Maxine talks about her Shared Reading experience

I’ve been involved in Shared Reading Groups for quite a time now, but never one for a specific group like people living with dementia.

I wanted to go to Rachel’s Shared Reading Group and I found it very helpful and powerful. There’s something about poems and reading aloud that can cut through the usual inhibitions and help us to let go of the faces we use to meet the world.

It kind of happened sideways through the poem and hearing the voices reading it. Me being read to reminds me of comforting times. If we like we can read aloud ourselves as poems often need two or three readings.

I cried during that first session in the Shared Reading group and I felt safe to cry. There are at least four reasons I can find for that.

I was with people who understood and accepted where I am and who I am.

I felt connected to other people.

In Rachel there was a facilitator who is empathic, who cares and who’s OK herself with feelings.

The poem spoke to the deeper parts of me, my experience as someone living with dementia and my life as a human being.

So those are the things, I think, that helped me feel open enough to cry and really feel who I was.

In Shared Readings, there can be laughter, fun, wonder, the joy of shared stories, recognising ourselves in someone else’s words.

There can be calm and contentment, there can be tears as there were for me but, after the session, in spite of the tears, I felt a lot lighter and I want to go back because that sense of connection is rare.