🌿 Chapter 2: Telling the Family

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Our very first decision - and one we were very grateful for - was to share the diagnosis with everyone - family, friends and even strangers when it was relevant.

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Telling our family were some of the hardest conversations of my life.

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You want to protect your children, even when they’re grown.

You want to stay strong.

You want to pretend things are manageable.

 

But dementia doesn’t allow half-truths for long.

 

Each of my sons reacted differently.

Shock. Sadness. Questions.

A desire to help.

A need to understand.

Silence, too — the kind where you can feel the weight of what isn’t being said.

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We faced a barrage of questions, most of which we had no answers for, but gradually we learned how to explain things and when to explain them.

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For example, people wanted to know whether Alzheimer's and Dementia were the same, and we told them that Dementia is an umbrella term and Alzheimer's is the most common form of Dementia.

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Looking back, I realise I was in shock while trying to reassure them.

It’s an impossible balancing act, but every parent attempts it.

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I started by reading anything and everything I could find on the internet. I rang the Alzheimer's Society who, whilst being being very kind, couldn't answer those terrible questions.

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I was referred to several organisations who offered me all sorts of reading materials, but still not really any closer to the answers.

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Some of the conversations were gentle.

Some were raw.

Some were simply quiet moments of sitting together, absorbing what this meant.

 

You don’t tell a family once.

You tell them again and again, each time as the illness reveals another piece of itself.

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“Families don’t need perfect communication; they need honesty and a willingness to walk forward together.”

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If You Are Facing This Moment

 

If you’re here because you’re preparing to tell your family, I would recommend:

 

• Speak gently

• Be honest

• Allow each person their own reaction

• Don’t expect uniformity

• Accept offers of help, even if you’re not sure what you need yet

 

They are grieving too — not just the future, but the past they realised is beginning to fade.

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Next chapter: What we did next

Previous chapter: Diagnosis