worth is not in what I can do, say, or think. What I can do, say, or think is a gift I did nothing to deserve, and I mean no more or less to God whether I do or don’t have those gifts. Everything we have in this life - including every ability - can be lost, but neither the presence nor loss of those abilities can change the value that God places on us simply because He loves His children. Our identity in Christ is independent of all that. What a blessing that is! We don’t need to fear the loss of anything, even if it is painful. It can’t change anything that really matters. And the pain here and now is temporary; healing comes in the end. That is our hope. I am sad for those who suffer these things without that hope.
“Our identity in Christ is independent of all that. What a blessing that is!...And the pain here and now is temporary; healing comes in the end. That is our hope.”
My mother is in a nursing home & my wife may soon succumb to Alzheimer’s. Thank you for those words of comfort, that all shall not be in vain for those who know Christ’s loving embrace.
That was incredibly moving.
God be with you and your husband.