Dementia Support Line
Real stories
Dementia photo journal: capturing the mental, emotional and physical journey
Helen has been documenting her mum’s experience with vascular dementia to raise awareness of the disease.
“My mum has always been my best friend, my whole life,” says Helen about her mother, Sue. “She was the only person that ever really understood me.
“Mum was diagnosed with vascular dementia in 2015. I didn't know what dementia was really like. I didn't realise it changes everything.”
Two years ago, Helen, a professional photographer, left her life in London to move back to south Wales to become her 75-year-old mum's full-time carer.
Documenting dementia through photography
The photojournalist and wedding photographer had been taking pictures of her mum for decades and continued to do so, leading to a very personal project titled No Longer Her(e).
See more of Helen's work by following @helenrimell and @ginfizzphoto on Instagram.
Her images capture her mum's decline in the little details from everyday life at home in Llantwit Major, in the Vale of Glamorgan.
"I was trying to process the grief and the loss because she was becoming less and less herself all the time," says Helen.
She is here but she isn't, and she is herself but she's not.
Helen and her mum have always been close.
"She was my best friend, I told her everything," said Helen. "She was fun, she was funny, she was kind, she was caring, really empathetic, really compassionate.”
The reality of being a dementia carer
Dementia has turned out to be something very different to what Helen thought before becoming a carer.
"I didn't really know how bad dementia was or what it got like at the end," she said.
"In films you have this sweet little old person sat in a home and they forget your name but at the last minute they remember how to dance with you and a favourite song.
"But it's not like that. Their whole personality changes, not to mention all the physical demise and the aggression and all the different things that come with it."
Despite having to park her own life and the grief she lives with daily, Helen has no regrets.
"I'd do it all again - she did it for me and I want to return the love she's given to me."
Watch Helen and Sue's dementia story
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Hazel Bernhardt-MacPhail age 82
says