Hello, and welcome, thanks for visiting. This blog started in October 2022, when I was diagnosed with dementia. It's a series of poems and prose written over this time. The entries change in content, as I keep changing.
I've researched, read and talked with people about dementia, and about my own experience. The focus changes, understandings change, responses change.
I've been active. I've written for journals and websites, and given interviews. I started a petition about charities' representations of dementia in their advertising.
Sometimes it's all been too much. I had to decide to stay with people and organisations who are open. Battling is exhausting, and it breaks the spirit. Now I focus on working with Dementia UK as a member of their Lived Experience Advisory Panel. The Dementia Engagement and Empowerment Project has been vital for me and many others: I stopped feeling alone. I started a local DEEP support group, and continue to facilitate.
There's lots more - this is to fill in the picture around the blog entries. It feels important to contribute. So many people are affected by dementia, and their lives are affected by attitudes and approaches. Increasingly people are asking questions, and challenging too. Anything to support change is worth doing.
There's more than dementia too: my amazing family, friends, gardening, reading, volunteering at the local library, all the other life that goes on, ageing and changing.
And where did I start? I was a Buddhist Psychotherapist for 30 years, a teacher, poet, supervisor, writer and editor. I'm still a writer and a poet, and I'm put together a book which I hope will find a publisher one day.
I hope you enjoy the blog, and sign up to subscribe and comment - it's always good to hear from you. My email address is below this page.