Do I think it’s cathartic, writing this? I realise I take the question as a criticism. The OED definition of cathartic is of a purgative, ‘Producing the second grade of purgation, of which laxative is the first and drastic is the third.’ I don’t know. Is that what I am wanting? I feel like I am writing messages in bottles and throwing them into the ether. It is difficult to write about experience. Soldiers don’t talk about important stuff except to other veterans. You don’t want the response, it must have been awful, I don’t know how you survive, but that is the universal response.
I don’t want to be going to the toilet in public, like Diogenes living in his tub in Athens. But I don’t like the implication that living with dementia is somehow dirty, shameful, not something you talk about in polite society.
Of course there is another question – do I want people I meet in other circumstances to know about this? Probably not. It is not relevant, and so probably they won’t be interested to read this, even if they know about it. I have a simple observation that you don’t have to scratch far below the surface to find a sorrowful story or two in almost anyone’s life.