You are not as alone as you might think

I created a challenge for myself recently.

To connect with 100 people in 10 days.

For these 100 people, I asked what they might like a tip or suggestion on.

The options being -

1. Finding calm

2. How to have a better memory for a particular thing or scenario

3. Something else (essentially any curiosity or situation and I’d see what I came up with!)

Amongst many things, it was FUN.

For me personally, the spark it gave me reinforced why I’ve created this path I’m on.

It was also REVELATORY.

(…I have never used this word before, I even had to check it, somehow it was the only word that felt right.)

It was revelatory because of the surprising insight it gave into the number of others who also had worries or frustrations about certain aspects of their memory.

In addition, it seemed many were perplexed about their particular memory challenges and had a desire to understand and improve.

Some examples given were:

- Forgetting the task they were meant to be doing

- Forgetting why they’d headed to a particular room

- Having trouble remembering conversations or directions they’d just been told

- Having blanks for names of people they knew well

- Feeling they were losing longer term memories they didn’t want to lose

- Regularly forgetting to turn off a kitchen appliance

- Finding it difficult to retain facts

To get to my main point, the reason I’m telling you this today is to share that

YOU ARE NOT ALONE.

When I was in my memory worry spiral, I felt quite alone and scared.

I felt like nobody else in the world was quite like me and going through this experience. Except those who went on to be diagnosed with early dementia, which is exactly what I was most afraid of.

The insight this challenge has given me is that it’s actually very common for people to believe their memory isn’t up to scratch and to worry about this.

I did also discover someone else who experienced the same level of worry I did. You know when you get to that point of googling dementia symptoms?!

I’d suggest for most people though, they’re just so busy trying to get through life.

They’re already overloaded with priorities, people depending on them, they don’t have enough time to worry as much as I did. Or alternatively, they’re too scared to think too much about it or look into it further.

And that my friends, is why I’m here.

To help get the message out there.

That there are many who feel their memory is not what they think it should be.

To get us more comfortable talking about it.

To say that we don’t have to jump to conclusions with dementia.

To share the things we can do.

To inspire you with the power you can access.

Click the ‘book a chat’ button if you’re up for more of this!