My Story: Wendy

“My life before dementia. I can picture it, I can recall it 100% almost, but you ask me what I had for breakfast today and I haven’t a clue. Dementia isn’t all on one level, you don’t steadily decline. Days jump up and down with bad days thrown in to confuse you and maybe the next you’ll have a wonderful day, a clear day. Dementia likes to play games with you.

I liken it to driving. When you’ve passed your test you drive automatically, you turn left, you turn right, you stop, you start. When you’re learning to drive, you have to concentrate on each manoeuvre step by step. Dementia has taken me back to being that learner driver, I have to think of how to do everything step by step. On a bad day it’s like driving in a thick fog and even if you’re experienced, you have to still concentrate so hard on imagining your surroundings. For me, my dementia is like a thick fog in my head and you can make little sense of the world around you.

I never dwell on what I cant do because I have no control over that, and instead I concentrate on what I can do, because that makes me feel in control of dementia.”

Author and dementia campaigner, Wendy Mitchell, speaking at the BRACE 2022 Conference.