This Bud is for you! Bud.

Posted by RichardTaylor at 28th September, 2009

A good and thoughtful and thought-filled friend of mine, Bud, wrote me and offered a thought proving questions/observation “You haven’t changed - you still want everyone to be just like you. You give the impression that the elements of your purpose should be the gold standard for others with dementia for their purpose.”

Can this really be true? Are my repeated appeals to enable people with dementia to have a purpose, defined as activities that help people feel good about themselves based on my own needs to act and feel like a PhD for as long into the disease process as I can? Am I expecting, hoping, preaching that my own needs for purpose, driven by my own insecurities and my own fears of living purposeless are being projected on to and into the lives of every person living with dementia on the planet? Or have I stumbled across some universal truth that applies even to those whose minds are apparently the captive of the deepest most destructive symptoms of dementia? An interesting and very important question, raised by a good friend, which has stimulated and pushed me to think more about purpose.

When I ask others to enable people with dementia to discover a new sense of purpose am I expecting everyone, in every stage of dementia to have a job/work like purpose, or would I accept that purpose could be for some enjoying sitting in the sun, listening to music, holding the hand of a carer, and/or just sitting still and silent without an apparent thought passing through a mind. I’m sure Buddhists would be contented with this last definition. They try hard not to try hard to get there without the benefit of declining cognitive skills.

I accept inner peace for some is a quieted mind, but you still have a heart beat, albeit a very slow one, and you are still breathing, albeit very slowly. But that is their choice, they can return to being conscious about their world, return to being involved with the world around them, feeling good (date I say about themselves) because they have done something today that created/influenced/stimulated happiness in some other human being, and in themselves. They are in charge of themselves. They are responsible for themselves. They give and receive love from other human beings.

I don’t want or expect everyone to be me, or like me. The content/path/intensity of purpose is different for everyone. I do want everyone who cares for me, who works with us to see as a part of their daily responsibility to me to enable me to be as purposeful and purpose-filled a human being as I can, as I want to be, as I should be. I want everyone to constantly be presented with the support to feel good about themselves, to understand and appreciate today, the moment, this moment. But more to the point, I want everyone to have a choice as to what defines their sense of purpose. I want a full range of choices for everyone. I want a full range of support for everyone, especially those living with dementia probably of this or that type.

Richard

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Comments

Bud September 30, 2009

Here’s a universal truth you know for sure…. “We don’t understand dementia”. At risk of becoming a future “Richard in Wonderland” character, thanks for giving even more of your thoughts to the definition of no thoughts. And thanks for the triple Bud-dhist negative. Lunchtime!