Lessons From People With Dementia: What you have loved and lost continues to have value in your life.

Many of us have heard wise phrases like 'all we have is now' or 'the present is all that exists'. But certain experiences bring these wise words to life in a way that takes our intellectual understanding of this concept, and shimmy it from our heads to our hearts, where we can really "get it".

Working as a Care Partner, people with dementia have taught me a lot about these wise words. I was just laying outside tanning when some thoughts occurred to me.

Have you ever loved someone and lost them? Have you ever cherished something, be it a job, a place, or anything else, and then lost it for good? And afterwards, did you ever think 'What was the point of ever having such a wonderful thing if I was just going to lose it?' or 'I would have been better off if I never had it at all, then I wouldn't have to suffer the pain of loss'?

I will show you why this thinking is not only useless, but also illogical, and I will use my experience working with people with dementia to do so.

Let's apply this same dysfunctional thinking to someone with dementia. I have a client in mind for this example, so let's say I give him/her a thoughtful gift and he/she is filled with joy and gratefulness. This will be a pleasant moment for him/her. However, within 10 minutes he/she will not even know the event just occurred and will have completely lost the memory of such a pleasant experience, as though it never occurred at all.

So what if all the Care Partners and Loved Ones of this person said to themselves 'What is the point of doing kind gestures to try and enrich his/her life? He/she won't remember them anyway, so they will all be effectively lost, and if it is all to be lost, we may as well not bother with it at all'. Do you think this would effect the mood, disposition, overall quality of life of this person? Of course, if his/her loved ones did that, his/her life would become uneventful, lonely, and blank! This is because the effects of the experience are not lost just because the experience itself has come and gone.

So, it is the same for people without dementia. If anyone, with or without dementia, erased all which they once loved and lost from their life experience, their life too would be uneventful, lonely, and absolutely blank. So in spite of painful loss, don't regret, and dare I say you should still appreciate having had the experience in the first place.

So I'll leave you with this, what you have loved and lost continues to have value in your life until your very last breath.


You can Like Thought Spot on Facebook here!