For the seventeen years I worked with Judith, I thought therapy was like school. You put in the hours to master the concepts, and then you passed the test. Once you learned something, you knew it for life; you never backslid into ignorance. You could build on your knowledge and attain new levels every year.

My mother, I maintained, was a fucked-up person, but she wasn’t psychotic. Judith never met my mother; she only knew what I said about her, and you can’t diagnose people you never met from someone else’s description.

My mother stressed it repeatedly throughout my childhood. “I never want us to turn out like me and my mother. I couldn’t stand my mother, she was nothing but a burden to me, and I never want you to feel that way about me.”

What do you do, on the day of your mother’s death, after you’ve called everyone who needs calling? Before you select a picture of her to post on social media with a quick RIP, so everybody knows what just happened to you, out of the blue, on a Saturday morning?

The paramedics refused to enter the home without hazmat suits And I refuse to let it go

My first therapist, Judith, who I met when I was 25, did not have an organic brain disorder for the first fourteen years of our relationship. Then she developed rapid onset dementia. By the time I stopped seeing her three years later, she was unrecognizable.

Thing I tried: Cleaning the house myself

Report: After the extreme cleaner delivered his extreme letdown, I abandoned the idea of hiring a cleaning service and decided to do it myself.

Thing I Tried: Hiring a heavy-duty cleaner who specialized in hoarding situations

Report: I went looking for a heavy-duty cleaner on a site for “adult children of hoarders.” (Ed. note: This oxymoron, “adult child,” is the aptest description of me.)

Thing I Tried: Getting my mother medical attention

Report: The most important item on my agenda was getting my mother back on the medication for her Multiple Sclerosis. She agreed—she really wanted to be less dizzy and more mobile. Yet she stalled at every turn.

Thing I Tried: Reported my mother as an endangered senior citizen to Adult Protective Services of New York, the state agency in charge of ensuring the welfare and safety of elderly and otherwise vulnerable adults.