You shall not pass!

Help, I'm becoming Toby Young

 One thing about FTD is that you end up with no friends as you piss everybody off and when you die no one comes to your funeral. With my last couple of blog posts this aspect of the disease is coming more to fore. I find it hard to not fixate on certain people and I care less about what others think - not that I care nothing - it's that I don't understand immediately why something is offensive or how it could be hurtful.

So I deleted certain content about one particular person who I'd begun to hate as it's totally counterproductive to this blog and what its original intention was, which was to help people understand my neurological condition.

Jacqui and I originally had a name of the dementia - we called it Piers (as I dislike both Pierses Morgan and Corbyn, it made sense) and it enabled us to laugh about it, making the distinction between 'me' and 'it'.

Recently it appears that Piers is trying to dominate Geraint. This has been pointed out to me in no uncertain terms by J. 

Now I get it. Henceforth I'll make a concerted effort to look for the signs and try and head him off at the pass, Gandalf-style.

Ya Balrog bastard!

This is the reality of FTD. It's the nasty vicious side of the disease; the disappointing sequel without the laughs. 

I'm not looking forward to this or the effect it has on those around me. I have to try my utmost to recognise the signs and develop coping strategies. 

It's getting difficult.

Pick's Disease or Semantic Variant?

When we received the diagnosis back in December 2020 it was FTD Semantic Variant with a little bit of Frontal Lobe degradation. I now believe it's the opposite way round.

Pick's Disease as it used to be known, or Behavioural Variant (FTD BV) is when the Frontal Lobe which controls behaviour shows Pick Bodies and Pick Cells. The long and the short of it is that behaviour-wise it  manifests as apathy but also in impulsiveness and disinhibition.

It's the most common after Alzheimer's, which is a little bit disappointing as I thought I belonged to a more exclusive club...

The SV part is characterised by a loss of semantic understanding. I've mentioned before that if you ask me a point blank question like "What have you been doing this last week?" I stall - I can't think. I also grasp at certain words, but that aspect doesn't seem to have worsened in the last year.

For example yesterday, I ran a 4-hour long D&D session and played the parts of the characters. And then I came home and when I'm no longer in the zone I fire off a blog entry I think is really good and end up naming names and saying outrageous stuff and pissing off people I care about, as well as presumably those I don't.

I just need to retain a level of mindfulness about the here and now. Ask how my words could backfire. I know to others it's obvious, but it's getting less and less obvious to yours truly.