Dementia Narratives & Legacy Projects

DN ❤️ Letter 02 :: You Have Superpowers

I read an insightful post by Shaunta Grimes on Medium this week, about third act twists in our lives.

She wrote it in the context of her youngest daughter navigating high school during the pandemic and trying to figure out which path to move forward on after graduation, given that everything we know has been disrupted in such a way that we’re not sure what “normal” is, or will be.

Her post really resonated with me in a different context though, from the perspective of experiences with dementia.

It’s understated to say that my husband and I are feeling displaced by our experience with dementia. For us, it has challenged everything we know about health, wealth, family, and social systems. It has both sidetracked us and affirmed what we value most as we try to reset ourselves in our own “new normal”.

In my mind I’ve been calling it our “dementia detour”, but “third act twist” is an apt description and much more poetic.

If you are not familiar with the foundational elements of storytelling, a third act twist is part of the narrative arc of stories. Humans are compelled by stories in large part because of the inherent tension and release that is woven into the plot.

Plot structure can be explained as following a pattern of exploring a character’s world as they know it, and the turmoil they go through when faced with an unexpected, disruptive challenge. The challenge seems insurmountable, but the hero/heroine of the story always finds a way through it, and becomes forever transformed by the process.

The fascinating thing about the third act twist is the depth of understanding that we come to through the transformation. It is the layers of meaning and purpose that we find in our stories and experiences that can make them intensely profound and cathartic, whether we are the storyteller or the receiver.

In this sense, stories have remarkable power.

Whether we admire or despise them, the characters in a story resonate with us in some way because their story triggers ideas and emotions. Engaging in their third act twist helps us see what our third act twist might look like if we were confronted with the same challenge. We develop a relationship with the characters and learn from them. They become our guides and superheroes (or villains, depending on the narrative)!

The third act twist is you and I confronting all the ways our experiences with dementia change our perspective on the world. Our stories themselves become transformative forces for our own understanding, and our connection with others. Our stories become powerful catalysts for the change we seek to create.

Your story has superpowers.

You have superpowers.

Changemakers

Do you have an ambition to explore and document your story? Whether it’s about your experience with dementia, or perhaps a biography of your life before dementia, or maybe a memoir to honour someone with dementia?

In May and June, Dementia Narratives will dive into the idea of legacy projects and the many ways that we can explore, document, and share our stories (hint, you don’t need to be “a writer”).

Plus, this month’s Changemakers membership bonus is personalized support to help you get started on your — or your parent or spouse’s, etc. — biography. Available free to all Dementia Narratives followers and subscribers.

Send me an email if you are interested (dementia.narratives[at]gmail.com). I’ll send you guided prompts, we can follow up with a phone conversation to flesh out the details, and I’ll put your biography together for you in a digital file that you can print and expand on.

With love and gratitude,

If these ideas have sparked some thoughts, feel free to start a conversation in the comments here on Medium, or in the comments for this post at dementia.substack.com ❤️

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