By Anon, UK
Having worked with many dementia patients in the past, and especially whilst working in a secure unit specializing with aggressive and violent dementia patients, I naturally began to look deeper into the causes of this distressing illness.
Often at the hospital where I worked we saw the same scenarios – a person who once had a respectable work and family life ending up living many of their days in a padded cell, because of the danger they presented to themselves and others.
On many occasions I was shocked to see both elderly men and ladies possess a strength that required at least four adults to restrain them, in order to keep themselves and others safe. The behaviour I have witnessed over the years has at times been shockingly aggressive and I have asked myself:
What on earth takes over these once fully functioning, aware human beings?
What possesses these people to act in such ways?
I have wondered if there is more at play here than we currently acknowledge.
Science has shown that everything is energy, and Serge Benhayon has expanded on this by saying: “Everything is energy, and therefore everything is because of energy.” Could it be that there is more than one form of energy and that these energies can act through us? And that it is our choice as to what kind of energy we will allow to run us?
So could it be possible that when we choose to not to be aware and fully present with ourselves, that we are allowing another form of energy to run us? The phrases, “What’s got into you?” and “They are not themselves,” come to mind as examples of everyday language that perhaps portray this reality of another energy running us.
As I write now statistics are not good. The Global Voice of dementia states: “As of 2013, there were an estimated 44.4 million people with dementia worldwide. This number will increase to an estimated 75.6 million in 2030, and 135.5 million in 2050. Much of the increase will be in developing countries.”
This is pretty terrifying and causes an unbelievably immense strain on our health care systems.
There is talk of this cure and that cure and every day we are told something different about the causes of dementia, from the kitchen frying pan to genetics.
Personally I feel there is more to it than this; that we need to look at how we are living every day and how this impacts our physical and mental function.
It seems to me that every unloving choice, if not dealt with, will eventually stack up against us. In fact every time we eat something our bodies do not truly want, use a stimulant, or say yes when we mean no, all these choices add up. There are literally hundreds and hundreds of ways we can numb ourselves to not feel the pain of the way we are living, a way that is not true for us, whether it is creating drama or drinking alcohol, or checking out in front of a TV or computer screen.
These behaviors in their many, many different forms all send messages to the body saying, “I do not want to be here.” In fact every time we “lose” ourselves in something or to something, we are actually saying no to life. The body registers everything that happens and repetition of any behavior along with avoidance of what is true starts to erode our cognitive function.
Could it be that our choice to be unaware of what is truly going on in our own lives and bodies builds up until it impacts our mental capacity?
Could it be that, for some of us, we have become so far removed from our real truth that we are now lost in a lie?
As my awareness of this illness grows, I know I have a responsibility for myself, my family and society to stay present and connected with myself and those around me, and to deal with my issues as and when they come up. For me this means embracing life and not giving up on myself when things feel tough and stressful, it means looking at the devices and distractions I use to cover up and numb out what is really going on, and lovingly – without criticism – bring honesty to the real reason for the need behind distraction.
It is also important to lovingly assess where we are at in terms of unhealthy habitual behaviour. If we are unable to live without substances such as alcohol, caffeine and sugar, are we saying that it is ok to check out of or abuse our bodies?
At this time in history as dementia gets more and more prevalent, the future for this disease looks very bleak and overwhelming. We all need to take responsibility and look at how we are living, we need to get very personal and honest and ask, “What is it that I cover up each day? What do I not want to feel? What habits and behaviors do I repeatedly use that get further ingrained and take me away from the reality of what I truly see?”
Years of not being true to oneself eventually take their toll on both the mind and body.
By staying lovingly present with ourselves and dealing with our stuff as it comes up, we are able to see life as it is, even if at first this is uncomfortable.
When we choose to override our own feelings and use methods of numbing, we are encouraging a reality that is not true.
Although the behavior of the dementia patients I have worked with over the years can be very distressing, I have a strong knowing that at their very essence they are still love and will always be that love.
No matter what they present to the outside world, their Soul remains pure and magnificent. It is only through a myriad of unloving choices and a lack of presence in the body that dementia is allowed to take its toll.
Unfortunately we live in a culture that condones lack of responsibility. If we want to see the dementia rates go down, then a whole new level of responsibility needs to be adopted, both our personal responsibility for ourselves, and our collective responsibility for society as a whole.
References
http://www.alz.co.uk/research/statistics
Read more:
1) Dementia – is it truly a mystery?
2) Checking out – are we sowing the seeds of our own dementia?
Medicine and Serge Benhayon 
I saw quite clearly a few years ago that the action of the dementia patient was not them. I was sitting across the other side of the ward from this particular person and they threw a full jug of water at me. What I saw in that act was not them, there was an energy coming through them. As I spoke to them the energy left as suddenly as it came and the person was themselves again. When we check out of our bodies what checks in? There is never just an empty space it is filled by something; surely we should be asking ourselves the question what is that something?
Dementia rawly shows the end result of the repeated choice of being switched off along the life. Those repeated choices use to begin by not wanting to deal with something, holding back, not claiming the truth that is felt in the body, wanting to avoid confronting something, etc., which in the end results in a body that has not there the presence it was born with… So it seems that the best way to not fall into dementia is keeping the awareness of our body and expressing ourselves in our fullest presence, moment by moment.
It is a real concern observing a loved one’s mental state deteriorating and more concerning than this, is observing it in the younger generation too. All these mod cons to make our lives supposedly better, whilst at the same time, it makes our minds and bodies lazy. For instance, we would memorise telephone numbers, but now, we have them at hand on our mobile phones. I was excellent in parking a car, now we have cameras, or a car that annoyingly beeps at you, whilst reversing. Has this made us better communicators or drivers? Probably not.
We need to go back to the basics, everything is at hand, for us life is richer, yet we are time poor, and we seldom get together in the true sense of family gatherings.
We hand a child a mobile phone or a tablet to watch or play games in the name of keeping them entertained. When all we need to do is to connect and be with them. It is that simple.
This morning I had a moment where I forgot why I went into the kitchen. I’ve experienced quite a few of these in my life but I wonder if they were to build up over time if this is an early sign of Dementia. Something we brush aside as nothing may be something.
Leigh, this moment we have all experienced, is a moment to check in within ourselves. It is this attention to detail, that is asking of us to stay with ourselves at all times.
Day dreaming is something we all have experienced and as much as this may seem trivial, what if is this is the embryonic state of dementia??
Everything is everything, nothing happens for the sake of happening. We are accountable to how we live our lives, with total presence or, off with somewhere or something else. That’s the choice.
“Every unloving choice, if not dealt with, will eventually stack up against us” – I agree, but the question is how do we qualify ‘loving’ choices? We get educated and trained to be straight and narrow and good and respectable, and many of us follow that, ticking boxes as we go, thinking we have our life sorted, then what happens? When we are so disconnected from what true love is, we remain astray and unable to make ‘loving’ choices, and we don’t know that, and when the consequence hits us right in the face, we go ‘Why?’
It may well be that we eventually understand Dementia as a lifestyle illness, a result of many choices over time building up until a person is relatively absent from their own mind and body. Definitely a very painful illness to observe in others. Regardless of what’s currently known or not about the reason for Dementia developing, we would have to say that becoming more self caring of the body (as directed by the body) would be a great investment in our long term health and wellbeing.
When we give up we leave a gap for energy to enter that can play havoc with our thoughts and our mind.
Dementia is the shrinking of the brain, simplistically. If you try to restore a raisin, it will never look like a grape again. So, is the best cure for dementia, living a life that is supportive of our body?
To keep your grape from drying out in the first place! Prevention is better than cure but are we educated enough on how powerful our choices are a form of preventative medicine?
what’s got into you? Such a great question that gives such an obvious clue to how energy works in people.
Deep down we all know drinking alcohol taking drugs and numbing ourselves out in front of the tv or computer is a sign that we are dissatisfied with life, yet rather than changing our choices we choose instead to continue to check out and the consequences are many, from illness and disease to dementia yet no one is making the connection, is that because no one wants to see what is in front of them or is it because many entertainment, brewing and leisure companies would lose out that even the thought of going there is being avoided.
I agree – what we see in dementia cannot fully be explained by our logical reasoning alone. By shutting the door on the possibility that there’s more than meets the eyes is robbing us of greater understanding and how we could possibly change the tide.
For the past three years I have been working closely with a couple of people diagnosed with the onset of vascular dementia, it is a cruel disease to observe when they are being ‘run by it’. When meeting them in full in their essence or sharing a loving hand and arm massage, they both respond to the delicateness and care and they are settled within themselves again.
“No matter what they present to the outside world, their Soul remains pure and magnificent. It is only through a myriad of unloving choices and a lack of presence in the body that dementia is allowed to take its toll”.
Dishonesty and checking out has gone through the roof, we are not developing deeply loving and supportive lives where the truth is of paramount importance – and as the statistics show – the consequences are massive. If there is any possibility that diseases like dementia are not random but developed by our choices over many years, then it makes sense to start considering exactly and precisely what we are choosing now and look at where this might be leading in the future.
There is a stupendous key here, a link that you have made between how one lives everyday and the fact that energy is the producer of what happens in our days. And so, the question naturally is, what energy is running your body each day that you make your day of livingness?
The statistics you share about the increase in dementia are very scary Samantha, and show that a considerable part of the population will not be able to care for themselves as they age, and this in turn will put increased pressure on the health and care services. I volunteer in a hospital and quite often dementia patients are in there for 4 or 5 months before a suitable place is found for them. This not only takes up a lot of the resources of the hospital, but there is an ongoing cost in caring for dementia patients. I feel there will come a point in time when the NHS will no longer have the funds to support all the illnesses and diesases and maybe at that point we will stop and begin to take responsibility for our own health and well being.
The statistics for the predicted rise in dementia is very shocking. This blog is very clear on the health issues we are eventually faced with – everytime we check out or numb out from our choices to not feel we are laying the foundations for dementia later in life
“We all need to take responsibility and look at how we are living, we need to get very personal and honest and ask, “What is it that I cover up each day? What do I not want to feel? What habits and behaviors do I repeatedly use that get further ingrained and take me away from the reality of what I truly see?”
If dementia is increasing as it is alarm bells should be ringing, and we have to start asking ourselves the question why, and as we look more deeply we come to the conclusion that dementia is a result of us checking out of life, then we need to all take more responsibility and look at how we need to change the way we live in order to live a life that is both fulfilling and full of vitality.
I agree, the rising figures are alarming and requires a deep, broad consideration of the factors involved. And it’s not just people affected, Dementia is also seen in pets.
It truly does pay to listen to our body and face what it is we are to face, no matter how difficult we may find it to be. Listening to our body, responding to what we feel is true is taking responsibility – it supports our health and wellbeing and also that of others if they so choose.