The benefits of chat
A page in the diary ""
Written by suew 23. Jun 2007 12:47 AM
I only started chatting about 18 months ago. I am a chat host on Tuesday night US EST (New York time) on an American Stroke Support board called Strokenet (www.strokeboard.net).I became a member in May 2005 after Ray had his fifth stroke.
It took me a few months to get up the courage to chat. Then I was asked to host and that means that I have a regular time to go on but also go into chat at other times and see if others want to chat.I have found the whole experience very rewarding and have made some cyberfriends who I also chat to on Messenger or email. It certainly helps me when I am feeling down, lonely, isolated and all the other negative feelings a long term carer of a stroke survivor/dementia sufferer can feel, because I know others are feeling the same.
The mutual support I find in posting and chatting on Strokenet I am sure can also be found on this site. It is a matter of building up numbers of people who want to come to chat at a certain time on a certain day and exchange information with others who are in a similar situation.
So tell your friends who have someone with dementia in their family to drop by here and take a look. The therapeutic value of chatting is there for everyone to take advantage of. The more we talk about dementia the sooner the politicians etc will take notice and work on funding research, respite, social outlets for sufferers etc. In the meantime chatting will help to keep us sane!
I have settled on coming on here sometime after 9.30pm of an evening and chatting to whoever comes on. So far that has only been a handful of people. But I am sure that as word gets around and more people find this site that will change. And maybe then we can schedule times when people can drop by and know that there will be someone on here..