Our dementia is always with us always there, we not only live with it we advocate about it, we work with many groups and organizations trying to make a difference in the lives of others living with it. Those are extremely important things, they provide us with hope and purpose, sometimes others don’t understand how important that is.
While others have careers, clubs and organizations and hobbies that give them purpose, many have family, children and grandchildren, That play an extremely important part in the day to day lives they lead. They happily bring us up to date on all those things, because they are important in their life.
Yet very often they don’t offer us the same consideration, they spend less time with us or none at all, because they don’t want to hear about dementia, yet they are missing understanding the importance of allowing us to update them, can you imagine the reign over horror that would sweep over someone if we stopped seeing them, or limited it because we were tired of hearing about their jobs, their husbands, kids and grandkids, those oh so important pieces of their worlds, can you imagine, we would be thought of as terrible people yet that is exactly what happens to many with dementia.
Wouldn’t it be nice if instead of shunning and not wanting to hear we were given the time and space to update about our dementia that
then allows us time to enjoy life’s moments with our friends or family, camping, walking, enjoying nature, going for a drive, finding joy together in being together, having coffee, having laughter, even having tears at times.
Those are our dementia free times, the updates are done we get to enjoy the moments. Those are the very things we need the most and yet so many end up spending too much time alone, being isolated, not being included because people don’t want to hear or talk about something. You wonder if they are even aware or think about it in the very realistic manner of what they are doing.
I live for my dementia free ( not free), times, I wonder if it is perhaps partly because a lot of people live at a superficial level, without even knowing it. In fact it is how most people have come to survive and cope, but once diagnosed people living with dementia live their lives looking through a different lens than others, things come into sharp focus. We somehow gain a different perspective and gain a different outlook.
It saddens me greatly in the many discussions around why people become so isolated, and to hear over and over that it’s ok, they’ve become used to it, and yet you can hear the sadness and to me, it most certainly is not ok, and I doubt I will ever truly get used to it, learn to live with it yes, get used to it no.
it is true that people with Dementia become very good at being adaptable at adjusting their lives to manage all the changes they go through, this is one of those pieces that they should not have to and when we start educating everyone and teaching people to look at how and why they are treating someone with dementia in that manner, perhaps it can be one thing that has been an unnecessary hardship to adapt to disappear,
It’s yet another piece where we desperately need to help educate people, not only about dementia but about how perhaps their response to it contributes and does further damage to those already trying to find positive ways to live with a life-altering diagnosis.
Chrissy's Journey 