The current problem with dementia is that there is no solution.
People with dementia are not looking for a solution, they are looking to remember what they cannot bring to mind. When I cannot remember what the problem is, there is no apparent problem. With no recollection of the past, there is only a perspective of the current moment. With no projection of the mind into the future, there is no apparent problem waiting to happen.
We all make judgments based on our current perspective of what is occurring in our life. When I judge what is occurring to be negative, I appear to be experiencing a problem. The inability to access past memories makes it impossible to either project or predict future events. This means that there is only the experience of each present moment.
My experience of the present moment is relative to who I am sharing it with. When the person that I am sharing my present reality with is experiencing a problem, then I have the experience of sharing their problem. Being with people who have a problem is problematic.
People generally see people with dementia as having a problem, even when it is not the person with dementia that has the problem. The person with the problem is the person who causes the problem, with their belief that people with dementia have a problem.
Like energy unto itself is drawn. When I believe that someone with dementia must have a problem, I am vibrating with a negative problematic energy that I am inviting someone with dementia to share.
People who care for people with dementia are called Carers. Carers believe that they are there to take care of the problems that people with dementia have. The problems that people with dementia have are the problems that their carer believes that they have.
People with dementia do not see problems in their life, they just experience situations that they are unable to judge as being beneficial or detrimental, which other people judge to be a problem. They leave the judgment of whether something is a problem, to other people who care. When you tell someone with dementia that they have a problem, they do because you have just clarified that as their reality.
In the relative confusion of having dementia, nobody really knows what is a problem and what isn’t. Until someone tells you it is a problem, it really isn’t. It is futile trying to solve someone’s problem when they do not realise that a problem exists.
In actuality, the world is full of caring problem solvers, trying to solve other people’s problems. It is easier to solve someone else’s problem than it is your own. When we are too busy solving other people’s problems, we are neglecting our own problems. In the struggle to solve all the problems that someone with dementia appears to have, a Carer never gets time to look at solving their own problems. The biggest problem that every Carer has is the person who they are caring for. If the Carer believes that their patient doesn’t have a problem, they also believe that they have nothing to take care of. Carers always have lots of things to take care of because they have been trained to identify all the problems that could possibly occur, so they do occur.
What we focus on as our reality, we experience as our reality. When I focus on all the problems that someone with dementia has, I get to experience all the problems that I am focusing my attention on. When I see sharing my life with a dementia patient as a challenge, I am challenged by them. When I see sharing my life with someone who has dementia as an opportunity, I get to experience all sorts of opportunities. Life is a continuous series of experiential opportunities when I allow it to be so.
Sharing my life with someone with dementia is a great opportunity to be with someone who is non-judgmental and spends their life in the present moment. When I am non-judgmental and living in the present moment, there is no problem being with someone with dementia. Surprising to say, they do not bite, they are not actually offensive and for some unfathomable reason they appear to be happy to see someone who is not going to give them a problem.
Whenever I try and solve the problem of dementia, I just reinforce in my own experience how problematic it is to be living with someone with dementia. When living with dementia is not seen as a problem, it really isn’t. When I take the opportunity to see that living with someone with dementia is not a problem, there is no problem to see, you see.
I cannot solve the apparent problems of dementia but I can overcome the perspective that having dementia causes problems and when I do, there appears to be no problem to solve.