In my last column I wrote about a negative word – “stigma.” Since then, I have thought plenty about this negative word. You see, since I have been diagnosed as having dementia in 2013, I have resolved not to use negative words and hope that the people of my neighbourhood treat me equally and follow my lead.
Well, I am different; I have dementia and I wish I didn’t have it, but that is life. It is not negative. When I go to the London hospitals, I realize that there are many people in our geography who are “different.” If they are all different, I guess that makes them all the same. Great logic there, eh?
Remember the quote that I picked up from the internet in my last column? It gives cancer a positive, brave role in life. If you have AD (Alzheimer’s/dementia) then you are just a senior with lost memory or other different mental facilities. These people are often excluded from social occasions. They are stigmatized.
“It seems that when you have cancer you are a brave battler against the disease, but when you have Alzheimer’s or dementia you are an old fart. That’s how people see you. It makes you feel quite alone.”
I rejoice when I enter the world of cancer to get my latest results of my CT scan and they ring the bell to indicate that another person has completed their chemotherapy treatments. I clap along with everyone else because we are all battling cancer, just in different ways. I feel good to be part of a strong group. No stigma here.
Next Wednesday, I go into another hospital to get my antibody infusion along with seven, or so, others per day. For me, this infusion is to help overcome a very rare auto-immune disease called dermatomyositis. I guess this makes me very special. Would you apply stigma to me? Probably. Because I am a small group of people with serious diseases. How many people in a group would get the identity of stigma if they are all diseased with the same disease?
I have Alzheimer’s/dementia – a very large group and growing in Canada. Apparently, my AD has given me the stigma of having a mental illness. Or is this really a stigma? AD can affect your personality and cause some distress. They think that often people with a mental illness will be missing a lot of what life offers. I don’t think that is true.
Regardless of our health, mental and physical, we should all be treated equal. Should people, especially in southwestern Ontario, be treated different? I don’t think so, and I think that they are treated equal. But there are people out there that consider people with dementia as stigmatized, perhaps, because they are different.
However, in the suburban and urban areas I feel that groups frequently differ and bond together. For these groups I feel that the term “stigma” is used quite often. They often exist in cliques – a sort of positive stigma. This happens because of the closeness of the people in urban and suburban who generally share the same values.
Sharing same values, whether positive or negative, does bring people closer together. Some people consider themselves as having a stigma towards themselves. I think that this is stupid. Is this just stigmatizing by me. I don’t think so.
I am just finishing my book – 180 pages about me and “My Voyage with Dementia.” I belong to a fairly large group who have written about dementia. Does that make me and others writing about dementia stigmatized? If some think this way, I think that they are wrong. However, there are not many who have written dementia books, so perhaps they could be considered a self-stigma. After all, why did they write their books?
I just hope that the terms “stigma” or “stigmatized” is retired to the “word dump” never to be used again.
I’ve written two columns and cannot really understand the word’s meaning. I’m dumping “stigma,” and I hope you do too.
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Bob Murray is retired from the graphic communication (printing) industry and has been living in Seaforth since 2015. Murray was diagnosed with Dementia in 2013 and works hard to stop the progress of the disease. Follow him on his blog entitled Voyage with Dementia – https://myvoyage553264702.wordpress.com.
