Tru here.  In the last year or so I don’t communicate one-on-one very well.  It has become strained and costs a lot of energy.

A common dementia symptom is my sound-processing disorder; trying to unscramble numerous connected sounds into words, sentences and thought sequences, in order to understand what someone is telling me costs me a lot more energy than it used to.

Trying to find words best representing my thoughts is no longer second-nature either; it is a lot of work.

I enjoy time spent with you but:

Do not expect sustained conversation with me.  Bring one or two slow-speaking (and slow-moving) friends and you can chat in my presence – letting me just speak up occasionally rather than requiring me to pull one-half of conversation.  Or maybe we could “chat” while doing something else, lessening my burden for carrying a conversation, like while walking, or gathering firewood, or washing dishes even.  Yes, I need to see your mouth moving when you talk, so look at me when speaking, but that gives me something to do so there is not an awkward silence while I try to match some words to the concepts floating around in my head.  We could fold laundry or take a walk outside, put together a puzzle or I could crochet while you work on a different project.

Please continue trying.  Follow my written blog; start when I began in July and then catch up with me.  The thoughts from most deep within me don’t come out of my mouth, they come out of my pen.  I am usually more effective at putting together my thoughts in writing than verbally.  And it is probably the single thing you could do to best learn my current status and learn how best to communicate with me.  My friend’s husband continued to write and draw – longer into his dementia than he continued to speak, and I suspect that may be true of me.

Don’t give up on me.  More and more I believe that what you can see on the outside can often be a poor representation of the “me” that is on the inside.  I need much more “time out”.  I need much more time in composing words and sentences.  …  I need much more time for EVERY thing, which means schedules and priorities must constantly be re-established along with new compensatory tools, in the ever=changing landscape of a dementia journey.  Travel along with me.  Follow my blog.  Since I can no longer notify everyone when new entries are posted, PLEASE subscribe (thru “follow” instructions below) and send to anyone you think might be helped by these words.

Husband says my outside might be medieval broken-down castle, but inside holds beautiful tapestries and gold-inlaid filigree on graceful arched doorways.  I just have difficult time swinging opening the heavy oak doors with their creaking rusty hinges. (( You didn’t believe me earlier when I told you he was rare and irreplaceably romantic, did you ?? LOL ))

* Admin issues: SHARE dementia awareness thru buttons below. Feel free to leave your thoughts in the form of comments, but please filter your comments with truthful loving kindness to all concerned. I am no longer sending out individual notices of new blogs, so if interested in receiving notice of future blog postings, subscriptions are available through “FOLLOW” button  in the upper left corner (MS Explorer) or lower right (Safari, Mozilla Firefox and Chrome).   If there is an advertisement below, I have no control over what is shown.  — Full legal name Truthful Loving Kindness copyright 2014-10/17.
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