Tuesday, July 16, 2013

The confessions of an insomniac



Today morning, when I posted this quote “The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good” on thinkitover,  it was a facepalm moment for me; The real Self Thoo time. I just reflected on what had happened the previous night. And felt bad; very bad that I behaved so discourteously with my grandmother.

Prologue

For the records, my granny apart from being the sweetest grandmother on earth is also Alzheimer’s patient. Most of her reliable memory now is of her past and she doesn’t remember most of the new and fresh events of her life. She hallucinates that whatever has happened in her life is actually happening in the present day, at the moment.  The trouble is actually here. She thinks her uncle died today. But in real she is recalling the event which happened 65 years ago. And the part of her brain which decides between present and past (like the planned v/s actual in agile) isn’t working to its full potential. So if we try to make her understand that it was 65 years ago that her uncle actually kicked the bucket, she just can’t comprehend it. 

Her uncle kicking the bucket is just one thing. There are n numbers of things that she recalls and hallucinates that it happened just now. And the most helpless part is we can’t make her understand. Of late she has started this new thing of getting up in the middle of the night and wanting to go out of home, call someone, take bath, wash clothes, do the dishes and so many other things (Yes in the middle of the night), which has disturbed my sleep to a greater extent.

On the other hand, I’ve just recovered from the pigeon menace which gave me sleepless nights for more than a month or so!. Most of you know about it. So I’m not going to get into technical details of what insomnia can do to you. May be god has decided to test my endurance under the absence of melatonin. Long travel hours have forced me to get up early to reach office thereby reducing my sleeping time further. All this had the combined effect on insomnia on me.

Last night when my granny got up at around 2 in the midnight for whatsoever reasons, it resulted in the outburst of all the fury and rage concealed in me for more than a month. I yelled at my grandmother so badly and so loudly that she was petrified totally. A part of it may be because of the fact that I’ve always been her love thy kid and she never expected such a retaliating behavior from me. But before I realized what had happened, the damage had already been done. Thanks to my insomnia. On the other hand, I was caught in the emotional clutter for my rude behavior and was full of guilt for what I did to her. I couldn’t sleep. More insomnia!

Epilogue

My cousin Sameera's wife (Navya) has given birth to a baby boy. It was her sweet desire (or orders, I must say) that my granny should hold the child first before anyone else does. For obvious reasons, my grandmother is on cloud nine (She was “in” cloud nine too) on being promoted to great grandmother. The arrival of baby has cheered her to a great extent. She is overwhelmed. I too was relaxed to see that she had come out of yesterday’s episode. I decided that at the least I should say sorry to her and of course, she deserved it. While coming back from the hospital, I slowly said sorry for what I did yesterday and that I’d never repeat it ever again for which her reply was………

“What are you talking about? I’m not understanding”

I’m so glad that she’s forgotten it. I cribbed so much about her medical condition all these days, but finally it was the same Alzheimer’s that came to my rescue. I was out of my guilt within a second; feeling much relaxed and happy. It was a sure shot lesson to me.

"No matter how intricate your problems are, the best solution to it lies within!"

1 comment: