‘What I want is the same as the rest of our society to love to laugh to cry in other words to be, I want to live in a society that can adapt to needs and respond as a society to my dementia’

Hi all
Ron Coleman here again with my sixth diary entry Firstly I want to wish people a merry Christmas and a happy new year. Recently I tweeted that I found the idea of dementia friendly everything as upsetting and that in my opinion dementia was not and is never friendly. I think I need to explain what I mean by this. I have been in dementia friendly shops etc and have found most of the staff really helpful and sometimes even more knowledgeable than professional workers I have met. This kind of friendly I enjoy and can handle, I guess what rankles me is trying to connect the word dementia and the word friendly into my personal experience. As a way of marketing the needs for people with dementia it is probably brilliant and drives a campaign that is meant to be helpful but as a way of allowing me to understand me it is really not how I want to think of myself. Let me be really honest Dementia friendly is an oxymoron just like a happy funeral is and we need to look behind the words dementia friendly and beyond the campaign impact. Who benefits from the language is important some would argue that I benefit from having dementia friendly staff services etc and on some levels the campaign level and perhaps on a service level I may but the image in my mind is one of a happy clappy world where I should be happy with my lot and my condition Well I am not, what I want is the same as the rest of our society to love to laugh to cry in other words to be, I want to live in a society that can adapt to needs and respond as a society to my dementia in other words lets be dementia responsive in our shops etc and friendly all the time in out interactions with people hope this makes sense speak soon