Dementia Sadness Quotes

This birth thing. And this death thing. Each one had it's turn. We entered alone and we left alone. And most of us lived lonely and frightened and incomplete lives. An incomparable sadness descended up on me. Seeing all that life that must die. Seeing all that life that would first turn to hate, to dementia, to neuroses, to stupidity, to fear, to murder, to nothing - nothing in life and nothing in death.

I didn't think I would end up here." "Me neither.

Soon you'll forget you loved me, but to me your love will be a burning memory I fight to keep. In the end, dementia kills us all.

A daughter’s decree to Lewy body It was then that you carried me, throughout the whole of my life, keeping me safe and away from all strife. And now that you struggle with everyday things, I’ll make sure your safe from the pain that life brings. And now that your quality and love of life’s gone, I’ll get you the best from each day till you’re done. And as people wonder and as people stare, as you’re talking to things that just are not there. I will stand beside you and I’ll make them see, if it’s real to you, then it’s real to me. And the times that you stumble, the times that you fall, I’ll make sure there’s someone to answer your call. And when you are dizzy, scared and alone, I’ll make sure that kindness and compassion is shown. When I recently asked you what life had been? you looked at me sadly and said ordinary. But I will make sure though the best of you’s gone, that together we create a legacy that’s strong. So as comprehension is the last thing to go, I hope you can hear me, I pray that you know, It is now that I carry you.

The percentage of people reporting contact with the dead in surveys ranges anywhere from 42 to 72 percent. Widows having contact with their deceased husbands can go as high as 92 percent.1 If the surveys had included children and deathbed encounters, which are extremely common, the percentages would have been even heftier. A whopping 75 percent of parents who lost a child had an encounter within a year of the child’s death.2 But a sad 75 percent of all those who had encounters reported not mentioning them to anyone for fear of ridicule.3 It’s hard to believe that a society can deny the validity of an experience shared by so large a proportion of its population. But we do. Many organized and not-so-organized religions go so far as to condemn communication with the dead, a position that at least admits contact is possible. Until recently, near-death experiencers have suffered great distress from disbelief and derision, silenced by those they were expected to trust most, their families and physicians. The same holds for people on the verge of death, since the phenomena they typically experience, such as visits from the dead and visions of the other side, are treated as symptoms of dementia. All these people are between a rock and a hard place.

I have seen a husband adapt honestly and courageously while his wife descended into terminal dementia. He made the necessary adjustments, step by step. He accepted help when he needed it. He refused to deny her sad deterioration and in that manner adapted gracefully to it. I saw the family of that same woman come together in a supporting and sustaining manner as she lay dying, and gain newfound connections with each other—brother, sisters, grandchildren and father—as partial but genuine compensation for their loss. I have seen my teenage daughter live through the destruction of her hip and her ankle and survive two years of continual, intense pain and emerge with her spirit intact. I watched her younger brother voluntarily and without resentment sacrifice many opportunities for friendship and social engagement to stand by her and us while she suffered. With love, encouragement, and character intact, a human being can be resilient beyond imagining. What cannot be borne, however, is the absolute ruin produced by tragedy and deception.

The conversation leaves me sad and hollow. There are always just enough sparks of lucidity to get my hopes up, but the waves of dementia quickly sweep them out to sea.

It’s sad when the things you continue to do make people question whether you have dementia. They’re not inside my brain to hear or see the hallucinations. Would it make them feel better to see me on a foggy day, the type where I curl up under my duvet and hide away from the world? Would that make the disease fit better into the pigeonhole they’ve allocated it?

People with dementia cannot remember that they have asked a question repeatedly, but they are quite capable of understanding that they are being criticized and scorned and are able to have feelings of sadness, humiliation and despair as a result. This is a very difficult disease to have, and it is important for the rest of us not to make the experience worse than it already is.

Within a year of retirement, Dad showed the early signs of dementia. By 2017, his symptoms were declared mid-stage by his family physician. It's a sad truth, but ultimately, we don't choose the course of our lives.

I Understand Mom The fog wraps around her mind bit and pieces of tattered thought become blank within her eyes minutes ago is gone, the sadness inside. Reaching for a wonderful memory that was just an hour ago you fight so hard to bring it back until you finally let it go. I’m sorry, I don’t remember as the tears reach her face tears roll down a beautiful smile while your days are being erased. I understand Mom; I’m here for you there’s blessings at our door God is here; He will guide us through with His love and so much more.

Soon you'll forget you loved me, but your love will be a burning memory I fight to keep. In the end, dementia kills us all

I don't know who you are, but I love you.

Forgiving my mother was hard, but when dementia began stealing her from us bit by bit, day by day, it became a ridiculous notion to hold on to old hurts. I forgave her, over and over again. Forgiving my dad was easy when as an adult I saw what a sad, broken man he really was. It was the easiest act of mercy I have ever experienced. After decades of fuming at my ex, I finally decided to forgive him so I could be a happier person. I knew he wasn’t giving me a second thought, so why should I waste my limited energy on him? And that college guy, I just feel pity for him. These are all chapters of my old life that have nothing to do with who I am now. Forgiving was the key that opened the door to freedom.

I’ve just had breakfast.” The doorbell rang. “Ooooh!” said Polly, peering furtively out the window. “What fun. It looks like a market researcher!” “Right,” said my mother in a very military tone. “Let’s see how long we can keep him before he runs out screaming. I’ll pretend to have mild dementia, and you can complain about your sciatica in German. We’ll try to beat our personal Market-Researcher Containment record of two hours and twelve minutes.” I shook my head sadly. “I wish you two would grow up.” “You are so judgmental, daughter dear,” scolded my mother. “When you reach our age and level of physical decrepitude, you’ll take your entertainment wherever you can find it. Now, be off with you.” And they shooed me into the kitchen while I mumbled something about how remedial basket weaving, whist drives or daytime soaps would probably suit them better. Mind you, inflicting mental torture on market researchers kept them busy, I suppose.

The older I get, the more clearly I see that I need my husband. The last decades of life are unpredictable, and potentially tragic. It doesn’t stop being tragic just because tragedy is so likely. I heard that the wife in an elderly couple I know was losing her mind to dementia, and was sad to hear it, but accepted the news in the usual way; it’s just one of the unfortunate things that can happen when you’re old. But if you imagine that it was a couple in their twenties and heard the wife had begun gradually and irreversibly losing her mind, you wouldn’t just say, “Ah, what a shame.” It would be horrifying. Well, it’s just as horrifying to lose your beloved at the age of 70 or 80. The fact that everyone is treating it as “just one of those things” would only make you feel more alone.

I wasn't sure Louise knew who I was anymore, but I was quite certain I was nobody. And as I sat there I felt myself slipping away to damp depths of sadness as I had done the night before, and I was thinking and thinking and thinking about how, in just the past year, I had just started to know her, but then I began to unknow her, getting farther and farther away like watching a boat drift from the shore and head out not to some other land but to an open water that never, ever ends. And she did not even know this, that she was on the boat.

Howard Hughes was dining with actress Jane Greer at Ciro’s on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles one evening in 1947. At one point in the meal, he excused himself to go to the rest room. To Greer’s amazement, he did not return for an hour and a half. When he finally reappeared, she was astonished to see that he was soaking wet from head to toe. “What on earth happened to you?” she asked. “Well,” Hughes said, “I spilled some catsup on my shirt and pants and had to wash them out in the sink.” He then let them dry for a while, hanging them over one of the toilet stalls. Once he put his clothes back on, he explained, “I couldn’t leave the bathroom because I couldn’t touch the door handle. I had to wait for someone to come in.” According to Peter H. Brown, coauthor with Pat Broeske of Howard Hughes: The Untold Story, Jane Greer never went out with Hughes again. Howard Hughes was eccentric, certainly, but he was not a freak. He was suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), a classic and severe case. By the end of his life, in 1976, he was overwhelmed by the disease. He spent his last days in isolation in his top-floor suite at the Princess Hotel in Acapulco, where he had sealed himself in a hospital-like atmosphere, terrified of germs. Blackout curtains at every window kept all sunlight out; the sun, he thought, might transmit the germs he so dreaded. Aides with facial tissues covering their hands brought him food, which had to be precisely cut and measured. Rumors abounded that he was this reclusive because of drug abuse, a syphilitic condition, or terminal dementia. Actually, all his strange behaviors are readily understandable as symptoms of a severe case of OCD. Sadly, there was no treatment for OCD in Howard Hughes’s lifetime. It would be another decade before the disease would be identified as a brain-related disorder.