I try not to put people on pedestals
Then I find this note
You describe me as ‘brave’.
It makes it hard
Hard not to see you as a positive light
In a dark world – you shine
Healing
It is funny how much you can desperately need something and feel so deeply about it to make a promise to yourself that you will continue to seek it out.
And then, suddenly, time runs away from you and you have not missed it. The sanctuary you found still exists, however, you have no need to seek it out.
Is this somehow an improvement? That the sanctuary and peace you craved and found is no longer needed. That your soul no longer needs it so desperately.
All these days where you got up and went to work and carried on despite wanting to stay secluded, did it somehow heal a part of you?
Have I started healing without any knowledge of it?
Dementia’s
There is no good news where this illness is concerned.
I often wonder if there are people who have as little information as I, who are too scared to Google but still want to know.
I have spent some time today looking through a reliable website, gathering the basics.
For the me from a decade ago, here you are. There is no good news, there is no preparation – there is only ever this day.
One day at a time, my love. Just one day at a time.
http://www.alzheimersresearchuk.org/about-dementia/types-of-dementia/
You can have more than one type of Dementia at a time (mixed Dementia).
Alzheimer’s
The most common – usually develops over several years. Some of the early symptoms may include;
- Trouble remembering recent events, familiar faces and names
- Frequently asking the same question repeatedly
- Misplacing items or putting them in an odd place
- Being uncertain about the date and time
- Being unsure of where they are and getting lost
- Not being able to find the right words
- Having a low mood, feeling anxious and irritable. Losing interest and self confidence
Symptoms later on may include;
- A larger decline in remembering things and having trouble making decisions
- Communication and language skills become worse
- Trouble recognising household appliances and familiar faces
- Day to day routines get harder to complete
- Changes to sleep patterns
- Possible hallucinations
- May become unsteady on their feet
Vascular Dementia
The second most common type of Dementia – caused when blood flow to the brain is restricted. Possibly by a stroke or several miniature strokes over time. Symptoms may include;
- Trouble with their thinking skills – struggling to process information, planning, reasoning and poor attention skills
- Personality changes – depression, perhaps becoming more emotional than ‘normal’ and becoming less interested in things
- Problems with their movements
- Bladder problems – most common in the elderly
In later stages, people may need help with eating, dressing and toileting.
Dementia with Lewy Bodies
This type of Dementia is caused by small round clumps of protein building up into nerve cells in the brain. Some of the symptoms can also be found in Parkinson’s Dementia. Symptoms can include;
- Change in alertness, attention, confusion
- Change in behaviour, very unpredictable and can change from hour to hour
- Slow movements, muscle stiffness, tremors
- Frequent visual hallucinations that are very well formed and realistic.
- Sleep disturbances
- Fainting, unsteadiness and possible higher risk for falls
In later stages people may need help with dressing, eating, moving and toileting.
http://www.alzheimersresearchuk.org/about-dementia/types-of-dementia/
Spotlight
As I sit and watch the 2015 movie ‘Spotlight’, I wonder about the story behind it… it truly is devastating to read about how such abuse was given free reign by people in a position of power.
Education
1918-1939
Reading
Writing
Mathematics
Science
Home Economics
2016/2017
English
Mathematics
Science
Art and Design
Citizenship
Computing
Design and Technology
Geography
History
Languages
Music
Physical Education
After some random thinking, I was curious about what the differences were regarding education we received and the education our grandparents received. It is these topics that pop up in my mind that I wish I had thought of years ago, when I could have gotten a more in depth personal answer from those closest to me.
“You never stop learning.”
I Haven’t Read A Magazine In Years
The first thing I notice, is the ads.
Then there’s a delightful article about how at 21 some young lady has just finished Uni with a ‘shiny new degree’ – reminding me that at 25, I’m at the age where people assume I’ve either been and finished Uni or I shan’t ever go.
Then I notice the prices, in small print, on the ads. £420 for one little jacket? A jacket that you probably wouldn’t get more than a few months wear out of.
The models wearing them are all tiny and not at all ‘real’ looking. I’m tiny myself so I sound a hypocrite when I say that people like ‘that’ don’t look ‘real’. But I still wish that these models had some meat on their bones.
Even the food ads are ‘fat free’.
Fashion. Beauty. Fashion. Beauty. Keep fit. Exercise.
Drink. Smoke. Have sex.
Dress ‘right’.
How to post a selfie.
Subscribe now.
Maybe I picked up the wrong kind, maybe I didn’t. Maybe they aren’t all the same. Maybe there are different boxes, rather than just one stereotypical box.
I haven’t picked up and read a magazine in years. I keep hearing how social media and society is bad on the youth of today. The models are too thin and so girls aspire to be that thin. The celebrities are airbrushed so youths feel pressure to be ‘perfect’. I see that. I just saw that within every page.
Maybe I picked up the wrong kind. Maybe I didn’t. Maybe I won’t mindlessly pick up a magazine and waste my money again.
This IS just my opinion. This is Just Me.
Eat Pray Love
‘I took on depression like it was the fight of my life, which, of course, it was. I became a student of my own depressed experience, trying to unthread its causes. What was the root of all this despair? Was it psychological? (Mom and Dad’s fault?) Was it just temporal, a “bad time” in my life? (When divorce ends, will the depression end with it?) Was it genetic? (Melancholy, called by many names, has run through my family for generations, along with its sad bride, alcoholism.) Was it cultural? (Is this just the fallout of a post-feminist American career girl trying to find balance in an increasingly stressful and alienating urban world?) Was it astrological? (Am I so sad because I’m a thin-skinned Cancer whose major signs are all ruled by unstable Gemini?) Was it artistic? (Don’t creative people always suffer from depression because we’re so supersensitive and special?) Was it evolutionary? (Do I carry in me the residual panic that comes after millennia of my species’ attempting to survive a brutal world?) Was it karmic? (Are all these spasms of grief just the consequences of bad behaviour in previous lifetimes, the last obstacles before liberation?) Was it hormonal? Dietary? Philosophical? Seasonal? Environmental? Was I tapping into a universal yearning for God? Did I have a chemical imbalance? Or did I just need to get laid?’
–Elizabeth Gilbert
You’ve Got Mail
“Sometimes I wonder about my life. I lead a small life – well, valuable, but small – and sometimes I wonder, do I do it because I like it, or because I haven’t been brave? So much of what I see reminds me of something I read in a book, when shouldn’t it be the other way around? I don’t really want an answer. I just want to send this cosmic question out into the void. So good night, dear void. ”
“Do you ever feel you’ve become the worst version of yourself? That a Pandora’s box of all the secret, hateful parts – your arrogance, your spite, your condescension – has sprung open? Someone upsets you and instead of smiling and moving on, you zing them.”
“The odd thing about this form of communication is that you’re more likely to talk about nothing than something. But I just want to say that all this nothing has meant more to me than so many somethings.”
Distance
“When I lost her, I had dreams. Dozens of dreams. I was home and she was there, or she wasn’t. Sometimes it was worse when she was there because I knew that it would never be real. It would never be okay. She would take my hand, she was cautious – like she knew that I was ready to bolt at any moment.”
“Why did you feel ready to bolt?”
“…It can’t be real. If I run, I can create distance.”
