by: Richard Taylor, PhD – Author, Alzheimers from the Inside Out, Richard’s experiences and people’s reactions to his eight years living with symptoms of dementia.
In the eyes of many others, sometimes even the eyes of care-partners, I am seen as less than a complete someone. Just because my memory sometimes fails me, just because my cognitive abilities some seem to slip, just because I don’t always think like you do, nor do I remember as much or how you do –
Please, please know that in my own eyes, and I hope your eyes, I am still a whole and complete someone. I am still me. I am still Grandpa, and Dad, a friend, and whole and a complete human Being. I am in my mind still and have always been a complete person.
I am not becoming any less a person simply because I cannot remember like you, talk as you do, or think as you do. I know many of you want me to be who I was yesterday, or last year, or the last time they saw me, but I cannot be.
I have ceased looking back over my shoulder at who I was, and now spend most of my time working on who I am , today!
From – Alzheimer’s from the Inside Out –
Health Professions Press, 2006
By Richard Taylor, Ph.D.
“I race up and down the corridors of my mind, frantically seeking to make sense of what’s going on around me. Sometimes this process makes me even more lost, and I become lost about why I am lost!
It is amazing to me to ponder the possibility of missing the ultimate unique moment of my life, my death, because I have no words to describe it, or understand it, or appreciate it.
Perhaps too much time is spent trying to answer and question each other, when what I really need is to feel like I am being heard. I know you don’t have all the answers. You also don’t have all the questions!
“Don’t worry if you don’t know all the answers,” says the examiner.
“Which ones is it okay for me to not know?” ask I.
How can I do this “right” in the morning and “wrong” in the afternoon? Why do I recall details no one else remembers and forget major points everyone knows?
CCAL deeply appreciates Richard sharing his poignant and profound thoughts with our readers. As our country has just embarked on a National Alzheimer’s Plan and CCAL is involved in leading a national expert gathering to develop consensus recommendations on non-pharmacologic interventions, it seems particularly important for all of us to take the time to read and take into our hearts Richard’s commentary…..Jackie