I have for a long time had issues with trying to get to an appointment and or meetings etc on time.
Something that pre- dementia I never did, I was always ready early arriving early, very exacting with my time and timing.
Over time since my diagnosis, that has given way to even with reminders they are not always enough. Dates, Days, times all get mixed up, reminders are forgotten sometimes as fast as they pop up.
But for a number of months now things have changed again, and I try to understand it, I try to make sense of it. Some times when I try to explain it to someone it feels as though I don’t make sense to myself so how can I possibly expect any one else to understand what I am talking about.
Yes, people will say yes time does seem to be going fast, or no time seems to be dragging on, but it’s not that it’s either for me, it just is. I wake up, get up, then the day is over, It might be 5 in the morning and then its three, 4 or 5 in the afternoon, I can’t understand how thats possible, I have yet to eat anything, sometimes I have yet to have a shower, because I think I have lots of time. When I look at the clock and see the time, I then look at my calendar, as if it may somehow help fill in the blank, it does in the sense that it shows me what I have done, but it all feels like a big void.
A vastness of nothing, I can’t seem to describe, it doesn’t make me unhappy that, thats whats happening, it doesn’t scare me or frighten me. I feel like I try to stare in this vastness of nothing and try to understand it, understand how one can get from there to there without something to frame it all in, but there is nothing. It’s not lost time, because evidently I am still here, I am still very much alive, but I have lost all connection to time, or to what we are supposed to know as time and time perception.
So I did some research and below is a couple of good papers, there are too many to list. I had no idea that there was such a connection to time perception and dementia and other illnesses. I also had no idea there was so many studies about it. Another fascinating aspect of our brain and all it gives and takes. It’s not one of the things we discuss a lot for some reason, maybe because like me we don’t even now how to begin to talk about it in a way that makes sense. And even as I write this I wonder if it will make sense to anyone.
It is another part of that living in the moment that is often talked about in relation to people who live with Dementia. It puts into a real literal sense.
I wonder if it was happening for longer than I realize put that its only since so many of my other health issues have quieted that I have actually been able to be aware of it. I am not sure, these days I am not sure about a lot of things. All that has happened to my system since January has made understanding any of it near impossible. So just being happy in it is about the best I can do. I am enjoying learning more about myself, my dementia, what it can be on any given day. That in itself sounds very strange that one could actually enjoy learning about something that is considered such a devastating diagnosis. I am fascinated by my own brain, how strange is that.
So time for me only matters in the sense that people set days and times for meetings and things and I somehow manage to attend most, with many reminders, there is little else where it actually matters. So I go from Monday to Monday knowing that whatever happened in the vastness of in between, I can only hope that I have been kind, and found joy in all that vastness.
Chrissy's Journey 