Dementia entered your life too.
It may have changed your relationship. Your role. Your responsibilities. Your routines. Your plans. What you thought the future might look like.
And it may have changed the way you feel inside your own life.
You may be carrying grief, guilt, anger, fear, loneliness, resentment, relief, love, exhaustion — sometimes several of those at once.
You may be making decisions that used to be shared. Taking on responsibilities you did not expect. Trying to understand changes in someone you love while also figuring out what those changes mean for you.
Your experience is part of this story too.
What has this actually been like for you?
When there is so much to handle, it can be easy to keep moving from one thing to the next without stopping to notice what all of this has been like on your side of the relationship.
What changed?
What have you taken on?
What are you feeling?
What is taking more out of you than other people may realize?
What do you need now?
Those questions matter here.
What this support helps you understand
This work is not about giving you another list of things to do. It is about helping you understand more clearly what you are living through and giving you places to begin when something feels hard, confusing, or uncertain.
Understand your experience
Put words to what has changed, what you are feeling, what you have taken on, what you actually have capacity for, and what you may need.
Understand what is changing
Make more sense of how dementia can affect communication, behavior, decisions, roles, relationships, and what you thought life would look like.
Have a clearer place to begin
Pay attention to what is happening, what is true now, what matters to you, what you need, your limits, and what you realistically have capacity for when you are trying to decide what comes next.
Why this work exists
I’m Liz Brown.
I’m a social worker with more than 20 years of experience supporting individuals and families through grief, loss, and major life transitions.
This work is personal too. When Alzheimer’s entered my husband’s family, I saw how much the diagnosis changed the people around it — the roles, the responsibilities, the decisions, the worry, the family dynamics, and what everyone thought the future might look like.
I also saw how easy it was for most of the attention to stay focused on the person with dementia while the people who loved them were trying to adjust to everything changing around them.
That is why my work focuses on the emotional experience of the adult children and partners living alongside dementia.
The grief and losses that are already happening. The changing relationship. The uncertainty. The decisions. Your capacity and limits. What matters to you now. And what happens inside you when things get hard.
I wanted there to be a place where your experience matters too.
“I am so thankful that I came across this program and took a chance on it. It has been so valuable giving me information as well as tools to help deal with this devastating disease. One of the most incredible parts is the community that I have come to know and cherish, including Liz and the others in the online group. Being able to share with others who are in a similar situation has been beyond priceless.”
Grieving the Diagnosis
A guided support experience for adult children and partners navigating the emotional side of a loved one’s dementia.
Grieving the Diagnosis begins with something that can easily get lost when so much attention is going toward the person you love:
What has this actually been like for you?
Together, we look at your experience, your emotions, your capacity, needs, limits and strengths; what dementia is changing in the relationship; uncertainty and loss; what happens in you when things get hard; what matters to you now; and how to think through choices that do not always have a clear answer.
The program combines guided learning, reflection, practical tools, community, and live support.
This may be for you if
- You are an adult child or partner of someone living with dementia
- You want space to understand what this experience has actually been like for you
- Your role, responsibilities, relationship, or plans have changed
- You are carrying grief, guilt, anger, fear, loneliness, resentment, relief, exhaustion, or other complicated feelings
- You are making decisions without the same collaboration, certainty, or reassurance you may have had before
- You want to understand your capacity, needs, limits, strengths, and what matters to you now
- You want support for your experience, not only more information about dementia
You do not have to know exactly what comes next.
If you are looking for support with the emotional side of loving someone with dementia, there is a place to begin here.
