#Wendy Mitchell

[justforbooks]

The writer-activist Wendy Mitchell, who has died aged 68, won hearts and minds by advocating for living positively with dementia. She was determined to remind people that those living with the disease are not “sufferers” and that there is “a beginning, a middle and an end to the disease – with so much life to be lived in between”. She held strong beliefs that people should have the right to choose their own death, and campaigned for assisted dying laws in Britain – one of the subjects of her final book.

Wendy wrote three bestsellers, Somebody I Used to Know (2018), What I Wish People Knew About Dementia (2022) and One Last Thing: How to Live with the End in Mind (2023) – I was fortunate enough to be her ghostwriter on all of them. They were translated into dozens of languages, and her advocacy work won her honorary doctorates from Bradford and Hull Universities, and a British Empire Medal last year.

When I met Wendy in 2016, she was writing a daily blog, Which Me Am I Today? ,which she had started simply to document her day-to-day life, though it soon had tens of thousands of followers. After her diagnosis of young-onset vascular dementia and Alzheimer’s disease in July 2014, Wendy was shocked at the lack of information and support available to those newly diagnosed.

In Somebody I Used to Know, she wrote about her own depression at the diagnosis, until she realised: “I was still the same person I had been the day before my diagnosis.” She threw herself into academic and medical research, speaking to doctors, nurses and other professionals. What I Wish People Knew About Dementia chronicled how the disease affects different parts of daily life, aside from memory, including taste, smell, hearing, gait and vision.

Her tips, such as draping a scarf over a flat-screen television to avoid it looking like a hole in the wall, or sticking photographs of clothes on wardrobe doors as a reminder of what is inside, made all the difference to those who were newly diagnosed.

Wendy enjoyed finding ways to outwit dementia. As she wrote in her final blog post: “Yes, dementia is a bummer, but oh what a life I’ve had playing games with this adversary of mine to try and stay one step ahead.”

Born in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, to Violet and Ken Draper, Wendy described growing up in their pub in her first memoir. She went to school in Pontefract and was a keen sportswoman, excelling at tennis and running – after her diagnosis, she swapped running for fell-walking in the Lake District. She described the Lakes as her “paradise” and Friars Crag as her favourite place to sit.

Wendy raised her two daughters, Sarah and Gemma, alone after her divorce from their father in the early 1980s (although she continued to use her married name). For many years she earned her living as a cleaner, until she started working in administrative roles within the NHS, gaining promotion to become a non-clinical team leader. Eventually she was forced to retire from her job as a rota manager at Leeds general infirmary, and later campaigned for workplaces to support those newly diagnosed with dementia to continue working: “We don’t lose all our skills overnight just because of our diagnosis,” she said.

In early retirement Wendy discovered other skills, including writing, and enjoyed her “trundles” around the village of Walkington, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, where she lived, capturing local wildlife with her trusted Nikon camera. She revelled in the fact that villagers unaware at first of her diagnosis described her as “the lady with the camera”.

She met many dementia advocates, and was inspired to take up campaigning when she heard Agnes Houston talk at a women and dementia event in York. Wendy became a guiding light to others, a regular contributor at Innovations in Dementia and York Minds and Voices, part of the DEEP UK Network of Dementia Voices.

She gathered her own formidable team of friends living with dementia, who produced video content chatting about the issues they encountered and nicknamed themselves “the Four Amigos”. She advised on the BBC TV series Casualty and the movie Still Alice (2014), and received a mention from the Hollywood actor Julianne Moore in her Bafta acceptance speech.

Wendy raised tens of thousands of pounds for Dementia UK with her annual “wacky challenges”, as she called them, daredevil stunts that included walking across hot coals, skydiving, wingwalking and, last autumn, a swim in Derwentwater after she was forced to abandon her abseil down the Leadenhall building in London (the “Cheesegrater”) due to technical issues (theirs, not hers). She insisted that she was fearless after her diagnosis, having already faced the worst.

Wendy was a force of nature, but dementia made her life harder and harder. She ended her life by voluntarily stopping eating and drinking (VSED), a subject she discussed in One Last Thing. In her last blog post, written in advance, in which she announced her death, she said: “Adapting to this life with dementia is over, but I don’t consider dementia has won, as that would be negative … it’s me calling time on my dementia – checkmate – before it plays its final move.”

She also pleaded for people to campaign for assisted dying laws in her memory.

Reviewing Somebody I Used To Know for the Sunday Times in 2018, Jackie Annesley wrote: “The world could do with more Wendys.” I couldn’t agree more, but there was only one wonderful Wendy, taking people by the hand and showing them how to live a good life with the disease in tow, or indeed how to talk about the end of life so they can instead focus on living.

Wendy is survived by her daughters.

🔔 Wendy Patricia Mitchell, writer and campaigner, born 31 January 1956; died 22 February 2024

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[sitting-on-me-bum]

Carcharhinus sp., Steep Point, West Australia

Photographer: Wendy Mitchell

[caregivervent]

A final gift from Wendy Mitchell

This week, Bloomsbury Publishing released a final message from author and dementia awareness advocate Wendy Mitchell, who died earlier this year. I encourage you to watch the video, in which she so eloquently explains her decision to take agency over the end of her life. In the video, she speaks so poignantly about those with dementia working so hard to present as “normal” in public and the toll…

[jgem87]

I love Wendy Mitchell. She’s great.

Oh um, they um, oh they did "Bounty"

[localcuttlefish]

Group call

[myfavoritepeterotoole]

Peter O'Toole - Ride a Cock Horse -

Caption: Peter O'Toole is pictured at the rehearsal for a new stage play , Ride a Cock Horse with playwright actress Yvonne Mitchell (left) who plays one of his mistresses , Barbara Jefford (centre) who plays his wife , and Wendy Craig who plays another of his mistresses . It is written by Yorkshire author David Mercer . / May 1965

*** https://myfavoritepeterotoole.tumblr.com/post/621404316019916800/peter-otoole-yvonne-mitchell-barbara-jefford

[erstwhile-punk-guerito]

[rolandrockover]

Comin' Loud and Lonely

In order to take up the concept of so-called sibling albums today, just as it is often and regularly practiced in certain fan circles, I have decided to take a little look at Asylum from 1985.

This would provide more than a little confirmation that it must also be an album in this category, in my opinion, however, it is much less likely to be a sibling album of Animalize (1984), for example, as it seems to be set in stone in the handbooks of many hardcore fans, but much more likely one of Creatures of the Night (1982) (1).

And to go a small step further, I would even respectfully classify Asylum as a sister album to Creatures of the Night. And by that I don't mean a little sister, as Wendy O. Williams' W.O.W. (1984) , for example, is affectionately known, but a sister of the same age, naturally on a par with its male counterpart. Sometimes more and sometimes less, but I don't necessarily want to split hairs.

If I use key words like dark, aggressive or heavy in the direct context of Creatures of the Night, I'm pretty sure that nobody will try to dispute their accuracy, because these are all attributes that are often credited to a certain masculinity, or rather a male mindset. And men usually love Creatures of the Night unconditionally, don't they?

Well, if I now try to find a few hopefully accurate descriptions for Asylum, the terms colorful, emotional and melodic immediately come to mind without much thought, which doesn't necessarily scream femininity, but in direct comparison to Creatures demands a significantly higher degree of sensitivity and sensibility, which for me would generally still be more feminine than masculine attributes.

And despite the fact that Asylum is still clearly heavy and extremely saturated in terms of production, there is no shortage of male fans who find the album cover of Asylum, which is based on the three primary colors, anything but easy to deal with, which of course also applies to the equally colorful Asylum costumes.

I'll try to illustrate this briefly using the example of the chorus of Who Wants to be Lonely. And what chorus of which testosterone-driven cock song from Creatures of the Night do you think I might have in mind? I mean, what could be a more fitting example than Keep Me Comin' with its screaming, dick-driven foundation, on which Who Wants to be Lonely builds, not exactly quietly and certainly not stealthily, just equipped with a little more… Color, melodic embellishment and empathy in its vocal chorus.

Add to that Who Wants to be Lonley's Ohhhooooh-Ohhhoooohs from the chorus appendage, which are hardly anything other than a more melodious, sensitive version of the hyper-masculine and super-hard Hey-hey-hey Yeaaahs from I Love It Loud.

I guess you can't always be the hardest one walking under the sun, after all, otherwise where would that lead? Anyway, there are still enough male Asylum fans, so not all hope would be in vain. Perhaps they like Asylum so much because it subconsciously reminds them of Creatures of the Night, and maybe even Unmasked (1980) . Who knows?

But of course we must never forget that we're still dealing with Kiss, and that Paul, presumably to compensate for the prominently foregrounded femininity, and therefore on Asylum actually sowed at least the dick lyrics a little more liberally.

Ultimately Kiss are Kiss are Kiss.

Side note:

(1) However, I would also add Rock and Roll Over and Unmasked to Creatures of the Night, but I would be more than happy to talk about this in more detail on another occasion.

Who Wants to be Lonely (1985)

Keep Me Comin' (1982)

I Love It Loud (1982)

[rawsmackdownnxtdivas]

Xia Li, Wendy Choo, Chelsea Green, Deonna Purrazzo, McKenzie Mitchell, Taya Valkyrie, Matt Cardona, Steve Maclin, Mr. Stone, Maxxine Dupri 💞

[rodrickstudios]

“You know how to say ‘I missed you’ in elephant language?”

A year or so ago I was remembering the Bob the Builder special A Christmas To Remember. When doing that, I just couldn’t help but compare the story role of Bob and Tom’s toy elephant, Jumbo, with that of Rick’s wooden moose in one of my all-time favorite movies, The Mitchells vs. the Machines (I gave that moose the fan-nickname of “Gulpi” by the way, considering the elephant had a name).

Firstly, both toy animals symbolize the connection (ba-dum-tss) that the main pair —Bob and Tom on one hand, Rick and Katie on the other— had on the past. They also symbolize that said connection, no matter how far away one of them might be in the present (whether at the North Pole or at film school), will still be present among the two pairs.

On another note, Jumbo and Gulpi are also presented to the viewer in similar ways. When they first appear in a video recording, one thinks they're just a simple toy (case of the elephant) or an object that a main character has just forgotten about over the years (case of the moose, as Katie first thought of giving it away forgeting how it had helped her back at camp). However, when they appear on another recording later, the view towards them changes drastically: an accident with Jumbo led to Bob conning his famous “Can we fix it?” phrase and Rick took Gulpi as a reminder of the wooden house he had to sacrifice in order to raise Katie. In other words, both elephant and moose represent objects that, at first, don't seem to be that relevant story-wise, but become so via a revelation done through recordings.

It was based on the previous thoughts that I made these two memes, which I publish here before Christmas comes to a close these days.

Oh, and before I forget, both Mitchells and A Christmas have another similarity. The two have renowned Mexican voice actor José Antonio Macías (known for voicing James in Pokemon, Captain America, Bert in Sesame Street and many other characters) doing a secondary role. In Mitchells, he's Mark Bowman, and on Bob, he's non-other than Elton John.

[hitchell-mope]

Hypothetical titles for season one of Cabalibu

My new roommate. Season premiere. Barnaby Sullivan moved into North Hall and gets acquainted with his dorm mates

The facts of strife. Barnaby’s first class is a health seminar taught by Baby New Year.

Family inheritance. Barnaby gets a surprise when he finds Captain Astronaut in his room. Guest starring Jake Gyllenhaal as Captain Astronaut.

Money money money. Diocese gets an unwelcome surprise when her father pays a visit and announces some changes he’ll implement to the Academy at the end of the school year.

Serving Kant. As Stacie, Ryan, Lauren and Naomi head off to a fashion show. Barnaby, JJ, Beckett and Trevor try to come up with ethical ways to help Diocese save the school

Concerto. Barnaby’s first school saving idea hits a snag when all the pianos in the school go missing.

Taken down a peg. Barnaby puts the fear of Fifth Avenue into Rhiannon by publicly supporting Diocese and Deacon.

Parents weekend. Findlay and Sidney visit the school for the weekend to rescind Findlay’s application to the PTA. Guest starring Brie Larson and Zac Efron as Findlay and Sidney Sullivan. This is a crossover episode continuing on from the 88 episode Interstate PTA

Blood fest 4: who wants some more?. Barnaby gets a little too into his role as a villain for Naomi’s student horror movie.

Múltiples momentos en el tiempo. Lauren’s accidental invention of cola based time travel results in Ryan and Beckett learning why Robert wants to change how the school is run.

Supper time Spanky. Naomi goes behind Barnaby’s back and contacts Drummond in an attempt to get tickets to a Melanie Crenshaw concert. Guest starring Walker Scobell ad Jonah Sullivan, Aidan Gallagher as Drummond Sullivan and Beyoncé as Melanie Crenshaw

The very last feast. Midseason finale. Rory tried to help Diocese and Deacon make what could possibly be the last Christmas feast at the school the best one yet.

To were(wolf) is human. Midseason premiere. Barnaby finds what he believes is a puppy in the grounds of the school only to find out it’s a packless werewolf cub. This leads into a crossover that continues into the 88 episode To Forgive, Benign.

How the crucifixion affects the human body. Barnaby’s science project involves two relatives, stigmata and a helluva lot of rain buckets. Guest starring Mitchell Hope as Andy Christensen and Deniz Akdeniz as Jesse Christensen.

The big giant screw up. Ryan gets into legal trouble when Stacie’s mother invites the dorm mates to a water park for Stacie’s birthday. Guest starring Mila Jovovich as Tsarina Olga Romanov

A week of lessons. Barnaby takes the fall for Ryan’s indiscretion which means that he is required to attend a full week of lessons as per his timetable.

May the better merman win. Trevor makes the mistake of signing up for a charity triathlon. Not knowing that it involves swimming. When he is catatonically afraid of water

How low can you go? Stacie and Lauren get into a nigh on violent competition during carnival night

Washington on your side. Barnaby gets his grandfather to contact the White House to help save the academy. Guest starring John C Reilly as Jones Wilmington and Jeremy Shada as Vice President Robbie Guilroy.

Hail Mary. With less than three months to go until the end of the school year. Diocese and Deacon work overtime trying to save the Academy.

Commencement. Naomi had been selected as her graduation classes valedictorian. As such. She has to write and present a commencement speech. Which she has no idea how to do.

Brockman DeWinter. The tribunal for the fiscal fate of the Academy begins. And Barnaby lodges a surprise witness at Rhiannon in the form of his great grandmother Celestine. Guest starring Wendie Malick as Celestine “Rainbow Tsunami” Wilmington.

Cap and gown. JJ and Naomi’s graduation day has arrived. And with it. An increasing feeling of dread on the pit of Diocese’s stomach

Swing vote. Season finale. Barnaby summons some relatives to Diocese and Deacons aid for the final day of the tribunal. Guest starring Eric Bana as Godfrey Christensen and Adelaide as Lucia Birch

[caregivervent]

Remembering Wendy Mitchell, who shared her dementia experience with candor, compassion

I was saddened to learn that Wendy Mitchell, who so generously and insightfully shared her experience living with dementia through her blog and books, died this week. However, I take solace in knowing that Mitchell left this world in a way that honored the agency she still had over her own life. I mostly knew Mitchell through her blog, Which me am I today? The blog’s title captures the dementia…

[rainc0at]

save me liz mitch....liz mitch....liz mitch save me

Can we just talk about how UNHINGED I was as a 12 year old with these movies. I think these two were my first OTP? The second one was THE movie I obsessed over and made my friends watch a million times.

[ell-es-dee]

☣ hallo !! im nawt the best at making intros so.. here's the best one i could put together... (๑ᵔ⤙ᵔ๑)

⤷ before you read just know that if you are very judgemental you do not belong here

💊 namehoard: toxin, sayori, yakui (main name), cyanide, lithium, radium, cyber, marigold, bonnie, keta/ketamine, hazard, strawb, nyacifier, chlorine, zombeh, bena/benadryl, poptart, kona, hikkie, valentine, biscuit, flandre, redrum ++ any fictionkin names are fine!!

💊 nonbinaryflux intersex boygirl, aroaceflux and pomoromantic ++ xenogenders

💊 pronouns: it/xe/lean/glitch/nuke (use any other and i will give 1 warning, and if u continue it will become a block.

💊 all of my aesthetics/subcultures (very passionate about them && will block if disrespectful): larpercore, juggalo, cultcore, doomer, slimepunk, necrotrap, bastardcore, terrorwave, incelcore, grunge, gopnik, slavic, jumpstylecore, oddcore, toxiccore, glowwave, icepunk, breakcore, acidwave, drvgcore, kinderwhore, trashcore, urbling, scemo, shinora, gurokawa, rokku gyaru, hadeko, clowncore, yamanba gyaru, maidcore

💊 i have some disorders,, iwc always ૮ ◞ ﻌ ◟ ა (i swear im nice)

💊 some of my main fandoms: fnaf, yandere simulator, class of 09, ddlc, lucky star, creepypasta, eddsworld, south park, monster high, tyler the creator lore, mlp, strawberry shortcake, homestuck, vocaloid, gorillaz, nijura maids (i dont support the creator 😕), cry of fear, touhou, anything dr suess ++ more

💊 top fictionkins;; ticci toby (crp), yakui-san (nijura maids), billy lenz, nicole (class of 09), kyle broflovski, wendy torrence, carrie white, sayori (ddlc), midori gurin (yansim), karkat vantas, bonnie (fnaf), tord (eddsworld), derpy hooves (mlp), tavros nitram, applejack (mlp), toko fukawa, biscuit tan, natsuki (ddlc), karen (class of 09), meatwad (athf), sayaka maizono, hamtaro, stanley mitchell, shitai-san, cassie (skins) clownpiece (touhou), flandre scarlett, cirno (touhou), takane yamashiro ++ wayy more.. (pfp is probably who im kinshifted as) also im fine with doubles & mediamates!!

💊 some of my favorite music artists;; smashing pumpkins, jazmin bean, sharkdrug, yabujin, korn, icp, limp bizket, kmfdm, nirvana, 2pac, 4lung (i dont support the creator), bloodhound gang, cannibal corpse, foo fighters ☹️, weezer, gorillaz, kendrick lamar, lagoyo, red hot chili peppers, tyler the creator, basement jaxx, pierce the veil, deftones, ayesha erotica, slipknot, msi, hole, sematary, live (band), dmx

💊 fave movies/shows: scream, saw, skins, the united states of leland, ANY tim burton movie, final destination, american psycho, the office, impractical jokers, south park, rick & morty, twilight, pulp fiction, amercian horror story, heathers, carrie, pet cemetery, breaking bad, mlp, edd ed and eddy, the twilight zone, goosebumps, athf, tmnt && others

💊 if you get triggered by drvgs or hospitals my blog is NAWT for you :o(

💊 moodboard account: @noapologiesbynirvana

💊 i have chronic sickness, and use hospitalcore/medcore to cope.

💊 pro dance dance revolution player 💯💯

💊 huuuuge mountain dew, surge & sprite fan

💊 feel free to ask for my discord !!

💊 dni: basic dni, anti fictionkin/otherkin/etc, anti furry, anti therian, transphobes, homophones, TRUE CR*ME COMMUNITY/COLUMB*NERS (im recovering), people who support trump (YOU'RE HORRIBLE!!!!), nsfw blogs, toxic stans (any community), shedblr (thin ice,, im recovering)

💊 gonna leave it at that for now,, might add more later !! ^_______^ 🌀🌀

[sunsetcurveauto]

Orpheus Leading Eurydice from the Underworld, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot

eurydice, sarah ruhl // francis forever, mitski // hamlet, william shakespeare // the worm king's lullaby, richard siken // i swear somewhere this works, trista mateer // walking home, marie howe // amy & roger's epic detour, morgan matson // the epic of gilgamesh // from june to december - summer villanelle, wendy cope // eurydice, sarah ruhl

outhouse, rachel mckibbens // hamlet, william shakespeare // the great believers, rebecca makkai // a little life, hanya yanagihara // introduction to quantum theory, franny choi // concerning the book that is the body of the beloved, gregory orr // the song of achilles, madeline miller // i swear somewhere this works, trista mateer // les miserables, victor hugo // eurydice, sarah ruhl

the epic of gilgamesh // eurydice, sarah ruhl // in the name of love, katie maria // the great believers, rebecca makkai // i swear somewhere this works, trista mateer // the time traveller's wife, audrey niffenegger // hamlet, william shakespeare // on the death of summer and baptismal promises, w.r. // amy & roger's epic detour, morgan matson // road to hell (reprise), anaïs mitchell

[trans-yllz]

a single log bridge til its dark is indeed not bad

stray italian greyhound, vienna teng / I hear a symphony, cody fry / agua viva, clarice lispector / handle with care, jodi picoult / summer, safia elhillo / pride and prejudice, jane austin / always, spellling / love like ghosts, lord huron / @/filmnoirsbian / the carnivorous lamb, agustín gomez-arcos / I'm not calling you a liar, florence and the machine / samson, regina spektor / jamie anderson / angnes, glass animals / the color of pomegranates, dir. sergei parajanov / turtles all the way down, sammy copley / the night we met, lord huron / mouth full of forevers, clementine von radics / the epic of gilgamesh, trans. herbert mason / caitlyn siehl / questions for ada, ijeoma umebinyuo / grief lessons: four plays by euripides, trans. anne carson / night lement in hergla, leila chatti / salma deera / love song, rainer maria rilke, trans. stephen mitchell / it's only time, the magnetic fields / your love finds its eay back, sierra demulder / art of style, jean cocteau / work song, hozier / the collected poetry 1968-1998, nikki giovanni / coffee and cigarettes, sade andria zabala / ticket taker, the low anthem / little dogs rhapsody in the night, mary oliver / giovanni's room, james baldwin / writing prompts for the broken hearted, eden robinson / essays in love, alain de botton / ono no komachi and izumi shikibu, translated by jane hirshfield and mariko aratani / my love love mine all mine, mitski / beast at every threshold, natalie wee / yves olade / @/ojibwa / last words from montmartre, qiu miaojin / I've been waiting for you, abba / the orange, wendy cope / george macdonald