“For your whole life, you have lived in a world that praised objective reality. Something is or something is not. But, when dementia knocks on the door of someone you love, you learn that subjectivity often wins. You don’t lie to that person, but you don’t always knock down their perceptions of reality, either. You start to realize that even though what they think may not be what is actually true, it is true to them. You begin to meet them where they are, instead of only seeing that what they are saying is incorrect. You make sense of the nonsensical and you learn to live in another person’s world. And once you start doing that with someone with dementia, you begin to see how every person deserves the chance for someone to try and understand them, even if we think they are incorrect… Especially when we think they are incorrect.”

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Kelly Peacock is an accomplished poet and social media expert based in Brooklyn, New York. Kelly has a Bachelor's degree in creative writing from Farieligh Dickinson University and has contributed to many literary and cultural publications. Kelly assists on a wide variety of quote inputting and social media functions for Quote Catalog. Visit her personal website here.

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