How do I feel?

[brads7]

Have just finished my clinical placement in an older adult facility and came across a beautifully written story that helped me to understand what someone with alzheimers is going through..

I dont know who the author is and I apoligise for using this without permission but it seemed too good not to share.

THE TRAIN JOURNEY.

Imagine going on a long journey by train. As we leave the landscape looks familiar and as we progress, things begin to look different. The buildings have odd shapes and the trees don't look quite the way you remember them. Maybe it's a different country with different architecture and plant life. It feels a bit strange even unnerving.

You decide to ask the other passengers about the strangeness you feel, but notice they seem unperturbed. You wonder if your mind is paying tricks on you. You decide to act as if everything looks all right, but because it does not, you have to be on your guard. This places you under some tension, but you believe you can tolerate it for the rest of the trip. . However,ou t on this journey but know Ied out on this journey but know I connot go back.y will end. them to tell me where the train is you find yourself becoming so preoccupied with appearing alright that you are distracted and don't notice the passing scenery.

After some time you look out the window again and this time you know something is wrong. Everything looks strange and unfamiliar. There is no similarity to anything you can recall from the past. You think that you must do something and try to talk to the other passengers about the strangeness you feel but they look at you dumb foundered. They talk in a new language. You wonder why they are not talking in English. They look at you knowingly and with sympathy. You want to know what is going on so you keep after them trying to get them to tell you where the train is going. The only answers you get are in a strange language and then even when you talk your words sound strange to you. Now you are truly frightened.

You realise that you are going to have to get of this train and find your own way home and then you get up to leave. You don't get very far as the other passengers stop you and take you back to you seat. It seems that they want you to stay on the train whether you like it or not. You try to explain but they just talk in a strange language.

You realise that you will never find your way home if you don't get off that train. You get ready to jump when hands suddenly appear from nowhere and grab you from behind. You try to fight them off, but you feel them pulling you back onto the train. You will never get home.

How sad you feel. You did not say goodbye to you friends or you children. The passengers look sympathetic, but they do not know how sad you feel. Maybe if they knew they would let you off the train.

You have no choice now. You have to go along with the passengers because they seem to know where the journey will end. Maybe they will get you there safely. You wish that you had never started out on this journey but know you cannot go back.