The Write Way to Handle Grief

It probably wouldn’t come as a big surprise to any caregiver to learn that when the University of Indianapolis surveyed 400 Alzheimer’s caregivers, 80% identified grief as their No. 1 challenge. When your loved one has dementia, your grief is ambiguous because it doesn’t have a defined beginning. It just sneaks up on you when you think you’re doing a great job of handling everything.

Each time Jim lost a skill, I grieved. Not only did I grieve the losses, I anticipated more to come. Yet, I was determined not to become mired in a world of sadness without hope of better days ahead.

Writing helped me chip away at the seemingly insurmountable task of being a primary caregiver. My journal became my therapy as I wrote about my thoughts, fears, and frustrations. Along with the bad, I interwove moments of joy and humorous incidents.

I wrote throughout our ten-year journey including April 18, 2005, the day Jim left this world for a better land. Anyone who reads my blog on a regular basis realizes that writing helped me through the years I was a caregiver, and has turned me into a woman on a mission. I hope sharing our story will help others who travel this same journey.

Caregivers and people who blog tell their story, and while they write about the abnormal that has become their norm, they find spiritual healing in the midst of chaos. Writing is therapy for those who struggle with grief. While collecting and editing 37 true stories for Alzheimer’s Anthology of Unconditional Love, I often received notes from the authors telling me how cathartic it was to write about their experiences.

I’m a believer in the therapeutic benefits of writing and have completed a first draft of a manuscript on writing as therapy. I began blogging in 2008 and a year later published my posts in Early Onset Blog: Essays from an Online Journal, and this year released Early Onset Blog: The Friendship Connection.

Sometimes the intensity of re-living the most difficult decade of my life helped me put everything into perspective, but it also left me emotionally drained. My blog is filled with my non-fiction writing, and you may not realize I also write fiction.

Although all therapeutic writing research is based on non-fiction writing, I find fiction writing to be therapeutic too. The best thing about fiction—you can make it turn out anyway you want. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never figured out how to do that in the real world.

Now, I am working on a fiction project, an anthology—A Shaker of Margaritas: Hot Flash Mommas. This book is going to be a fun project. Submissions are open to everyone! Visit www.mozarkpress for details about the Hot Flash Mommas Fiction, Fun, and Forties Writing Contest and the anthology.

Writing may not work for everyone, but I think of it as my lifeline. When I write my problems down, or craft a story, I can almost feel the tension flowing from my fingertips onto the paper.

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Available at www.amazon.com: Early Onset Blog: The Friendship Connection, Early Onset Blog: Essays from an Online Journal, and Alzheimer’s Anthology of Unconditional Love.

For a book review of the Early Onset Blog books: http://plantcityladyandfriends.blogspot.com/.

Copyright © April 2010 L. S. Fisher
http://earlyonset.blogspot.com
Baby Boomer Blog: http://boomerobics.blogspot.com

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Writing as Therapy: Rocks and Pebbles

Stress is rampant in most of our lives today, and is a primary contributor to premature death. Even when we make an effort to be healthier, we create more stress! I experience health-related stress every time I try the latest count-every-calorie diet and go to bed with a growling stomach.

We manage stress in individual and somewhat mystical ways. Whether you cope with stress though exercise, aromatherapy, meditation, medication, therapy, or a combination, you use a method that blends with your personality.

I’ve always believed in gut feelings, and my gut tells me that writing is the technique that works for me. I will be the first to admit a bubble bath can brighten a bad day, but when I grapple with a dilemma, I need to write. The key word is “need.” It isn’t that I want to write, or writing through the problem might help; writing is necessary. Nothing else works as well as writing to relieve my stress, grief, disappointments, or the myriad of quandaries spawned by daily life.

Through Jim’s downward spiral into the land of dementia, I survived by writing. From the first memory lapses through ten years of gradually losing my best friend and companion, I wrote. Pen and paper, or my laptop, took the brunt of my anger, disappointment, and despair. Had I unloaded all my problems onto other human being, I probably wouldn’t have any friends or relatives without unlisted phone numbers.

I wrote “Writing as Therapy: Rocks and Pebbles” for Alzheimer’s Anthology of Unconditional Love. One of the purposes of the book was to help others traveling the Alzheimer’s journey. I would have been remiss had I not shared the value of writing.

Imagine my excitement to find research validates the therapeutic benefits of writing for both emotional well-being and physical problems. It is easier for me to understand the emotional benefits of writing than to comprehend that participants of therapeutic writing experiments showed decreased blood pressure, less pain from arthritis, and better breathing in asthmatics.

In this age of self-help, writing is an inexpensive way to use the benefit of self-reflection to increase our joy in living. Researchers warn that writing is not a cure-all and may not work for everyone. But if you are one who believes in gut feelings, you might want to give it a try. Writing as therapy is not about being a “writer” or “published author;” it’s about expressing your emotions through writing.

My current book project, Writing as Therapy: Rocks and Pebbles, explores how writing memories, or even fiction, can be cathartic. Writing allows me to reflect on life, examine my values, and validate my faith that my existence has meaning. Writing is a stress-free health choice that allows me to feast on spiritual food. No calorie counting required.

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Alzheimer's: The Power of Our Words

I saw a demonstration of how much our words and thoughts affect others. The speaker, Travis Mathes, asked for a volunteer, and a self-confident business man, Daryl, came forward. Travis asked Daryl to hold his arms outstretched to his sides and resist his attempts to force his arms down. Then he asked Daryl to lower his arms, looked him in the eye, and said, “You are ugly, you are stupid, you are worthless…”

After about eight derogatory statements, Travis asked Daryl to hold his arms out and without using any more force than the first time, easily pushed Daryl’s arms down. Daryl’s take on it, “Wow, that was weird!”

This demonstration shows how our words can demoralize another person into a position of weakness. Travis immediately said eight positive things, and Daryl had the strength to resist the pressure on his arms.

After Daryl sat down, Travis asked a woman to come forward. Instead of saying anything to her, he simply asked her to look into his eyes for about a minute. He easily pushed her arms down. They made eye contact again, and this time his attempt failed. The difference? The first time, he thought the same things he said to Daryl. The second time, he thought positive, flattering thoughts.

We have often heard how our tone of voice and body language can affect people with Alzheimer’s. Even if their communication skills have degraded, our tone of voice conveys whether we are complimenting them or degrading them. If we speak to our loved ones with dementia in a positive tone with words that make them feel good about themselves, they will be stronger emotionally and physically. If we scold them or disparage their value as a human being, they become weaker and downtrodden.

Medical science cannot develop medicine as powerful as our words, attitude, and body language when it comes to preserving quality of life for ourselves and our loved ones with Alzheimer’s. The power is within each of us to encourage and positively influence our loved ones. It can be something as simple as saying, “You smell great today. You have a beautiful smile. I love you.”

Don’t get me wrong. I understand being a caregiver is challenging, and at certain times you may find yourself incapable of positive thoughts or words. At those times, find a mirror, look into your own eyes, and say, “I’m doing my best. I am a good caregiver.” Your words will make you strong.

Thank you, Travis, for the eye-opening demonstration.


To contact Travis Mathes for a speaking engagement, email mathest@marktwain.net

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Young/Early Onset Dementia

My head is still spinning from my conversation last Friday with Connie Wasserman, Program Director of Senior Services, Sid Jacobson Jewish Community Center, East Hills, NY. Connie is a dynamic lady dedicated to improving quality of life for young onset individuals. Yes, she refers to those with dementia that began before age 65 as young onset.

Connie told me that the first time she attended a roundtable discussion about early onset dementia, half of the people attending mistakenly thought “early onset” was synonymous with “early stage.” The terms are confusing!

Early stage has nothing to do with age; it refers to the stage of the disease. In the early stages of Alzheimer’s, a person may exhibit personality changes or memory loss that affects job performance, show lapses in judgment, demonstrate difficulty remembering words or names, and could have problems handling money or paying bills.

Early onset means the disease has been recognized in a person who is younger than 65 years old. The Alzheimer’s Association estimates that 500,000 people in the United States have early onset dementia.

People with young onset dementia require stimulation to improve the quality of their lives. Connie described Sid Jacobson’s “Let’s Do Lunch” program. In addition to lunch, participants enjoy music therapy, step aerobics, art therapy, and a creative writing program. This adult day program for young people in the moderate stage of a neurodegenerative disease is innovative and carefully developed.

Connie and I share a mission to advocate for better lives for those with dementia. I have begun to collect stories for the Early Onset Project, which will provide an opportunity for those with early, or young, onset to share their stories. In addition to compelling slice-of-life stories, the book will contain informational articles. Connie plans to write an article for the Early Onset Project about their programs for young onset individuals.

If you or someone you love has early onset dementia, you will agree with Connie Wasserman that “this population is more than underserved—it is non-served.” Let’s hope the ripple in New York turns into a tidal wave of recognition and ACTION toward improving quality of life for those with early onset dementia.

To watch a video and for information about the young onset programs visit http://www.sjcc.org/
For complete submissions guidelines for the Early Onset Book Project visit my website at http://www.lsfisher.com/ and click on the Early Onset Project link.

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