Perspective shift that REALLY helped after my mother’s diagnosis
My beautiful, hilarious, incredibly witty mom (66) was diagnosed with dementia last year, and my sisters (32/32/35) and I were recently talking about this weird reaction people have when you tell them or they learn.
Without fail, someone immediately jumps to a story about their great grandma Gertrude doing something “crazy” or unintentionally funny. And it used to PISS me off. In my head I’d think:
“That’s not your mom. The smartest person you know with the vocabulary of a thesaurus. The person who raised you to value intelligence, humor, curiosity, education, all of it. That’s not your mommy.”
But something eventually clicked for me. Communication is really just people trying to connect. Most people genuinely do not know what to say, so they reach for the closest experience they have. Alzheimer’s is such an uncomfortable disease for EVERYBODY. Talking about it is the epitome of uncomfortable, but it isn’t fair for me to hold others to a standard of behavior when their intentions are based in compassion deep-down.
Once I started looking at it that way, it started feeling less like ignorance and more like people trying their best.
Hope this helps someone, and 👏🏻fuck Alzheimer’s 👏🏻